Local band A New Violet set to release album, head out on first tour

For local musician Beth Vandal, a love of punk music started in her early teens, after her dad took her to see the Descendents in a small bar in Orlando.

“They were the first band that I saw, and I remember how amazed I was,” Vandal said. “Since that point in my life, I’ve loved punk rock.”

Now, many years later, Vandal is the front woman of her own pop-punk band, A New Violet, set to release its first EP on Nov. 3. Vandal said the band’s pop-punk sound is perfect because it blends her punk roots with her love of singing rhythms and melodies that aren’t always associated with the punk rock genre.

“I want people to move to the music and sing along and feel it, but I also like to throw some messages in there that maybe you wouldn’t hear in just pop music,” she said.

One of the first chances to hear the band’s album is at their release show, taking place at the Drunken Parrot in St. Cloud on Nov. 3 (Friday) at 7 p.m. A New Violet will be playing along with three other area pop-punk bands.

Doing the release show in St. Cloud was an obvious choice, both because Vandal was raised here, but also because she believes in supporting the local music scene.

“I’ve been a local musician for several years now and I really like to support this town … this town really needs this type of community in the music scene,” she said. “This is a place where we enjoy making music. It deserves to be seen and maybe this will help bring more of this into this area.”

The band’s EP “The Heat is Getting Hotter” is a culmination of many years of work for Vandal, who was signed to Manic Kat records in 2022 and set out to build a band to write and record with. The result is a catchy collection of songs that would fit in perfectly on a playlist of modern pop-punk music. Vandal brings the kind of energy and vocal strength you’d expect from other female-fronted bands in the genre—think Hey Monday or early Paramore. She said she writes songs with crowd involvement in mind.

“I just love when everyone is joined in and feeling the music together, singing together and getting something out of it,” she said. “All of the songs have that high energy. Some of them are a little more hard-hitting, but they all have a meaning to it.”

Now that the album release is around the corner, Vandal has had some time to reflect on the process and the work it took to get here.

“Releasing this EP, I feel so much relief from it because it has been seriously one of the hardest journeys I’ve ever taken,” she said. “People came, people went. It was such a big step—most people would have given up … but I’m super proud of everyone in my band that stuck through this and went through the process of writing and recording and putting this album out.”

Vandal said the message she really wants to convey is how important it is to persevere. “If it is something that is in your heart, do not give up,” she said. “Just keep working through it. Take a minute and then get back up on your feet and keep going because it is all worth it in the end.”

After the release show, the band plans to head out on their first tour, up the east coast and ending in New York in mid-December. To see their tour information go to www.anewvioletband.com.