You turn on the radio in your spacecruiser and the driving, mystical rock of VAIDA pounds through your speakers. You’ll get hooked into orbit by hallucinogenic solo riff-ery, as earthy drums and melodic basslines guide you through the rings of Saturn and over sand dunes on distant planets that may resemble our own. Take a trip with VAIDA, the esoteric, desert rock band from Albuquerque, New Mexico featuring Scott Maron [bass, vocals], Gavin Johnson [drums, vocals] & Chris Zwaluw [guitar & vocals].
Scott and Chris had played together in another band—“We’d recorded once in a studio before, for like a day,” Chris says. “But we figured, hey, if we’re gonna be in lockdown we might as well bring the studio home. We got some equipment and now, we get together a couple times a week and we’re always playing with new sounds.”
Soon after the first official COVID lockdown, the group of friends decided that they would continue to get together and keep making music. “It was a lifeline for us during that time, we played it as safe as we could but the risk was definitely worth the reward”. Chris Their weekly band practices soon became a full fledged project, which they named VAIDA. In 2021, VAIDA released their first full length album, Science / Magick.. Then in 2023 they released an EP called Northern Skies. Three songs from the Ep, Growing Pains, Relapse and 1998 went on to chart for college radio. They have quickly gained a reputation in Albuquerque for the intimate, alchemical, and galactic energy of their live shows and they are currently working on their sophomore LP. They are also working on an acoustic setlist, reworking some of their previous sounds and creating new ones in a completely new way. “Ultimately we are doing what we’ve always done, we get together and it flows. The musical dynamic between us has always just worked. It still blows us away”. Chris
And there is indeed an alchemy to their sound—from hypnotic vocals and melodic guitar to the brooding bass and thunderous drum solos, there is a mystical, otherworldly quality to the music of VAIDA NM. Inspired by Deftones and Sleep Token, Circa Survive and The Mars Volta, VAIDA has crystallized an unpredictable yet undeniably signature sound.
