The East Vandals’ debut LP, The Damage Done, is a fist-to-the-face piece of old-school punk reminiscent of early Motörhead. It isn’t hard to miss: compare a song like “Guilty” to the swaggering hookiness of Motörhead’s “Vibrator”, for instance. Singer/vocalist Aaron “Aaronoid ” Brown acknowledges the debt from the gitgo, calling Motörhead a “key ingredient” to his band’s sound, as is U.K. punk in general (but more the rougher stuff, like GBH and Discharge, who Brown figures also drew on Motörhead for inspiration).
It makes sense that he has some experience with Motörhead covers, and that Lemmy Kilmister’s gruff vocal style informs his own.
“In 2019 my then-band, Upper Ranks, was doing a Motörhead tribute for the third time and our regular singer couldn’t commit, so I stepped up to the mic, hoping for the best and it turned out that I was capable of one very bad-assed Lemmy”, Brown says with a laugh.
Brown’s vocal style has a slightly strangled quality that sounds like it might hurt to deliver, but in fact, he’s been singing for awhile.
“My introduction to singing was in my first band Bradys Problem”, he tells the Straight. Video footage exists of Brown on guitar with the band, which was more American hardcore than UK punk, at Funkys circa 2011. There’s nothing online with him on lead vocals, alas, but it did happen.
“We would play regular parties at this house in Strathcona, East Vancouver”.
We gather their neighbour, named Brady, took issue with the noise the band made, hence the band’s name. “It was decided that I would be singing a one-off cover that we did of ‘I Don’t Care About You’ by FEAR. I literally lost my voice for a week. Doing vocal backups became a regular occurrence after, and the occasional bellow into a mic was always therapeutic.”
Later, Brown would assume the role of lead vocalist for Upper Ranks, and sings and plays guitar for the band’s 2022 LP, The Mighty Have Fallen, but they folded soon after the album came out. He returned to a guitar-and-background-vocal role for the short-lived Glue Unit, who were around just long enough to put an album on Bandcamp; it’s not too far off the East Vandals’ sound, but with a different (female) lead singer.
When forming the East Vandals last year, Brown explains, “I wanted to push it up a notch and give a more raunchy style. It didn’t come naturally but as the band progressed, I think I’ve found my perfect medium of harmonious, guttural anger.”
Brown has got enough of an investment in UK punk that he’s regularly travelled to the UK and elsewhere for Rebellion Festival.
“My first time was in 2000 when the festival was called Holidays In The Sun and in Morecambe, England.”
He would return in 2001, then go to the 2002 Holidays in the Sun chapter in New Jersey, which afforded him the opportunity to also hit the Big Apple and see shows at the now-defunct CBGBs, he explains; he then returned to the UK chapter of Rebellion in 2022, 2025 and again just a couple of weeks ago.
He’s gotten to see tons of amazing bands thanks to his travels, including Angelic Upstarts and the Business when both bands still had their original vocalists.
“At Rebellion Festival in 2022 there was a tribute to Mensi from Angelic Upstarts as it was right after his death during COVID. The Business played at this year’s Rebellion with Roi Pearce from the Last Resort and Trev from Crown Court doing vocals.”
Other bucket list bands he’s caught over the years included the Rezillos, Shattered Faith, the Threats, Chron Gen, Mau Maus, the Effigies, Scream and Disorder “with their original singer Boobs.” He even got to see D.O.A. play Rebellion in Blackpool back in 2025.
“Seeing our hometown boys DO.A., play to the biggest crowd that I’d witnessed at the ginormous Club Casbah stage was cool to witness,” he says.
Club Casbah has a listed capacity over double that of the Commodore. It would have been something to see D.O.A. play a room that size!
Aaronoid’s list of bands gets too long for one article, but includes more recent acts like Anti-Virus, Thronk! and Speen, though he adds that not all of the band’s he’s seen have been part of the festival proper.
“During Rebellion many bands also play free shows at all the local pubs in Blackpool,” he says. “These shows are known as Rebellion Fringe Gigs, they have nothing to do with the actual festival despite having some of the same bands playing under the radar. There has been talk of the East Vandals playing some of these and it seems like something that could be achievable at some point.”
He’s posted photos of himself placing East Vandals LPs in various UK record stores this trip out, which is a smooth move. And he’s hoping to catch the UK Subs doing a last-ever performance at Rebellion next year, to mark Charlie Harper’s retirement.
People who know Brown as the radio host of CiTR’s Generation Annihilation have had a hard time swallowing that that’s really Brown singing on the East Vandals’ LP, but there’s video evidence https://youtu.be/rL5pa6XF6a8?si=4byPoDQzE2U48U-M of that, too, and an album release show on August 28th at LanaLou’s for the skeptics, which will see the East Vandals sharing a stage with Nobody and Crummy (doing a soft release of their new album, Joi de Vivre, but more on that at a later date, we hope).
The title track of the East Vandals’ “The Damage Done”, deals with “vicious online bullying and toxic social media slander”, Brown explains. “Once out there, it will potentially cause some sort of irreversible damage to one’s reputation or emotional well-being, potentially never being undone. On the other hand, off-handed online comments have been known to land to people in jail, particularly in the U.K. who don’t have the same free speech laws that are present in North America, which also seem to be eroding”.
Going to jail for saying the wrong things is a topic of the song “Suppression”, but prison also comes up in the band’s repurposing of the Dead Kennedys’ classic “Holday in Cambodia”, which becomes “Holiday in El Salvador”. We’ll return to that.
You might notice that there’s a somewhat paranoid through-line of choked-out speech, slander, and suppression to be drawn across the album’s songs: “Guilty” is about being sent to prison with no trial, while “20/20 Vision” connects with the online behaviour of people during COVID. As readers may recall, that could get ugly and divisive.
Another song on the album, “Up for Debate”, targets the way some people argue.
“It’s about the person who thinks they know best appearing to be virtuous presenting a few facts, but then when challenged to look at other sides, resorts to lashing out in anger and insults, sticking to a dogmatic belief system rather than looking at any other rational possibilities.”
As for “Holiday In El Salvador”, it comes from an idea that East Vandals’ bassist Bobby Mullen had, Brown explains.
“Being a Dead Kennedys fan and seeing some dedications to the band through my online guitar videos, Bobby thought it would make for an interesting remake. I always thought the original song theme looked at your average college student know-it-all, who had no idea about life under the Khmer Rouge dictatorship during the late ’70s in Cambodia. This remake deals with CECOT prison in El Salvador and tells a tale of a US-residing foreign student being detained by ICE and sent there.”
Mullen also gets props for the band name, which manages to be both inspired and obvious at the same time: “It was a surprise that someone hadn’t come up with it sooner”, Brown quips.
Brown has been on the scene since the late 1980, but more in the role of fan and journalist (he first took the pen name Aaronoid for his contributions to Vancouver’s long-gone Nerve Magazine, circa 2000-2004).
“I started going to punk shows, in the year of 1987. I was into thrash metal at that point and the aggression of hardcore punk seemed not too far off. It was the stripped-down basic style, exuberant crowd and DIY vibe that instantly made me a believer. It was welcoming and it seemed like anyone could take part. I became addicted to buying fanzines and writing to editors and bands, soon developing a network of friends, who I’d tape records off on a regular basis. It wouldn’t be until my 20’s when I’d start contributing reviews to local publications. My involvement at CITR Radio started in the early 2000’s getting my permanent radio spot a year or later for my show, Generation Annihilation”.
He hung up his mic for that show in 2019.
“It wouldn’t be until the year of 2009 that I wanted to take my guitar playing to the next level and form my first band. Now a half a dozen bands later, the journey continues.”
Asked to name influences, locally, Brown gives props locally to guitarists Mike Graham of the Subhumans, for his “melodic and distinctive” style, and to Joe Keithley.
“I’d say every Vancouver punk guitar player has Joe Keithley from D.O.A. to thank for inspiration”.
But another guitarist, Kitty Cane Harry, who has lately played with GRRL Circus and MeBats, has a more direct role in the band’s debut album; she snapped the band photo for the record.
“I first saw Kitty play in a band called Kradle at a venue called Bob’s Cabaret in Surrey in the year of 1985,” he says. “We became acquainted at the pawnshop that she’s worked for the last few decades back in the late 90’s. When telling her about the band she offered her photographic skills for the album and promotion purposes”.
A final bit of key support was provided by Wes Gauley, who did the album art, of what at first seems to be a rampant eagle, clutching a banner with the bandname, and who we most recently saw playing alongside Ken Fleming in the Fondlers.
Gauley and Brown also go way back.
“Our first band Bradys Problem played at least one show with the Epitomes that Wes fronted back in 2010. It then dawned on me that he was the artist for 80’s metal acts such as Witches Hammer, Procreation and others. Wes had also been tattooing for decades and did a big chest tattoo on me in 2024 at Golden Rose Tattoos out in Maple Ridge, where I got to hear some fun stories all about Winnipeg during the heyday of hardcore punk. When needing a band logo we knew we couldn’t go wrong with his style of drawing up our own East Van Crow.”
The East Vandals play LanaLou’s tonight (August 28).