VAZUM didn’t expect a Western film to inspire the title of its latest album.

The Jackson duo of Zach Pliska (vocals, guitars, drums) and Emily Sturm (vocals, bass) stumbled upon the phrase “Western violence” while watching The Quick and the Dead.

“We had some of the songs fleshed out and usually we go with a ‘V’ in the name for our albums. We were watching [the 1995 film] by Sam Raimi and the rating was ‘R,’ and it said two words: ‘Western violence,’” said Sturm about the duo’s doomgaze album, Western Violence.

“We said, ‘Oh my god, that’s what we’re writing about,’ and it just summed it up. And then we said, ‘That’s what we’re living in … This is how our society expresses itself now.’”

On Western Violence, VAZUM reflects on the disintegration and disillusionment of our country and provides a social commentary on the personal, cultural, and political events that impact it.

The album’s dozen tracks explore topics ranging from the opioid epidemic to gun violence to a dystopian future to toxic relationships. It also takes inspiration from VAZUM’s past tours through the southern U.S., the U.K., and France.

“We were driving through Georgia and we went through some areas with houses falling apart,” said Pliska, who’s a University of Michigan alum.

“To see the extent of the poverty and those places you’re driving through, it’s still shocking. Our tours in the U.K. and France were eye-opening with just seeing how different the countries are.”

As part of that perspective, VAZUM brings Western Violence’s themes to life through vigilant lyrics, ethereal vocals, and spellbinding instrumentation filled with goth-rock, post-punk, and shoegaze elements.

To learn more, I spoke with the duo about the album ahead of an August 10 set at Ogma Brewing Co.’s Art Pop ‘24 festival in Jackson.

Q: How did VAZUM start in 2017?
Zach Pliska (ZP): I played drums in the Metro Detroit area with a handful of bands—The Muggs, George Morris, and After Dark Amusement Park. I had a bunch of people I was friends with and playing music with, but on the side, I was always making demos by myself. Eventually, I decided I was going to start releasing the music, which was in 2017.

And then I wanted to start playing live, so I put a band together and I grabbed the people that I was either friends with or whoever had an interest in playing. I went through several lineup changes because I would play a couple of shows with one lineup and then they wouldn’t be interested in doing stuff anymore. That continued for two years as we played locally and then I met Emily in 2019.

Q: How did VAZUM evolve from a solo project to a duo with Emily Sturm?
ZP: We weren’t playing music at first, but we started playing music together because the bass player that we had stopped doing shows with us. Emily’s a bass player, so that’s when we started playing together.

And then in 2020, when the pandemic hit, all the band activity that I had going on completely stopped for a year. That gave Emily and me the time to focus on ourselves, develop our sound, and write and record songs together. It was like a reset for us and me, too. We released two albums in 2020 and we released another two albums the following year.

Q: Your band is named after a genus of predatory sea snails called a vasum. How does the band’s name represent your music and creative vision?
ZP: It’s a word that I saw doing Google searches and I thought it looked cool. I changed [the spelling] to a “z.” It’s a new name and we’re trying to do new music. Being able to have our own band name was important because there are so many other bands that don’t have a name that you can search for easily.

Emily Sturm (ES): We wanted a name that was easily recognizable, but didn’t really conjure anything up either. VAZUM is a clean slate and if you search it [you can find it].

Q: VAZUM’s doomgaze sound incorporates goth-rock, post-punk, darkwave, industrial, and ambient music. How has your sound evolved to encompass several different genres?
ES: We try to fill out the void and make something new or different. That’s where we’re really inspired and [we try] to not keep doing the same thing over and over. A band that I looked up to that was independent and only did one or two label albums was The Cramps. They did everything themselves … and they started their own genre. If we could even come close to something like that it would be amazing.

Q: Western Violence is also inspired by the extensive touring you’ve done in the U.S. and Europe. How did visiting a variety of places and seeing different ways of life leave an indelible impression on you?
ES: [We were] driving everywhere from the center of the country to the East Coast and South and seeing what all the different communities were going through. I had never been to Alabama before, and I had a preconceived idea of what it was. It was totally different and it was one of the most welcoming [places] and it was vibrant and supportive, but I’m sure it has its struggles. If you drive around [different places], there’s way more poverty; there are no real middle-class areas. It’s either gentrified, super deluxe, or the rest.

[In the U.K. and France], the quality of life—even just simple things—the access to nutritional, healthy food … you can stop at a gas station in England and there are freshly made sandwiches and curries, and you can get an armful of stuff for 10 GBP. It’s unlike here where it would be $35, and it would just be junk food.  

Q: The title track is a social commentary on the opioid epidemic and gun violence. What was it like to reflect on those issues and their impact on society?
ES: I’ve lost a lot of friends, friends of friends, and friends of friends’ families to fentanyl ODs. It’s that mixed with my [old] house getting shot into. I’m also friends with some musicians I’ve worked with for my other business. They were in one of the bands that played at the Bataclan with Eagles of Death Metal [in 2015]. That hit me pretty hard.

When my daughter was school age—she’s 24 now—the school was on lockdown because someone was walking around with a rifle. To me, it’s been normalized that you’re living in this state. I feel the reason it doesn’t change is because [society] makes so much money that they don’t care—we’re just disposable.

And for the delivery of that song, I wanted to sing it differently than I usually do. It’s more like me talking and that was me trying to sound like Romeo Void and then there’s a song by Queens of the Stone Age called “Feel Good Hit of the Summer.” This is a feel-bad hit and that’s where that one came from.

Q: “Breach” addresses the possibility of a dystopian future and the potential ramifications of it, including a growing dependence on artificial intelligence and an increasing desire for global dominance. How have science-fiction stories and global conflicts inspired this track?
ZP: I think the future is self-actualizing and there have been so many movies about it. There’s so much talk about machines taking over, and I think we’re actually making that happen. I wrote the song before the [Israel-Hamas war] broke out, but a lot of it is about that, too. You could also say it’s about the conflict with Russia and Ukraine.

Q: The video for “Breach” features Y2K and GeoCities-themed imagery interspersed with performance footage. What was it like to bring that concept to life in the video?
ES: I wanted to bring in the visuals from Y2K, and I miss the ugly GeoCities websites. I did a deep dive trying to find every GIF and I wanted that to be the look of it. I also wanted Zach to look like the urban legend figure of The Hat Man and he’s like the “Breach” surveying his kingdom.

The wall that’s featured in it is the original Jackson Prison wall and then there’s a factory right near us that burned down. When I saw the sign where it says “road ends” and it has a bunch of bullet holes in it, it writes itself. We took those images and then put them together. I’m such a film buff. … It came naturally because being able to make videos is so much fun.

Q: “Stellium” highlights an astrological connection and lifelong bond between two people. How does the track symbolize your strong partnership and the importance of being present?
ZP: It’s like our theme song.

ES: We both have stelliums in our chart. He has a double stellium and he’s a cusp birthday. I’m a double stellium, and I’m also a cusp birthday—it’s how we came together. The noise parts are representative of all the noises and things that get in your way. It’s also about the frustration [with not having] the time to work on what you want. It’s everything that gets in the way of what you want to do. You come together, and because you know there's going to be an end, it makes it more important.

Q: “Blush” explores leaving dark winter days behind and anticipating the arrival of spring and summer. How did a detestation of Michigan winters and an appreciation for warmer weather inspire this track?
ES: This song is about how I hate winter. It’s six months long and I’m cold in the summer half the time; it’s not a good time. We’re both into gardening and that gets us through. This year, we’re doing veggies, but it’s always flowers. I don’t always have the time for a vegetable garden, but this year it’s a go. We’re doing wild pollinators, cover crops, trees, bushes, and almost all perennials. It’s a work-in-progress, but there’s also wisteria, poppies, and all kinds of roses.

ZP: That’s when we went to Florida [to perform], and we had to drive through a snowstorm from Michigan to Alabama. That [video] footage [for “Blush], Emily filmed last winter and spring, so it took almost a whole year to finish it.

Q: “Nightshade” examines toxic people and the emotional turmoil they create for others. How does this track serve as a cathartic outlet for processing past experiences with toxic people?
ZP: It’s about people who feed on other people’s energy and ask for sympathy or always need someone to do things for them. We’ve had experiences with people like that.

Q: You started creating your new recording space, Light Echo Studio, in a former church after relocating from Detroit to Jackson last fall. How has the studio been coming together since that time?
ZP: We just moved in here in September … and we have this whole sanctuary space to record, practice, and make videos in—it’s from the 1950s. We were looking for a place to live for two years right around the time when interest rates were still low. I wanted a space that was big and open where we could have an actual private studio.

Every house we looked at didn’t have that and then Emily started looking at churches. That’s what brought us to Jackson because there are hundreds of churches [here]. We’ve barely scratched the surface of working here and having it be a studio.

ES: We’re still working on the soundproofing and acoustic needs and getting everything set up. We’ve started recording another album and that will all be here in this space. Necessity is the mother of invention, so recording the songs will help us figure out what we need to do.

Q: You spent nine months writing and recording Western Violence at your old studio in Detroit and at your new Light Echo Studio in Jackson. What was your creative process like for the album during that time?
ZP: We both individually come up with our own ideas and then we come together and play through it and write and finish the song together. We’ll play the song together quite a bit, we’ll get comfortable with it, and then we’ll start recording it.

Sometimes when we record it—by the end of it—the song might change a lot. Sometimes it doesn’t change as much, but [through] the recording process, we experiment with different tones, reverbs, and effects. We spend a lot of time getting different vocal effects—that’s something that we did on this album. That’s the best part of recording yourself, you have the time to explore different sounds and see what works with the song and what doesn’t. And that’s what we did for Western Violence; it took a long time to record and mix.

Q: You performed the songs from Western Violence live before finalizing them in the studio. How did the album’s tracks translate from the stage to the studio?
ZP: We don’t stop playing live shows because we’re working on an album. I like playing the new songs live because we can change them. The more we played Western Violence live, the more Emily changed her vocal approach to it. We did those tours in the South and Europe while we were recording and mixing the album. That had an effect because as we were playing the songs live, we could see how we wanted to change them.

There’s no shortcut or easy way to do it; when we’re mixing, we’ll do a lot of different drafts and mixes. We’ll listen to them together, and we’re both very picky about the volumes of the instruments and the vocals. Those are things that we spend a lot of time listening for and we try to be as cohesive as possible. We try to listen to the mixes on different systems and in our cars.

Q: You’re performing August 10 for Art Pop ‘24 at Ogma Brewing Co. in Jackson. What plans do you have for live shows after that locally and nationally?
ES: Cody [Lockwood] from Ogma puts that together … and it’s all day. It starts at noon and we go on at 7 pm. For each band, they give them a nice set time—like 45 minutes. We’re also playing at The Tangent Gallery [in Detroit] for Witches Night Bazaar on September 28.

ZP: We have some shows in North Carolina in September and October; we’re doing two trips. That’s all we’re planning for going out of town for the rest of the year. And then in March, we’re planning to go back to England. It’s something that makes it a lot more interesting and fulfilling. We had a great time playing England last time, and Scotland, too, and we made some connections with people. Now when we go back, we have more venues to play at.

Q: You’ve already started working on your next album. How’s it coming along?
ZP: It’s good; we have a few songs that we’ve started recording, and the theme of it is going to be astrology. We’ll do a song for each sign so it will be a 12-track album.

ES: Scorpio is already done, and we have some solid ideas for the rest of them.

Lori Stratton is a library technician, writer for Pulp, and writer and editor of strattonsetlist.com.

VAZUM performs August 10 at Ogma Brewing Co.’s Art Pop ‘24 festival in Jackson. For tickets, visit Eventbrite.com.