| From the Desk of Bren Mead:
I thought of the name Vetran in 1994. I liked the simplicity
of it and the honest irony (I had only been writing songs
for about a year but I had already been in ten or more bands,
most of them with my best friend and future Masters of the
Hemisphere co-frontman Sean Rawls). I’m also sure the
fact that my father is a veteran of the Gulf War influenced
the decision to use the name. By the time I realized that
I had misspelled “veteran”, it was too late.
I had already designed, laid-out, and printed the tape sleeves
for the first Vetran cassette. Considering that color copies
cost about two to three dollars per page in 1994, there was
no choice but to move forward with and embrace the misspelled
name.
I recorded constantly on my four track during my last two
years of high school. By graduation, I had put out three
tapes which I distributed to my friends and family. After
that I moved to Athens, GA where Sean and I reunited to form
the Masters of the Hemisphere, a band that would last for
six years. During those years we recorded three full-length
albums on Kindercore Records. We also put out an EP, a handful
of seven inches, and appeared on several comps. We did well
with the hometown crowd and were constantly inspired by the
musical ingenuity of our friends in bands like Elf Power,
Of Montreal, the Olivia Tremor Control and Neutral Milk Hotel.
Things really got rolling for us when we were asked to open
up for Belle and Sebastian in 1998. We did several short
tours of the East coast with bands like the Essex Green,
Je Suis France, and a couple of great Teenbeat Records bands
like Aden and True Love Always. Before long we were staying
out for six weeks at a time, making it to the West coast
twice. By the end we were making money on tour and had just
put out our best album. It was time to quit while we were
ahead. In 2002, we played one last time, a free show at the
40 Watt Club for our friends. The setlist was broken into
three sets, 38 songs which would be our last release as a
double CD on BumbleBear records.
After a couple of years without a band to play my songs,
I decided to revive Vetran. Now I’m joined by Masters
of the Hemisphere drummer Jeff Griggs, Jimmy Hughes of Elf
Power and Fairmount Fair on guitar and keys, and Ian Rickert
of Fairmount Fair on bass. We are now playing shows in Athens,
working on demos for an album to be released by I Eat, and we plan on hitting the road as soon as we have
the chance. See you soon...
- Bren
(you can also visit Vetran at myspace.com/vetran)
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