VAST

VAST exists as the sole project of Jon Crosby. Growing up in Humboldt County, California, he drew early notice in Guitar Player Magazine as a gifted guitarist at age 13. A potential deal with the specialist imprint Shrapnel never materialized after Crosby chose instead to develop his skills as a songwriter. He left conventional schooling for independent study and gathered musicians to bring his solo-recorded demos to the stage under the VAST name. Although concerts took place, personnel rotated frequently, leaving Crosby as the unchanging frontman and creative anchor.

His compositions fused industrial and alternative textures in the manner of Nine Inch Nails with ambient passages and surprising sampled elements. Local radio rotation for one of these recordings triggered intense interest from major labels. Elektra ultimately won the contest and issued the debut full-length Visual Audio Sensory Theater in mid-1998, at which point auditions were already underway for a live backing group. Two years later Crosby collaborated with producer Blumpy and recruited guitarist Justin Cotta, bassist Thomas Froggatt, and drummer Steve Clark to record Music for People. The single “Free” found an audience, yet the album itself met only modest commercial response, after which Elektra ended the relationship.

VAST resurfaced in 2004 with Nude, its third studio album and the first to appear on Crosby’s own independent outlet 2Blossoms. Early demo recordings were gathered the next year on A Complete Demonstration, followed in 2006 by the double-disc set Turquoise & Crimson. Crosby subsequently explored a stripped-down acoustic direction, issuing a sequence of releases built around voice and guitar. That approach surfaced first on April in 2007 and continued across several acoustic EPs whose tracks were later expanded by a full band on the 2009 album Me & You.