18V adds to its hard-core fans

Dozens of bands will be bringing the rock when the Vans Warped Tour lands in Pomona on Friday. Eighteen Visions, in a way, will be dancing the dance.

As it gears up for the July 18 release of its fourth album, “Eighteen Visions,” the quintet that cut its teeth in the Orange County hard-core scene will be looking to win fresh fans while not alienating devotees who might raise a pierced eyebrow at the soaring choruses and tuneful guitar swells the band has added to its bottom-heavy sonic assault.

“The new music has gone over really well with our newer fans and equally well with our current fans too,” singer James Hart says. “I’ve always believed that, no matter what direction you take, it’s a risk.”

It’s not unlike the career turn taken by fellow Orange Countians Avenged Sevenfold, who emerged from the screamo ranks after a couple of releases on independent Hopeless Records to become a metal headliner behind a major-label album on Warner. Like A7X, Hart’s outfit sports a tattoo-worthy abbreviation, 18V. Like A7X singer M. Shadows, Hart has honed his chops with vocal coach Ron Anderson. Similarly, 18V started on an indie label, Trustkill -- its new album for Epic comes with the stamp of the metal producer called Machine. “He was like our quarterback,” Hart says. “He forced us to rewrite the guts of songs, from guitar parts to vocal patterns.”

The band’s crossover appeal got a boost when World Wrestling Entertainment tabbed the single “Victim” as a theme song for a TV event. “That was something new for us,” Hart says. “I’m surprised at how many kids told us they heard us that way.”

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-- Kevin Bronson

For Warped Tour details, see Page 2.