Biography
Plague Vendor formed as a quartet in the Los Angeles suburb of Whittier, California, where they channel anxious, after-hours intensity into a propulsive punk attack. Their first full-length album, the 2014 release Free to Eat, captured that restless momentum across ten tracks that clock in at just eighteen minutes; the songs had already been road-tested in live sets for the five years leading up to the recording. The follow-up records Bloodsweat in 2016 and By Night in 2019 introduced a murkier atmosphere and some sly studio refinement without abandoning the band’s stripped-down, high-impact garage-punk approach calibrated for maximum force.
Vocalist Brandon Blaine, guitarist Jay Rogers, bassist Michael Perez, and drummer Luke Perine fuse the taut urgency of early post-punk with hardcore’s headlong recklessness, producing music that pulses with jittery momentum and never settles into one place. In 2014 the group joined the roster of the storied punk imprint Epitaph and issued Free to Eat that spring. The sessions, overseen by producer and engineer Stuart Sikes (the Walkmen, Cat Power, Modest Mouse), lasted two weeks and yielded the driving sophomore effort Bloodsweat, which appeared in early 2016. After completing three cross-country tours the quartet paused for a stretch.
In late summer 2018 they spent eleven days inside Hollywood’s EastWest Studios (Brian Wilson, Ozzy Osbourne, Iggy Pop), working with John Congleton—producer for St. Vincent and Chelsea Wolfe—under a strict no-visitors policy that removed every distraction. Treating Congleton as an active creative partner, the band fused its own forceful sound with the lingering, still-vital echoes of classic punk and rock albums from the 1960s and 1970s. The expanded palette included layered bass choirs, bursts of synthesizer, Motorik drumming, and strings that framed both instrumental sections and complete songs. By Night reached listeners in the middle of 2019.
Vocalist Brandon Blaine, guitarist Jay Rogers, bassist Michael Perez, and drummer Luke Perine fuse the taut urgency of early post-punk with hardcore’s headlong recklessness, producing music that pulses with jittery momentum and never settles into one place. In 2014 the group joined the roster of the storied punk imprint Epitaph and issued Free to Eat that spring. The sessions, overseen by producer and engineer Stuart Sikes (the Walkmen, Cat Power, Modest Mouse), lasted two weeks and yielded the driving sophomore effort Bloodsweat, which appeared in early 2016. After completing three cross-country tours the quartet paused for a stretch.
In late summer 2018 they spent eleven days inside Hollywood’s EastWest Studios (Brian Wilson, Ozzy Osbourne, Iggy Pop), working with John Congleton—producer for St. Vincent and Chelsea Wolfe—under a strict no-visitors policy that removed every distraction. Treating Congleton as an active creative partner, the band fused its own forceful sound with the lingering, still-vital echoes of classic punk and rock albums from the 1960s and 1970s. The expanded palette included layered bass choirs, bursts of synthesizer, Motorik drumming, and strings that framed both instrumental sections and complete songs. By Night reached listeners in the middle of 2019.
Albums
Singles
