VIAL "DIY OR DIE" Music Video Review + Interview
Review by: Alexandra Haynes, Writer @xalexonlinex
Edited by: Andrew Perrizo, Owner/Editor @MelodicNoiseMedia
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Four screenshots from the “DIY OR DIE” music video, Youtube.
VIAL got “gross and cold” on the set for their latest music video, “DIY OR DIE.” I asked them some questions about their 2024 and the shooting of this MV. Our interview is featured at the end of this article.
VIAL were on a roll in 2024. They booked their largest headlining tour to date, featuring 22 cities, and can boast an impressive back catalogue of local and national show dates.
One of their many successes in 2024 was the release of “DIY OR DIE” and its accompanying music video.
“DIY OR DIE” sheds light on the buzzphrase which gatekeeps how punk punk has to be; the engaged and curious listener will question who gets to decide who’s punk enough. For a moment, examine with me a common conundrum: When a punk rock band gets their flowers, becomes popular, tours successfully, maybe their sound and image go (gasp!) mainstream… Are they less punk because they got lucky? Of course, any casual punk historian will have a clever and mostly accurate answer, imploring that we apply some nuance. They’ll explain to us the politics of punk, how attitude and ethics play a larger role in selling out than observing a numbers game of success. Are the members of that band now total corporate shills, or just popular rockstars? Answer that first, then you can don your gatekeeping hat, if it fits.
Our hometown punk-rock heroes look at the critical philosophy of “DIY OR DIE” through a different and more focused lens. Their antagonist is any asshole dude who claims he’s more “DIY OR DIE” than you, or me, or them. The kind of dude that might learn about the “DIY OR DIE” philosophy and weaponize it against anyone he doesn’t like to discredit their legitimacy. VIAL knocks this opposition down a peg or two when they highlight his ridiculous expectations, “I'll get a tattoo on my arm / So that you'll think I’m punk enough / Or am I not punk enough for you?” They don’t shy away from the conflict, standing up instead for themselves in true punk rock fashion. They’re pissed off, and right to be. You can’t take VIAL’s punk card away from them. It doesn’t matter what they look like (tattooed enough? Styled “correctly?”) or how much success is still to be had in their future (manifesting! They are doing amazingly!) It doesn’t matter what loser men who can’t name more than one female led punk project think of them, either. They’re here, they’ve been here, they are the scene, and they are talented as fuck.
VIAL expresses these dynamics visually with a callback to Stephen King’s Carrie. In all of the tension and unnecessary pressure put upon them by these asshole dudes, they end up having their pigs blood at prom moment as they’re literally covered in fake blood like Sissy Spacek. They up the ante, and their retorts are powerful (“Your trust fund can't buy you talent!/Gate keep until it makes you bored! … I’m too nice! … You’re no fun!”)
I asked the members of VIAL some questions about this song, the music video, and what it all means to them.
You had a really successful 2024! What was your favorite part of making music this year? Does a particular show or release stand out to you, and what made it special?
Taylor: PISSFEST stood out to me, it felt like an amalgamation of everything we worked on from 2024 to 2025. It was x2 more attended and definitely felt like it, the audience was incredible and I loved sharing a stage with some of our favorite artists (Destructo Disk, Sorry Mom, Anita Velveeta, and Dial Tone).
Katie: Re-releasing “Grow Up” as “Grow the Fuck Up” on its 5th anniversary was definitely special for us. We put so much love and care into the re-recordings and all of the art that went with it. It was a big moment for us to look back on how far we’ve come in those 5 years.
KT: Releasing our sophomore record “burnout” was very fulfilling. We put a lot of ourselves into those songs and resonate with them deeply, and we’re super grateful for the love they’ve gotten.
What DOES “DIY OR DIE” mean to you ? Do you or have you considered VIAL “DIY?”
Taylor: We definitely started DIY, and still have a lot of tokens from those days. We still play our borrowed and second-hand gear, but have definitely upgraded some aspects, like my bass and KT’s and my pedal board setups. We don’t book for ourselves anymore and have a wonderful team behind VIAL, now, but used to do it all ourselves.
Katie: We did everything ourselves for as long as we possibly could. At a certain point it wasn’t possible for us to do it alone anymore, so we were able to bring on our booking agent and managers who we’re so grateful for. Even though we now have a team, we still do a ton of work ourselves. Taylor still manages our website and all of our social media platforms. KT takes care of our tour van and does most of the maintenance and repairs themself. I do all of our bookkeeping and manage our merchandise. It’s a lot to keep up with, but we wouldn’t have it any other way.
The Carrie vibes in the MV really stand out. What was shooting with all the fake blood like?
Katie: Turns out fake blood is super expensive in bulk, so we had to get a bit creative. We DIY’d (haha) the big bucket of blood by using boxed red wine, water, red food coloring, and thickener. I mixed it all up in a gross bucket and stirred it with a screwdriver. I’ve never felt more like a witch brewing a potion.
Taylor: GROSS. I can’t stand the smell of cheap red wine anymore.
KT: Gross and so COLD!! We shot the mv in a barn in the fall and it got really cold that night. After the blood dropped on me, I was covered in it for a couple of hours while we finished the shoot and I was being frozen from the outside in by all the cold red wine. Never again… However, the hot shower I got to take afterwards might’ve been the best I’d ever taken in my life.
Your music videos have a personal touch and feel as punk rock as you sound. What was the creative Involvement/process like for the music video, and how was working with your director, Emily Nordstrom?
Katie: Emily and I went to high school together and made videos together back in the day! She directed our very first music video for “Rough” back in 2019 which was inspired by the first scene in “Scream”. The “DIY Or Die” video was a bit of a call back to that, but was instead inspired by “Carrie”. Emily is a huge horror fan, so she understood the vision right away!
KT: We had a vision for what we wanted with the music video, but were unsure how to lay it all out in a way that made sense with only 2 minutes to tell the story. Luckily, Emily is super talented and wrote up a lovely shot sheet that perfectly outlined what we wanted, and when it came time to shoot, we knocked it out with very few hiccups. She’s seriously one of the best people to work with!
You can keep up with VIAL on their official website, Instagram, and Facebook. All their music videos are available to stream on their YouTube channel.
