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“I’ll fucking vindicate my life…”
With Black Veil Brides‘ latest single “Vindicate,” Andy Biersack isn’t just delivering another hard-hitting track — he’s adding what he describes as a “third pillar” to the band’s legacy. The song completes a sonic trilogy that began in 2011 with “Fallen Angels,” an anthem for the outcasts, and continued in 2013 with “In the End,” a track centered on self-worth and something greater. “Vindicate” fiercely represents the next era of the band — one driven by raw determination and an unapologetic need to prove yourself…no matter the cost.
As the title track of the forthcoming album, out May 8, “Vindicate” also leans further into Black Veil Brides‘ signature macabre visuals. The music video — packed with religious imagery, fake blood and, for the first time, a bucket list vampire concept — feels like Biersack fully embracing his inner villain. After all, he’s self-admittedly pretty good at being creepy.
Ahead of the album’s release, PopHorror spoke with Biersack about the art of using revenge for motivation, why Vindicate may be some of Black Veil Brides‘ strongest work yet and, of course, all things horror — from convention shopping sprees to becoming a film encyclopedia, fueled in part by his wife Juliet Simms’ passion for the genre.
PopHorror: Congrats on several new singles, but especially the most recent — “Vindicate.” It’s such a good song. It’s one of those tracks that, from the second it starts with that kind of carnival-esque intro, it just hits. Where did that intro come from?
Andy Biersack: The calliope music at the beginning, I take no credit for at all. That was our guitar player, Jake [Pitts]. He wrote the whole instrumental demo and sent it over, and it included that calliope music. It was inexplicable. I think honestly he might’ve put it in there as just a placeholder. I don’t know that he thought it was ultimately going to be in the song. But as soon as I heard it, I felt like it thematically would be such a cool way to kick off the record and then play into the sort of off-kilter nature of some of the lyrics. I really loved it. I think it was just a stock loop that he found in Pro Tools, and now it kicks off our record.
PopHorror: It works perfectly. As far as the lyrics of that track, anyone who’s wanted more for themselves, but had people tell them they couldn’t, can so relate. Especially the main lyric, “I’ll fucking vindicate my life.” Where did that line come from? And what does it mean for you at this point in life?
Andy Biersack: It started when I was a really young kid. I always felt a little bit like I was counted out by my peers. I was never picked first in anything. I was kind of a chubby, weird kid who just liked to tell jokes. Girls didn’t talk to me. I was never picked first in sports or anything. But I was an athlete, which was also very frustrating because I was a good athlete. But for some reason, I just wasn’t socially popular. And so as a kid, I really developed this whole “fuck you” oriented mentality. It helped me a lot when I was really young to be like, “You’re a fucking idiot and I hate you.” I know that sounds really funny, but as a kid, it was beneficial for me. I played hockey, I played football, I played baseball, and I would really hype myself up. My dad was a big part of this, too. I’d hype myself up with this, “You got to go out there and show them that they’re wrong,” sort of thing.
So when we started the band, I was 15. There’s a lot of hate that has been associated with Black Veil Brides over the years. Essentially, I was still a kid and then all of a sudden, now the internet is shitting on me. It just continued this whole chip on my shoulder, “fuck you” mentality. As I’ve gotten older, I’m 35 now, I don’t in my daily life operate constantly thinking, “Fuck you, I’m going to show you.” It’s not all I think about. But when it comes to motivation, it is a big part of my life and it remains a part of my life.
I also am conscious of the fact that there are pitfalls to that. Being somebody who’s heavily motivated and oriented around revenge and vindication can be motivating, but it’s not particularly fulfilling because you can’t win being like, “I showed everybody.” I’m sitting in this room with my shiny record plaques and there’s still plenty of people that, if you were to ask about my band, would go, “That band sucks,” “They’re terrible,” or whatever. You can’t win. So I wanted to write a record that was about all of those angles.
There are songs on the record, like “Vindicate,” that are just very much middle finger, “I’m gonna get what I want out of life.” And then there are also songs that are like, “Maybe it’s a waste of time to feel this vindictive all the time.” I kind of run the gambit lyrically on the album. But this song, if there were three songs that represent what I write about lyrically and are like our anthems, I would say this is the third pillar. A lot of people know “In the End” or “Fallen Angels.” “Fallen Angels” is very much about being an outcast, especially an adolescent feeling like you don’t belong. “In the End” is about the spiritual side of life and seeing yourself as something more. And then this song is about, “Fuck you, I hate you.” So those are kind of the three tenets of my lyrics over the years.
PopHorror: So at age 35, we’ve reached “Fuck you, I hate you” status. I love it.
Andy Biersack: Certainly. I think I’m just more introspective about that stuff the older that I get. I’m just realistic. My wife and I both got the word “revenge” tattooed on ourselves, and I got mine on the back of my shoulder because I look at it as the monkey on my back, right? It motivates me and it also makes me distrusting of people. I’m kind of an insular person in that way.
PopHorror: I get that. I’m 33 and I feel like with each passing year, I just don’t have the desire to interact with people outside of a select few. It’s much more peaceful.
Andy Biersack: The band is a huge part of my life. I spend most of the year touring, so I spend a lot of time with them. And I spend time with my wife and my cats. I recently made a new friend and I told him early on, “Look, I’m a bad person to be friends with. I’m not going to come out. I’m not going to do anything.” He forced me to go out the other night and I was like, “This is nice, but I’m going to go back to being in my hobble and alone with the only people I trust — my wife and my cats.”
Vindicate: The Album
PopHorror: Exactly. So “Vindicate” is not only a single, but the title track of the next album. Can you speak to why this song was chosen for that honor and how it represents this next era of Black Veil Brides?
Andy Biersack: I felt like it encapsulated what the album is the most. We always have with every record — with the exception of one because it was a self-titled — a title track in that way. I tried to think about that song being a representation of the tonal energy of the record. So with this one, it just felt like this song really informs what the album is.
PopHorror: It’s been a few years since BVB’s last album, The Phantom Tomorrow. Can you talk about the creative process of Vindicate? Have you been writing the past five years, or did these songs come together more recently?
Andy Biersack: I had a whole different thing I wanted to do. It was about a year of writing on a more broad concept record that I was uninspired by. You get to a point when you go, “I don’t think this is going to be great.” And I want what we do to be great for us. If other people like it or don’t, that’s really not up to me. But if I look at what we do and go, “This is the best we could do and it’s awesome, and I’m really proud of it,” then I feel like it’s worth doing. Most of the records I’ve ever done in my life, I felt that way about. The few times that I felt like, “Ah, this is incomplete,” those records don’t stand out as some of the best stuff in our catalog. So it was really important to me that, whatever we do, it’s the best thing we could be doing. It took a couple of years to really figure out what I wanted from a narrative perspective. So by 2023, we were in earnest writing. Then end of 2024 is when all the material really came together and we tracked the record throughout 2025.
PopHorror: I’m sure you’re proud of the whole album, but is there one particular song you just can’t wait for fans to hear?
Andy Biersack: “Cut,” which is one of the more grand songs on the record, I think is one of the best songs we’ve ever done. I’m really, really excited about it. There’s a song called “Alive” that I think is really strong. I just love the whole thing. I’m really excited about it. I sincerely am. I think it’s certainly among the best things we’ve done.
Fake Blood, Vampires and Playing The Villain
PopHorror: I’d like to rewind to “Vindicate,” which has such a cinematic music video to go along with it. Over the years, you’ve been very vocal about your Catholic upbringing and obviously, a lot of the songs that you do have ties to that. This video really takes that religious imagery to a whole other level. Where did the idea for the storyline come from?
Andy Biersack: I’ve got to give credit to the director, George [Gallardo Kattah], who we worked with on “Certainty,” which turned out so great. We happened to be in Columbia, in Bogota, where he works out of and spends half of his time, and it was one of those situations where there was just immediate artistic symbiosis. We had sent him this song and said, “What do you think?” He sent a treatment that was pretty damn close to what the video ended up being. Early on, like you said, I kind of explained to him where I’m coming from and my perspective on things. And my big thing for this one was I really wanted vampires. I guess you can call it a bucket list thing, but somehow I had never done a vampire thing.
PopHorror: Wait, really?!
Andy Biersack: Yeah! So I was like, “I would really like to do that with this, but I want to do it in a unique way that ties into the imagery of the band and other capacities and is maybe a vampire story that you don’t see often.” That was my impetus for it. He took it and really ran with it, and I think it’s awesome. I’m really, really happy with it.
PopHorror: It seriously turned out great. I have to ask because obviously the video is super serious, but I feel like filming it probably wasn’t, especially with the fake blood and everything. What was that day like on set?
Andy Biersack: It was incredible. I do want to give credit — I haven’t had a chance to talk about this and I don’t want to go into too much detail — but our rhythm guitar player Jinxx had a medical issue the night before the video shoot and was in a rough way. He pulled it together, came in, shot the whole video. You would never know that he was struggling. He’s all good, there’s no worry there, but he’s dealt with epilepsy his whole life and was having some real severe issues before the video. And so my biggest standout memory of it is just being so proud of the resolve within the band. Jinxx was like, “I’m coming in, I’m doing it, I’m gonna kick ass,” and he did. I just want to note that because I think that was pretty incredible.
Apart from that, anytime that I get to get covered in fake blood is always a good day. It’s been a trend from my very first music video for “Knives and Pens,” getting covered in blood as a teenager. For whatever reason, I’m just a big fan of fake blood. It’s the second video in this cycle where that’s the case, with “Bleeders” as well. So yeah, fun time, great experience. It was a pretty quick shooting day, all things considered, but we really enjoyed it.
PopHorror: Keeping it consistent with the blood 15 years later! At the end of the video, you do this creepy ass smile with the blood dripping down your face. Was that planned or did that just come in the moment?
Andy Biersack: I think I just did that. I like to think that I’m pretty good at being creepy. [laughs] Contextually, that maybe doesn’t make sense. I grew up watching horror movies and stuff, so I like being able to be kind of villainous in a way on camera. That was fun.
PopHorror: You got to also embrace your inner creepy villain in the video for “Bleeders.” As a longtime Sweeney Todd nerd, I was so excited when that came out. What was it like to step into the shoes of such an iconic character? Are you a theater fan?
Andy Biersack: Sweeney Todd was one of my first things in life. When I was about four or five years old, my dad went to CCM [University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music] and was a musical theater major. He had cast recordings around the house and the one that I gravitated to the most was the original cast recording from 1979 of Sweeney Todd with Len Cariou and Angela Lansbury. I learned the entire story, all the songs. I could have been off book for Sweeney Todd when I was eight years old. It’s been a huge part of my life. Then when I was a teenager, the movie came out, and I was such a big fan that I was a hater of the movie before it came out. I was like, “It’s not going to fucking be good. Fuck this movie.” And then I went to go see it in the theater the day it came out and I loved it. So that even furthered my love of the character. It was honestly a dream to get to do it. Then we also did “My Friends” from the show and put out a music video for that, which was really cool and also a dream to get to sing that song. It’s been a big, big part of my life from the time I was literally old enough to learn what a song is.
Becoming A Horror Movie Connoisseur
PopHorror: And horror as a whole is also a big part of what you do. Does that also go back to childhood or did a love for horror come later in life?
Andy Biersack: I’ve always liked gothic shit. Even my favorite superhero is Batman. I always liked darker Batman stories. When I was a kid, my favorite Batman story was called Crimson Mist, which is where Batman fights Dracula and he refuses to drink blood from people, so he turns into a skeleton. I have it tattooed on my neck, it’s like skeleton-vampire Batman. So I’ve always, from the time I was a little, little kid, loved that kind of stuff. The Tim Burton Batman movies were a big deal for me as a kid. A lot of that shaped the way I viewed stuff. Then also, again, musical theater, Phantom of the Opera was a big deal for me. I was kind of primed at a very young age to love dark and gothic shit, so I think horror movies are just the natural progression when that’s the stuff you like when you’re really little.
But I was also terrified of horror movies when I was little because it was one of those terror fascination things. I always credit the Misfits as the thing that bridged the gap for me. I was about nine years old when Famous Monsters came out. I remember seeing the CD in the store and being like, “That is the coolest looking thing I’ve ever seen.” So I listened to the record and I learned about all the horror movies that they’re singing about, then I was like, “Oh, I’m gonna watch all these,” and I was no longer scared of them. The Misfits bridged the gap and helped me not be scared anymore.
PopHorror: Do you have any current favorite horror movies?
Andy Biersack: My wife is the most ardent horror movie watcher of anyone I’ve ever met. All you need to say is that it’s a horror movie and then we will watch it. I honestly do not have nearly the horror intake that she has. I’m like, “Okay, we should probably watch something else.” And she’s like, “No, if it says horror in the description, we are watching that movie.” So it is impossible to qualify them. The other night, we watched one that was really good, but I wouldn’t classify it as a horror movie. It was listed as one because of the Sam Raimi connection — that movie “Send Help” that came out recently. Sam Raimi directed it and it’s more thriller than horror, but that was pretty good. We watch all the Shutter original movies. It’s basically impossible for me to say because on any given week, I’m watching six different horror movies.
PopHorror: I feel that! I’ve been trying to watch a few every week that I’ve never seen before. I saw for the first time recently “The Substance” and was obsessed. Have you seen that?
Andy Biersack: Of course. There’s not going to be a single fucking movie you’re going to say that I haven’t seen. That is where I’m at in my life. If you just start listing them, I’ll just agree with you.
PopHorror: Okay one more because no one in my life has seen it and I couldn’t stop thinking about it…”Tusk” with Justin Long.
Andy Biersack: Of course! We watched it so many times. It freaks me the fuck out. Honestly, it’s maybe the only movie in my life that had second and third degree levels of sadness that affected me after the fact. I think about it sometimes and I think of him still there as a walrus, and it bums me out. Even though I know it’s a movie, I’m like, “Oh, my God, he’s just a walrus now.”
PopHorror: Yes, I was so distraught over it! Continuing with horror, you wrote two novellas last year — Bleeders and The Last Vampire. What was that experience like for you, to dive into the world of horror in a different capacity?
Andy Biersack: The First Vampire came from a comic book series we were working on a couple of years ago that ended up falling apart, just contract stuff. But that was initially going to be the prequel to a comic series. So we figured, “Well, we might as well just release it as a novella.” Then that became really exciting to be like, “Hey, maybe we could take some of these characters that exist, public domain characters, whether it’s Sweeney Todd or whatever else, and basically do what my version of these stories would be.” Bleeders is the same way. We’ve got Revenger coming, which is based on the song “Revenger” on the [new] record and then there’s another one that’s in the works right now.
Embracing The Horror Con Circuit
PopHorror: I saw that you’ve been doing more horror conventions recently. You’re meeting fans one-on-one, doing panels — how does that compare to being on stage and doing what you normally do?
Andy Biersack: I love it. I also can’t shut up as a person, so it’s a great opportunity for me to go yap for a couple days. But I’m also such a fan of that stuff. I always think it’s funny, a lot of these people that go to these things could give a fuck about that. No offense, I get it. They’re there to get a paycheck or whatever. But I walk around. Me and my tour manager and security guard will do rounds all day because I’ve got to see what I’m going to buy. I buy so much shit at these fucking things. So if you go to one, you’ll catch me walking around and people are like, “Oh, why are you away from your table?” I go, “I like this shit. I’m actually here as a fan. That’s why I do it. I want to shop.” I’m so bummed — the last one I was at, there was this mask that I wanted to buy and I keep thinking about it because I fucking forgot to get it.
PopHorror: What was the mask?
Andy Biersack: It was Batman. I have every screen lineage mask from every movie, and I don’t have Michael Keaton’s mask from The Flash. So I’m looking to get one of those and it’s very hard to find, and this guy had one and I forgot to buy it on the last day.
PopHorror: Are there ever celebrities that you geek out over?
Andy Biersack: No, I can give a fuck. I think most of what they do is pretty boring. I’m not blaming them — I’ve acted in things. It’s not particularly interesting to talk about your process. That’s why when I do the panels and stuff, I try to make it fun and not so self-serious because a lot of times, those people are just so serious. They take their shit so seriously. The people I’m most excited about seeing are the ones I know. Like getting to see Chris Jericho and hang out with him, go to dinner because he’s a friend of mine. He was at the last one I did. Getting to catch up with Tyler Mane, who I have known for years and his lovely family. But there’s one person that does that circuit that I’ve never gotten to meet that I would shake in my boots to meet because he was such a hero to me when I was a little kid and has been so meaningful to me, and that is the wrestler Sting from WCW. Like, 60% of my entire life’s aesthetic came from wanting to copy him as a little kid. So I would be sincerely nervous to meet him. That would be the one.
PopHorror: They’ve had a ton of wrestlers over the years, so maybe someday!
Andy Biersack: Every time I get asked to do one, I’m like, “Is Sting going to be there?” And he never is.
Tour Life and Gratitude
PopHorror: In addition to the conventions, you have the North American tour coming up. Obviously, after being a band for so long, there’s a sense of tradition that comes with shows. You have to play “In the End,” “Knives and Pens.” But how do you also keep them feeling fresh for not only fans, but yourself?
Andy Biersack: We have kind of an advantage right now because we took a year and a half off from very seriously touring. We haven’t done a U.S. headline tour in two years, so there’s a little bit of, you’re bringing a show back that hasn’t been around. I think the big thing is you’ve got to nail the set list, and we really try to involve fans in that. We’re doing an interactive thing with a fan vote for people to be able to pick songs on the set list. We like to make it as open as possible. But the reality is, we’re going to play all the hits. We’re going to play all the songs people know, but we’re also going to play a bunch of new material. So it’s a lot of rehearsal, it’s a lot of keeping your stamina up and making sure the show’s as good as possible.
PopHorror: After doing this for a number of years, what are the best and most challenging parts of touring at this point in life?
Andy Biersack: I always say, the shows and meeting the fans are the cool part. The rest of it will never be easy. We are very fortunate that we have a very comfortable situation. I’m not sleeping in a car or a van or whatever. So even in a comfortable way, touring is hard in a way that people don’t necessarily understand. But I look at my peers and sometimes people bitch and moan about it so much. And it feels like getting elected to be president and then complaining that you don’t want to wear a tie. It just seems like if you’re lucky enough to get this, just fucking do it. It’s such a cool way to live your life. It’s such a fortunate thing to have, to go play shows for a living. There’s definitely pitfalls and challenges, but I’d rather do it than not do it.
PopHorror: I think fans can tell when an artist truly enjoys what they do for a living. That really comes across in your case. And as a whole, your entire energy on stage has evolved from those early Warped Tour days.
Andy Biersack: Yeah, I’m not starting fights every show. I was 22 years old and people were acting like I was committing war crimes by releasing my music.
PopHorror: Is there still any urge to clap back at people who say shit? Like, if there was a heckler in the crowd at Warped last year, would you have jumped in?
Andy Biersack: What I learned is there’s a limit. I was sincere in my efforts to try to defend the band and defend our fans, and then there’s a line of demarcation where, once you get to a certain size, it becomes cartoonish and people are doing it to intentionally get a rise out of you. People are coming to the show who are fans and going, “I’m going to get Andy to come jump into the crowd,” or whatever. And so I started realizing that I was becoming a little bit of a caricature of myself. I was able to kind of turn that. Plus, the other thing is I was drunk 24 hours a day in those days, so it’s a little different now. I’ve been sober for a decade and so it’s a lot harder for me to get blind angry. When I was blacked out drunk on stage, it was very easy to get me to be very pissed off.
Supporting Other Artists
PopHorror: On this tour, TX2 — with whom you collaborated for “The End of Us” — is one of the support acts. In this scene, artists can get really strong reactions from people, both positive and negative, which you’re all too familiar with. One of the things I respect about you is that you don’t let online negativity around an artist like TX2 stop you from supporting or befriending them. Can you speak to that?
Andy Biersack: I still deal with that. The reality is I saw people saying things using my name to be like, “Oh, you wish you were Andy Biersack.” And I didn’t like that, so I said something about it. I didn’t know anything about him or the music. But through that, I got to know him a little bit. I’ve never seen anyone work that hard on building what they’re building. I guess I could say that I think I worked that hard, but I didn’t observe myself because I am me. And I watch my wife do the same. But as far as a young person coming up in the industry, Juliet and I had lunch with him and Cam [Rostami], the guitar player, and we both came away from it just so impressed by them.
They have just a great mind for this. Not just marketing, but sincere care about the art and the fans and the message with no bullshit. Now, would I do some of the clickbait shit that he does? No. But I can’t hate on it because he’s a fucking genius at it and it works. And I’ve spoken to him about his methodology and he’s really good at it. We have different methods. So in that way, it’s not the same situation, but in the way of he’s just trying to live his dream and people fucking lose their mind about it. I have to side with the person who’s trying their best to make something of himself.
PopHorror: You mentioned the clickbait stuff — have you tried leaning into the whole social media necessity of being a band in 2026, or is it not really your thing?
Andy Biersack: I do it in my own way. I refuse to do anything that I find to be aggressively embarrassing. I’m not gonna sit there and pretend that I’m listening to you do a verse on my song. I watch that stuff and it makes me want to die. I won’t do that. But I will do what I’ve always done, which is just be myself on things. I made YouTube videos and skits and stuff when I was a teenager. I view all this in kind of the same way. I don’t really have a button on, “Oh, I’m too self-serious.” Obviously that’s not the case — I do a weekly comedy podcast, I do TikTok Lives. I think that’s fun. But it has to be how I like to do it. I won’t do things that make me feel like I’m being insincere to myself.
PopHorror: So no TikTok dances anytime soon.
Andy Biersack: A while back, I did a series of videos when I first made my TikTok of doing all the things you’re supposed to do on TikTok. That was pretty fun because I kept obscuring the camera, so I’d be like, “Here’s my dance,” and then the phone would fall over and you wouldn’t be able to see me doing the dance. I like fucking around in the format that way. That would be the only way I’d do it — if it’s in my very specific sense of humor.
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Final Words…and Why Vindicate is Some of BVB’s Best
PopHorror: We’re almost at the release of Vindicate. Is there anything you hope people feel or experience as they listen to it?
Andy Biersack: The truth is every artist always says, “Oh, this is the best thing we’ve ever done.” But I will say, objectively, this is the most complete album that we’ve made in a very long time and I do think that it will rank among the best things that we’ve done. I’m not gonna take away from people’s childhood experiences of hearing Wretched and Divine for the first time and try to compare that to what this would be. But I sincerely believe that we’re a better band now than we’ve ever been, and I had more fun making this record than I’ve ever really had. It’s already opening a lot of new horizons for us. To be at this stage in the band’s career and to still be sort of a new band for a lot of people is a fun position to be in. It’s very cool. It’s one of the best things we’ve done and hopefully people agree.
Thanks for speaking with us, Andy! Vindicate is out May 8. The North American tour with From Ashes to New, TX2 and As December Falls kicks off April 25.
