Bad Omens' Noah Sebastian and Poppy have revealed how their collaboration ‘V.A.N’ originally came together.
The track has just been named Song Of The Year as part of the Rock Sound Awards issue, with the pair discussing their creative process in a new joint interview and cover shoot.
As Noah explains, “Pretty early on, I did the reference vocal for some of the parts myself and I wanted to make a song where it felt like the voice, the vocalist of the song, was AI, or inhuman to some degree. It was kind of influenced by that game ‘Portal’ and the voice GLaDOS. I had that hook, violence against nature, I had that as a lyric and it turned into a melody. It’s a lot to break down, but basically, when I had the delivery and the cadence in my head, it seemed like Poppy was just the obvious choice. With the connection of shared management, it seemed pretty easy to get a yes or no on it quickly, because usually with features and collaborations it takes weeks just to get an email back from people you don’t have a connection with. So it was super easy once the song had taken shape, and the idea was there, to get her to check it out and see if she wanted to be a part of it.”
Poppy adds “When he sent the song over, I thought it was really great and I remember just saying, ‘Oh, which part are you going to take?’ and he’s like, ‘Oh, no, this is all you’. I loved it right away and I thought it sounded really fun. And I was hoping we would get to do a video for it right when I heard it, so I’m glad we did.”
“Honestly, it didn’t really take that much consideration” she continues. “It just seemed like an obvious match. I really respect the band and Noah and what he does. So working together was pretty obvious and we meshed really well. When we were recording in the session, there was a little bit of foreign territory, because I am used to usually sending vocals over. But we got to record together, and that’s cool, because Noah specifically knew what he was going for, so it was nice to be more in the moment and hands on in that process than just being sent a song and left to your own devices and work your way through it. You want to be sure that everyone’s vision aligns in the end.”
You can read the full interview inside the 2024 Rock Sound Awards Issue which is available to order now, alongside an A4 poster print and double-sided A1 poster, at SHOP.ROCKSOUND.TV.
