Current Members:
Bryan Erickson (a.k.a. Hexfix93, Disease Factory) - lead vocals, composition, guitar, lyrics, mixing, production, various
Early projects, early changes, and first albums (1990–1995)
In the early 1990s, Erickson and Grigory, both residents of Colorado, brought together their shared interest in creating music to record a series of demos. With the addition of Gary Slaughter and Chris Workman, the group attempted several bands, including Disease Disco Factory, a parody of then-popular Dance group C+C Music Factory. Following a turbulent period for Erickson and Slaughter, Workman left the group. Slaughter and Erickson experimented with two new side-projects, Cyber Christ and Vortex. Cyber Christ explored a harsh and melancholy sound that was a sharp contrast to the group's other projects. When Erickson discovered that the term "Cyber Christ" had been used in the 1992 film The Lawnmower Man, he renamed the band Velvet Acid Christ in honor of a bad acid trip. The Vortex project was merged into Velvet Acid Christ to form one body of work.
In 1994, Workman returned to assist with the band's self-produced gothic-styled demo tape, Fate. Given encouraging response from friends, the band followed up with other self-produced albums, 1994's Pestilence, a dance-oriented album, and 1995's Neuralblastoma, a harder-sounding album.
Erickson, along with friends and minor contributors Steve Bird and Dan Olson, started the brief-lived record label Electro Death Trip (EDT) Records to better promote these recordings. In 1995, the three began distributing hand-made CD copies of Fate, Pestilence, and Neuralblastoma for resale in local music shops.
Label interest, touring, and a troubled rise (1996–2000)
Slaughter and Workman temporarily left the band during the first half of 1996 as Erickson continued the project alone, handing out copies of Velvet Acid Christ's recordings to industry representatives, including musician Bill Leeb of industrial pioneer Front Line Assembly. Leeb passed the music to Thorsten Stroht, a media promoter with European label Off-Beat Records. Off-Beat A&R negotiated a deal with the band.
For their first Off-Beat release, the group submitted 1996's Church of Acid, a compilation of selected tracks from Velvet Acid Christ's first three albums with an additional two new tracks, Disflux and Futile. Church of Acid was well received in Europe, and Futile became a regularly played track in many nightclubs across the continent. In 1997, United States label Pendragon Records released Church of Acid in America, though the two new tracks were removed due to a lack of trademark clearance for television samples used in the songs.
The band's next album, Calling Ov the Dead, was rejected by Off-Beat for not sounding edgy enough, prompting Slaughter's permanent departure. With the assistance of Bird and Olson, the band addressed the label's concerns and released Calling Ov the Dead in late 1997, with American distribution following through Pendragon in 1998. In the process, Erickson had accumulated a substantial financial debt.
With a line-up consisting of Erickson, Stroht and German musician Ingo Beitz, the band toured Europe in 1998 with Off-Beat label-mate Suicide Commando, which attracted the attention of Metropolis Records, the largest industrial label in United States. The parent label of Pendragon, Metropolis distributed the album Neuralblastoma, as a partnership that would endure.
Velvet Acid Christ spent the majority of 1999 in the studio, first collaborating with Germany's Funker Vogt on a remix EP entitled Velvet Acid Christ Vs Funker Vogt: The Remix Assault, then shifting to Velvet Acid Christ's next full-length recording, Fun With Knives. With Workman an occasional contributor, Erickson sought production assistance on Fun With Knives from the bands Luxt and 4th New Army. Fun with Knives, released by Metropolis and new Off-Beat sub-label dependent, became the band's best-selling album. Sales were propelled by the singles Decypher and Fun with Drugs, and by the track Slut, which featured vocals from Luxt's Anna Christine.
In spite of the success of the band, stress had led Erickson into depression and increased drug abuse, which channeled into the creation of the band's next album, Twisted Thought Generator. Simultaneously, the band toured Europe with industrial acts Project X and Stromkern and toured the United States and Canada with bands Din_Fiv and Haujobb. The line-up of the band during this period was unstable. Workman, citing a conversion to Christianity, resigned from the band with a request that his name be retracted from all previous albums. The first leg of the European tour consisted of Erickson, Bird and Stroht; the second leg, Erickson and Olson. The North American tour was performed by Erickson, Stroht and drummer Paul Lipman. With various contributors, Erickson completed Twisted Thought Generator. Due to lingering disputes, he withdrew the band from Dependent Records and submitted the album to Metropolis.
A change of pace, new early material, and beyond (2001– present)
Erickson placed Velvet Acid Christ on a short hiatus in 2001, as he abandoned his dependence on drugs in favour of exercise and a vegan raw foodist diet. Newly clean, Erickson created the 2003 album Hex Angel: Utopia/Dystopia. Though critical response was mixed, Hex Angel: Utopia/Dystopia ranked #1 on Germany's Deutsche Alternative Charts (DAC) for four weeks after its release, and the album's single Pretty Toy reached #18 on the Billboard Alternative Chart during the same year. The album also marked the band's short-lived return to Dependent Records.
Erickson spent 2004 releasing and reissuing some of Velvet Acid Christ's earliest material. With the four-volume compilation series Between the Eyes, the band published a collection of its singles and B-sides, then followed with subsequent re-releases of Fate (Vol. 2), Pestilence (Vol. 3), and Neuralblastoma (Vol. 4). The band also offered free MP3 downloads of Dimension 8 and Oblivion Interface on its website until early 2005. Dimension 8, which had been available as a hidden bonus on Twisted Thought Generator, and Oblivion Interface (informally known as Between the Eyes, Vol. 5) provided fans with previously unheard work from the Cyber Christ-Vortex era of 1991–1994.
In 2005, Erickson collaborated with guitarist Todd Loomis on a new album, Lust for Blood, which was released on September 26, 2006. With Lust for Blood, the crew labored intensively to create a new overall sound while maintaining the band's original characteristics. Following its release, Lust for Blood ranked at the top of Germany's DAC for four weeks; the album's single release, Wound, ranked on the DAC's singles chart for eight weeks and held the #1 position for four weeks.
In 2009, Erickson began to create the next LP with minimal input from Loomis this time when he was working on his project The Twilight Garden. The result was The Art of Breaking Apart, released October 27, 2009. This LP was a tribute to bands like Current 93 and Death in June and brought VAC many new fans while making the others angry at the new direction of the music.
In 2010–2011, Bryan Erickson teamed up with William Anderson of Louisiana. William did a ton of sampling, and Bryan made a bunch of VAC B-sides that turned into Toxic Coma tracks. The project had a revolving door of members, again Bryan being the main constant. They released a LP entitled Satan Rising under Toxic Coma on Metropolis Records. It fused the techno sound of Fun With Knives and the brutal black humor of Toxic Coma. Erickson then began to write more music for future VAC LPs.
In October 2012, Velvet Acid Christ released their tenth LP entitled Maldire. The release marked a return to the dark electronic sound. Erickson formed a live band and toured extensively (2012-2014) to support the album. The latest album entitled Subconscious Landscapes was released October 28, 2014. A remastered Greatest Hits compilation was released by Metropolis Records on May 6, 2016.
Discography:
Studio Albums
1994 - Fate
1994 - Pestilence
1995 - Neuralblastoma
1997 - Calling Ov the Dead
1999 - Fun With Knives
2000 - Twisted Thought Generator
2003 - Hex Angel (Utopia/Dystopia)
2006 - Lust for Blood
2009 - The Art of Breaking Apart
2012 - Maldire
2014 - Subconscious Landscapes
Compilations / Demos / EPs / Singles
1992 - Oblivion Interface (demo re-released in 2004)
1993 - Dimension 8 (demo re-released in 2000)
1996 - Church of Acid (1994-1995 compilation)
1998 - Neuralblastoma (1994-1995 compilation)
1999 - Fun With Razors (remix EP)
1999 - Decipher (maxi-single)
1999 - Fun With Drugs (maxi-single)
1999 - The Remix Wars: Strike 4: Funker Vogt vs. Velvet Acid Christ (remix EP)
2001 - Dial 8 (maxi-single)
2003 - Pretty Toy (maxi-single)
2004 - Between the Eyes Vol. 1 (singles compilation)
2004 - Between the Eyes Vol. 2 (re-release of Fate)
2004 - Between the Eyes Vol. 3 (re-release of Pestilence)
2004 - Between the Eyes Vol. 4 (re-release of Neuroblastoma)
2006 - Wound (maxi-single)
2009 - Caustic Disco (maxi-single)
2016 - Greatest Hits (remastered compilation)
Psycho
Velvet Acid Christ Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Save you, thrill you
Sick of your shit, sick of your life
Sick of your dreams, I pick up a knife
I stab into you, I stab into you
I kill your future, I kill your dream
I stab into you, I stab into you
Wrong god, wrong knife
Wrong god, wrong life
Wrong god, wrong life
Wrong god, wrong life
I fell into you, I fell into you
Open-armed, with a knife
Blood on my hands, rage in my mind
No sympathy for your cries
The youth of today run astray
The youth of today run astray
With violence and innocence
Put the blame on consequence
Killing is so obvious
Killing is so obvious
The answers for the world today
Kill them all and run away
Society's hypocrisies will pave the path for prophecies
Society's hypocrisies will pave the path for prophecies
To take a your life with punity
To take a your life with punity
Pushing further down, down
Pushing further down, down
I stab into you, I stab into you
I kill your future, I kill your dream
I stab into you, I stab into you
I kill your future, I kill your dream
Wrong god, wrong life
Wrong god, wrong life
Wrong god, wrong life
Wrong god, wrong life
I stab into you, I stab into you
I kill your future, I kill your dream
Where to go?
I kill you some more
Nothing else but a fucking soar
Wrong time, wrong life
Wrong god, wrong life
Wrong god, wrong life
Wrong god, wrong life
The lyrics of Velvet Acid Christ's song "Psycho" convey the violent and destructive thoughts and actions of a disturbed individual. The repetition of "save you, kill you" and "wrong god, wrong life" suggests a feeling of confusion and frustration regarding faith and the meaning of life. The repeated lines "I stab into you, I kill your future, I kill your dream" express a nihilistic outlook, with the person embracing violence as a way to destroy hope and purpose. The lyrics also criticize society's hypocrisy and its tendency to blame consequences instead of addressing underlying issues.
The chorus of "wrong god, wrong life" can be interpreted as a rejection of religion and traditional societal values that have failed the individual. The lines "with violence and innocence, put the blame on consequence" suggest that the individual sees violence as a natural response to the oppression and injustices they have experienced. Overall, the lyrics paint a picture of a troubled and dangerous individual who has become disillusioned with life and turned to violent means to express their frustration.
Line by Line Meaning
Save you, kill you
The first line implies an action in which Velvet Acid Christ is deciding whether to save or kill someone, demonstrating their power over them.
Save you, thrill you
The line again implies Velvet Acid Christ's power over someone, deciding whether to save or thrill, giving them a tantalizing glimpse of hope or excitement.
Sick of your shit, sick of your life
The lyric expresses frustration with their target's behavior and the course their life has taken up to this point.
Sick of your dreams, I pick up a knife
Velvet Acid Christ conveys how they have given up hope or patience with their target regarding their aspirations and resorts to violent means.
I stab into you, I stab into you
The line describes the action of Velvet Acid Christ as they continue to violently stab their target again and again.
I kill your future, I kill your dream
Velvet Acid Christ emphasizes their finality of their action by making sure their target can never achieve their future goals.
Wrong god, wrong knife
The line implies that the wrong god and knife were chosen or suggests a disappointment in the situation due to some inefficiency.
Wrong god, wrong life
The line expresses a dissatisfaction with the world/our beliefs and actions.
I fell into you, I fell into you
The line reveals how Velvet Acid Christ, at one point, was emotionally invested or wound up in their target.
Open-armed, with a knife
The line implies vulnerability, as their arms are open, but they are also equipped with an instrument of violence.
Blood on my hands, rage in my mind
Emotions are high; Velvet Acid Christ feels responsible for the violence they have inflicted or caused significant damage.
No sympathy for your cries
The line shows a complete lack of empathy towards their target, lacking any form of concern for them or the situation.
The youth of today run astray
Velvet Acid Christ realizes the current generation has lost their way and has become misguided.
With violence and innocence
Velvet Acid Christ feels that the youth are not aware of the repercussions of their actions which could lead to violent outcomes.
Put the blame on consequence
The line reveals how Velvet Acid Christ believes society blames consequences instead of addressing the actual problem.
Killing is so obvious
Velvet Acid Christ hints that they find killing an easy or obvious solution to their problem.
The answers for the world today
Velvet Acid Christ believes they hold the answers to the world's problems.
Kill them all and run away
Velvet Acid Christ suggests a solution to move away from the society and escape those around them.
Society's hypocrisies will pave the path for prophecies
Velvet Acid Christ suggests that society's double standards will lead to a foretold future event.
To take your life with impunity
Velvet Acid Christ would not feel guilty and would not be punished for taking someone's life.
Pushing further down, down
The line suggests that Velvet Acid Christ is getting overpowered by a situation, but they cannot stop.
Where to go?
Velvet Acid Christ is lost and does not know what their next move is.
I kill you some more
Velvet Acid Christ continues to kill or harm their target, further intensifying their aggression.
Nothing else but a fucking soar
The line implies that the target is useless, of no value, or a wound or sore on Velvet Acid Christ's life.
Wrong time, wrong life
Velvet Acid Christ reveals a sense of regret in their action of violence that they wished they could take back.
Wrong god, wrong life
The line repeats the dissatisfaction with the world/ our beliefs and actions.
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Written by: Bryan Erickson
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Julian Cennamo
on Pain
This is a song about coping with failed relationships and a broken home. The lyricist has been triggered by a life event- most likely a breakup. The event is particularly tragic because it brings back haunting memories of fear and abandonment experienced in childhood.