The Vegan Eaters are doing it for themselves

Presenting in their own words (translated by Noah Mewborn) Oberlin's favorite sons, the Vegan Eaters. This spunky emo-punk quartet is made up of sophomores Tyler Kord (guitar, vocals), Jesse Woghin (vocals, guitar), Gardner Swan (bass, vocals), and Brian Chase (drums, vocals). As for charm and personality, you might say that the Vegan Eaters are "full of it."

Noah Mewborn: How did the band get started? How did you guys meet each other?

Brian Chase: Hotline.

Jesse Woghin: Brian and I are in-bred cousins, and we've known each other from birth, or high school...

BC: My mom's his sister.

Tyler Kord: I think it had a lot more to do with the whole issue of marijuana bringing people together. The Vegan Eaters have brought a lot of people together, and it brought us together. It brought us together, sure, but I think it brings all of life together. Know what I'm saying? It's like D.I.Y.

JW: Yeah. It brings out our feelings about D.I.Y., and how important that is in our society today -

TK: 'Cause we've lost it. I mean we've totally lost D.I.Y.

NB: How would you define your idea of D.I.Y.?

JW: It's like...

TK: That's not important, what's important is -

JW: What's important is our feelings.

TK: People don't pay attention to D.I.Y. anymore, it's like this lost cause, you know?

NB: What feeling does D.I.Y. give you?

TK: It gives me a good feeling.

JW: It's a warm feeling, yet kind of cold. Because you can't exactly have warm air without cold air, or else you wouldn't know what one is like. You know. You've got to have that mixture.

TK: D.I.Y.

JW: It's just all about keeping it real. D.I.Y.

TK: It's for the kids. We do it for the kids, you know?

NB: So D.I.Y. is a real subjective thing for the Vegan Eaters.

JW: No man, no, it's -.

TK: No.

JW: You feel it right here - it's in here. [Points to chest.]

TK: It's an instinct. But, I think, not for many people anymore.

NB: Now Tyler, a lot of people are wondering how you developed your stage presence, and the whole "jumping" thing. How did that start? Were you influenced?

JW: Pete [Donat Kazarinoff]. It was Pete.

TK: Yeah, I went to high school with Pete, and he would just walk around school jumping. I saw that and I respected that. I said to myself, "You know, that's the guy who knows where he wants to be," which is up. Up. As far in the air as he can be. And so it's like, as far as society goes, I want to be up there. But at the same time, I physically want to be up there too. Doesn't that make sense?

JW: I think we all -

GS: That's D.I.Y.

TK: That's what D.I.Y. is. It's like, yeah, you can be in a rock 'n roll band and get up there, but you've got to do that yourself. You've got to jump. You've got to use your leg muscles.

JW: I think we all feel the need for upward mobility, and I think that's the reason we're in this band. Upward mobility. And D.I.Y.

TK: That's why you see us in the gym, Every day. Every day. Working the legs.

JW: Squat thrusts.

NM: Do you feel like the Vegan Eaters are making a political statement?

TK: I'd say that we are making a political statement, and we're making it really quickly.

BC: Kick out the jams, mutherfucker.

NM: Do you feel that you are alone in your genre, here at Oberlin? And what genre would you place yourself in?

TK: Yeah, I think we are. Because when we got together we decided that we wanted to be the most -

BC: - indie-rock -

TK: - generic "whitey-funk" band we could be. And I don't think that anybody on this campus has really touched that. And there's this whole conservatory, with all these great musicians, and none of them were really getting into that "white-boy funk" genre. So I saw a lot of opportunity. So we got in, and surprisingly, we've gotten a lot of support. People really seem to like generic, "white-boy funk" on this campus - I think they really really like it. I think it's because they have a lack of musical taste, and that's really fueled us.

NM: So did Tyler get the band together, or was it a collective effort?

JW: The Vegan Eaters were actually formed by someone else. The Vegan Eaters were formed by -

BC: Hit Parade.

JW: Hit Parade magazine.

TK: It pretty much put us together.

JW: It pretty much created us, just for the mass "metal" youth audience. So we're kind of like the Monkees.

GS: We were cute first, then we learned how to play.

NM: Gardner, I understand that you're the newest member. What are your impressions of the band, and how do you all get along? How do you fit into this tremendous void that Pete, the ex-bassist, has left, when he transferred to Cornell?

BC: He died.

JW: Yeah, actually, Pete died. We don't talk about it, but he died in a vicious skeet-shooting accident. We try not to think about it, but sometimes we have to recognize facts.

GS: Um, they're mean to me. They make me sit in the closet, in the band practice room. And they throw stuff at me.

NM: Have you done any touring, outside of Oberlin?

JW: We had the '87 East Coast Prison Tour. And we did the Botanical Garden Tour, in '92, then we toured Denny's, in the midwest, in '94. We haven't really done any all-out touring since then. We were a little disenchanted with the last one.

NM: Did you experience any of the racism and prejudice in the Midwestern Denny's tour?

JW: Yeah, that was a definite serious problem.

BC: We got beat up by rednecks a bunch.

GS: But it was catered, so it was all right.

BC: Skillets for everybody.

GS: Yeah, it's like, "Racism vs. Food." Personally, I choose food.

Be on the lookout for these hardcore hipsters, and always remember their spirit of D.I.Y. The Vegan Eaters website is at: www.oberlin.edu/~tmewborn/vepage.html

Indie Rockers: The Vegan Eaters get funky at the 'Sco. (photo by Noah Mewborn)