Brian Vander Ark of The Verve Pipe on Opening For KISS, Playing Fans’ Living Rooms, The Movie Rockstar, & More

Brian Vander Ark of The Verve Pipe is coming to District 142 in Wyandotte on December 12th. He'll be bringing some friends along to tell stories about some of your favorite songs. It's called the Story of a Song and features Brian, Chris Barron (Spin Doctors), John Hampson (Nine Days), and JR Richards (Dishwalla). Brian said they've done this several times and it's a lot of fun. "It's a blast. The four of us just sit on the stage at the same time, and Chris will play Little Miss Can't Be Wrong and tell a story about it, and we'll sing backup harmonies and stuff, and then next will be J.R. playing Counting Blue Cars or any of his other songs, and we'll do the same thing and tell the story behind the songs, and I tell you what, each person plays about three or four songs, and it's a great night. It's a lot of laughs."

I forgot, but The Verve Pipe toured with KISS in the late 90s. That's a funny story, as Brian recalled. This was in the very early stages of the band; The Freshman hadn't even come out yet. "So imagine 20,000 people in any given city are so excited that Kiss is getting back together with the original members of putting the makeup back on. It's going to be the spectacle. And 20,000 people buy tickets. And 20,000 people drive to the arena and wait for two hours to see Kiss in the arena. And then the lights go down. And 20,000 Kiss fans roar in anticipation of finally seeing Kiss. And the lights come up into some stupid band you've never heard of. We were that band, my friend. They were not nice to us at all. And I learned, I learned right away, never to fear another crowd for the rest of my life. It was a great, great experience for that reason. I was, I'm never afraid of another crowd."

He said the tour lasted about 30 dates, and he doesn't regret a minute of it, although the 30 minutes they got on stage were rough every night. How did he end their run with the rock legends? "I cut out some big styrofoam teeth, fake teeth. And I did a Freddie Mercury impression. And I took my shirt off, and I put a white towel on it. And I sang acapella. I sang We Are the Champions to 20,000 booing Germans. And that was the night that Kiss said we could use the big video screens. And I knew it. And that's why I was like, I'm going to do something spectacular. And so I did that on the big video screens. And there was a look at one point on my face of pure joy. I was laughing at myself. I was just like, this is just this is glorious to me right now, that it was just an FU to everybody that ever went to the Kiss shows. So you can check that out on my TikTok. It's also up on my YouTube page."

I had to ask him how often they get confused with the band The Verve. "It still happens every day on TikTok.
And I get tagged in all the Verve stuff. You know, we had people hold up signs that say, Play Bittersweet Symphony.
No, no, for real. And it's just like, I remember one time, I think we were in Omaha, and there was a little girl. She's four years old, and she made this beautiful, elaborate sign, Bittersweet Symphony. And I'm just like, oh, I just wanted to call her parents out and say, What is wrong with you? Now, we've thought about covering it, which is not a bad idea now.
Maybe we'll just cover it from now on."

I'd heard of Brian playing fans' houses, and he brought that up. "Yeah, so it started out just, you know, we were down and out, now my ex and I. But, you know, we didn't know where the money was going to come from. And I had a fan reach out, and she said, Hey, I wonder if you'd come play my birthday party. And I'm like, I'm kind of a rock star. We opened up for Kiss?" He went on, "And she's like, yeah, I'll pay you $5,000. I'm like, what? Okay, no problem. And I went, and it was awesome. She had her living room set up with 50 folding chairs. All of her family and friends were there. I was sitting in front of the fireplace. I played an hour's worth of songs. You know, she got to choose all the songs. And I left there, and I was like, I had a check for, you know, $5,000 in one pocket. And I had, you know, $500 in cash and merchandise sales. And I'm like, I've got, you know, 20,000 people on my mailing list. They all have birthdays.
That's $20 million or whatever, you know!" Oh, I know.

He's done about 800 of these intimate performances to date.

I had to ask him about not only appearing in the movie Rockstar, but getting one of his songs in the movie...a tip that Blas Elias told me about. "Yeah, so they sent me a script and wanted me to write a Seattle-esque kind of freshman-like ballad. And so, I read the script. The movie at that point was called Metal God because it was about Judas Priest.
Yeah. And then Judas Priest wanted $50 million or something. So, they're like, well, we're just going to take Judas Priest out of it and make our own movie and make up our own bands. Smart move, Hollywood. And so, I read the script. And I was like, oh, this guy's got, you know, two different personalities. Sometimes he's this, sometimes he's that. And that's why, you know, I ended up with a chorus of sometimes I'm colorful, sometimes I'm gray. And then I sent the song, the demo, out to, oh, actually, I auditioned. I brought the demo with me, and I auditioned to be in the movie. I have a small part in the movie as well. And by the time I got picked up to the hotel, the director said, Wow, this is awesome. I love this. Which is always a great sign when the director calls you that day. And then I didn't hear anything for three months. And I was like, I've done enough auditions and stuff that I know. If you don't hear anything within a couple weeks, it's done. You know, you're out."

But he wasn't out at all. "And then all of a sudden I got this script at my door, and it was called, it was a movie called Rockstar. And I'm like, looking at this, I'm like, this is kind of familiar. And I'm thinking, what do they want for me?
Do they want rock and roll music? And then I look in the back of the script, and they had printed my lyrics in the back of the script. And I was like, I called my manager. I'm like, they freaking stole the song, dude. And he goes, Hold on, hold on. Let me find out. He made a couple of calls, and he told me, I got the part. They just, nobody told me, you know, because production hadn't started yet."

He said Mark Wahlberg really championed the song. "He loved the song. And I remember when I first met him, he told me how much he loved it. And he was learning it. And he said that he's going to make sure that there's a lot of the song in the movie. Like, you know, not just going to be a minute. It's going to be a couple minutes or maybe the whole song. And man, he was true to his word. What a great guy. He really, he really stuck up for that tune."

It was great to reconnect with Brian! Thanks for a fun chat.