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10 Years’ dreams are bigger than West Town Mall

by Leslie Wylie

The first time 10 Years drummer Brian Vodinh got shot down by The Man, he was in the fifth grade. His world had just been rocked by the “Live and Let Die” Guns ’n’ Roses video, so he went to school dressed as Axl Rose, spandex and all, in a display of homage that landed him in the principal’s office.

Fifth grade was also a turning point for 10 Years’ future bassist Lewis Cosby, who asked for a guitar from Santa Claus and got it. Up until that point Cosby had been leading a double life, stomaching his conservative parents’ affinity for soft rock with a diet of the Doors’ The Soft Parade, slipped to him by an uncle.

Both Vodinh and Cosby make cases for rock ’n’ roll predisposition being a product of nature, not nurture. Before they knew how to write in cursive, they knew instinctively that Metallica’s edginess could bring something important into their young, whitewashed worlds. The rest of the band (vocalist Jesse Hasek and guitarists Matt Wantland and Ryan “Tater” Johnson) endured similarly pleasant, West Knoxville-based upbringings that were good for healthy, well-adjusted childhoods, bad for later aspirations to create a heavy rock band with a dark, brooding sound. Nevertheless, 10 Years emerged in 1999 as its founders attended Bearden and Farragut high schools.

Even with the eventual addition of Carter High graduate Hasek, who brought to the band his niche for deep, tortured songwriting, 10 Years had to look deep within itself for something to rage against. Luckily, at just the right artistic moment, a mass girlfriend exodus inspired 10 Years’ first EP, Killing All That Holds You, in April 2003.

“Our singer had just broken up with his girlfriend, I had just broken up with a girlfriend, Tater had just broken up with a girlfriend, and everyone was just going crazy,” says Vodinh. “The album painted a certain time in our lives when things were dark.”

Life went on, and 10 Years emerged from the ordeal and the recording with some new ideas about what it is to be a heavy rock band. Lewis explains that a common misconception about the genre, perhaps one 10 Years itself had previously bought into, is that the focal point has to be angst or aggression. Over time, the band learned to appreciate the strength of subtlety, and its songs gradually became less abrasive and more melodic. Nowadays even the band members’ parents occasionally turn out for shows.

“Some of our heaviest songs now are actually about something happy,” he says. “We’re not angry people by any means. We don’t have a reason to be. You see so many of these bands that have been around for years and used to be all pissed off at the world. Then they grow up, and their sound and lyrics evolve.”

Vodinh adds, “As we personally grow into different people, as we get older, that reflects upon everything. We’re writing about different things now.... The messages are extremely scattered, but it’s not a lack of consistency, there’s just an overwhelming amount of other things going on in life now as opposed to the way it was before.”

The band is especially proud of Hasek’s drifting stream-of-consciousness lyrics, which feature alienation and artifice as common themes.

“We’re so into English and literature and stuff that I swear there are a million ways to explain a situation,” Vodinh says. “You can go the direct route like a lot of bands do and write lyrics to where a 2-year-old can understand what you’re saying, but I love hearing a song and listening to the lyrics and in my head wondering what it means by that. That’s the beauty of the ambiguity to me, letting people decide what they want the song to be about for themselves.”

Life isn’t bad for 10 Years. WNFZ 94.3 FM “Extreme” Radio is on its side, CDs have been flying off local record store shelves, and its “Wasteland” video recently brought home a win from the Secret City Film Festival. Fans have been known to out-sing Hasek at shows, and touring stories sound like excerpts from a spring break road trip, with Vodinh wearing boxers on his head and eruptions of laughter every five minutes. On the home front, the band members admit that they still haven’t acquired a taste for day jobs, especially ones that require haircuts.

“We’re regular people like everyone else,” Cosby says. “You know, we enjoy the same things everyone else does, the simple things, golf, and whatever the hell we do. We love playing music, and we hate working 8 to 5, and we want to be on the road, traveling the country, traveling the world playing music for everyone to hear.”

August 26, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 35 © 2004 Metro Pulse