I Prevail: “In a lot of these songs, part of the struggle is part of the healing…”

With Violent Nature, I Prevail enter their next chapter with an album that captures both their heaviest instincts and their most personal songwriting to date. Written out of conflict, reflection, and renewal, the record channels real experiences and emotions that vocalist Eric Vanlerberghe says the band felt compelled to confront head-on. It’s a raw snapshot of where they stand now — visceral, unflinching, and sharpened into some of their most powerful work yet.

The creative process marked a turning point as well. For the first time, all five members were involved in shaping songs from the very beginning, resulting in a collection that balances diversity with cohesion. From the thrash-fueled assault of its title track to more intimate and reflective moments, Violent Nature stands as both a testament to growth through hardship and the foundation for a bold new era of I Prevail.

In our latest Cover Story, V13 sat down with the I Prevail frontman to talk about this next chapter in both his story and that of his band.

Let’s start with the title track, ‘Violent Nature.’ It’s one of the most brutal songs you’ve written to date. You’ve talked about personal and romantic events inspiring the record themes. Was there a collective trigger for you all when you started writing this record to go down that path?

“The last record we wrote during COVID. The world stopped, and we had nothing else to do but work on music. We got to explore a bit more sonically with our sound and what we were writing songs about, and got to play around with different ideas. While that was a lot of fun and it was a fun, creative exercise, this new record is more.

I’m not gonna say it’s like Trauma, but it was written more where it was a lot of personal stuff, a lot of conflict, a lot of deeper, more meaningful things to us that we were writing about and feeling like we had to get off our chest. It is a very cathartic, therapeutic way to write the record if I have a deeper connection with these songs.”

You’ve described that particular song as a ‘Fantasy of snapping.’ As a band, and as an individual, how cathartic was it writing the track?

“It was great. We changed a little bit how we approached the writing of the record this time around, but the only difference is that we were actually all able to sit down, Steve, Jon and I. We started a lot of these, these tracks, and then we brought in Gabe and Dylan to work on adding levels to the drums and layers to the drums and fills and structure. Bringing Dylan in to add harmonies and work on melodies together. It was the first time that all five of us touched on songs on the record together, rather than just wait until it was down the line to bring them in.

It was an awesome experience to be able to sit in the room with the five of us and comb over these songs and pick out all the details and all the little things that we wanted to tweak and add. It just feels like the most cohesive I Prevail record we’ve done so far.”

“It is a very cathartic, therapeutic way to write the record if I have a deeper connection with these songs.”

You’ve got the really in-your-face songs like the title track and ‘NWO’ alongside the more euphoric songs like ‘Annihilate Me.’ You’ve said it felt like the most cohesive record, but it also feels like a diverse album musically as well. Was that the intention when you went to write it?

“Ever since day one, when we wrote the EP, it was very important for us to… First, when we wrote in the EP, we had no fucking clue what we were doing. We all had eclectic tastes in music. My playlist on Spotify can never keep up because one minute I’m listening to pop, then country, black metal, metalcore, whatever’s in our world. It’s all over.

It was very important for us to be able to play with our sound and do heavy stuff, do ballad, acoustic stuff, do down the middle rock, just bang your head, turn your brain off and bang your head energy. Then, moving forward, each record was growing in different worlds, trying to push the boundaries. Having 13 and 14 songs on each record, I think some songs started to cannibalise the other songs. Maybe they stayed too much in a similar lane, or maybe one was just a little too out there for that record, but we look back and we’re glad we did, as it’s fun to have all these different styles in our sound.

This record was a little more calculated, like this song fits this lane, and then this song feels like it’s a sister song. They feel similar enough, but they have their own identities, and that’s really all we need for the record. Then there is the heavy stuff that lives in its own. ‘NWO’ has got this industrial, high-energy. ‘Violent Nature’ is just more thrashy. ‘God’ is just breakdown on breakdown on breakdown. They all lived in their own world, and it was very important for this record to be as concise and trim all the fat and make sure each song had its own identity, and didn’t get overshadowed by another one.”

V13 Cover Story – Issue106 – I Prevail

Regarding the personal and romantic relationships inspiring the record, that takes it down a different path emotionally, as those subjects are deeply personal to the individual. How did it feel writing about those experiences?

“Both of those songs I felt like I needed to write. As an artist, you’re always trying to just get something off your chest. That’s where a lot of the best art, music, and anything comes from. ‘Into Hell’ was something for my fiance. I felt very passionate about sharing a song for her. Going through struggles in her own relationship, but proving that you’re always gonna be there. The other one… It takes some time when you go through something.

Sometimes it takes a few years and takes some self-reflection to look back on something honestly. ‘Crimson and Clover’ was a song like that, where it took some time. It wasn’t something where I got out of a breakup and then immediately wrote it. It took some time to look back and examine that relationship and be able to write truthfully and honestly about it.”

By the fact that you took time before you wrote about those experiences rather than straight after, do you think they would have almost been two different songs if you’d done it the other way?

“Probably. I think on top of that, our writing changed or matured over time. Look back at our EP, there’s a song I wrote that was about a certain situation, and now I look back on it, that was such a small micro event in the grand scheme of things, but that was something that I felt super heated and super passionate about right then and there. It’s hard to say, maybe it was best for that, but maybe this song was best for taking space away from the events and reflecting on it.”

“As an artist, you’re always trying to just get something off your chest. That’s where a lot of the best art, music, and anything comes from…”

Another lyric that’s been highlighted. ‘We’re all just born to suffer.’ In terms of the general theme of the record, do you feel this is a healing record for people to listen to, or do you feel certain songs lean more towards an acceptance that things happen and you’ve got to find your own way of dealing with them?

“I think both can be true. I think finding acceptance and finding healing can be two faces on the same coin. I think some songs lean more to acceptance and coming through the other side of whatever that may be, and I think there are some songs of reflection and personal growth or healing.

For example, that line, ‘We were born to suffer,’ is more just contained to that song, and that song’s identity was maybe we were just meant to go through this struggle together. It was always destined to end up this way, and we were meant to suffer through it.”

For someone who is listening to the record that’s going through their own personal struggles, what do you hope they take away from it or reading your lyrics?

“Sometimes other people have said it better, but I think sometimes the only way out is through. A lot of these songs, without saying that verbatim, are part of the struggle, which is part of the healing. I think through the struggle, you find strength and you find yourself and you find whatever it may be that you’re lacking at the moment.

If you’re receptive and open to learning about yourself. I think just persevering and pushing through and knowing that you’re gonna come out on the other side with some bit of knowledge, I think, is important. Through some of these songs, I was reminded of that while we were working on it and crafting the songs and the lyrics.”

“I think through the struggle, you find strength and you find yourself and you find whatever it may be that you’re lacking at the moment.”

Do you think it will change the way you approach personal relationships? Do you think it’ll change the way you approach relationships both professionally and personally?

“I’d like to think so, but it’s the human condition. We’re bound to repeat mistakes. That’s just the human form. We’re always learning.

If we were to completely change and not fall into these relationships or these life lessons, then life wouldn’t be as unique and fun. It would be very mundane. Every record is like a timestamp on my life or a new chapter of my life, and I feel like, looking back over the last few chapters, I’ve learned a lot.

We’re still human, and we’ll still have those human interactions and events that happen, and it’s on us to look back and see what we learned from them. Some of these songs, I don’t learn from them until we write them, and I’m in the middle of writing lyrics for it, reflecting on the event and starting to see how I could have handled it differently. It’s therapeutic. It’s interesting.”

You’ve only played a couple of the songs live. How does it feel reliving those emotions on stage?

“Every time we put out new music, the first few times we’re playing it, I’m super connected to it. I’m not there yet by any means with the new stuff, but some shows you go on autopilot, and you’re performing it, and a couple of days into the tour, you’re on autopilot. I’m performing it, but you’re more focused on being entertaining on stage and connecting with fans. Then there are moments later in the tour where I’ll sing a song and I’m transported back to when we wrote it. Something just triggers in my mind of the event or the relationship or whatever the song’s about.

I find a new connection to it, and a new love for it. I think it’s always this back and forth. The first few shows that we’ve been playing. The new stuff, I’m really connected to it. We go up there and, in the back of my head, is what we wrote the song about, and it helps drive that performance, but, as the tour goes on, you start going to autopilot, and then something happens, and that’s an amazing thing.

I might sound like a hippie, but playing live music is a living, breathing thing. Whenever I heard people say that in the past, I was You dork. But, going up there and actually doing it for the last 11 years, it truly is. It’s got a life of its own, so when you’re not paying attention to it, it’ll hit you in the face.”

This was a new chapter for you personally within the band. What was it like approaching this record for you, and what did you learn about yourself?

“Going into it, we didn’t want to change the sound of I Prevail. We didn’t want to have any big, drastic change, as much as we could. When we were working on songs, ‘Violent Nature’ was one of the fourth or fifth songs we started.

It wasn’t the first song that we wrote, so it wasn’t that we were like, Alright, we’re gonna do heavy. We’re gonna do heavy, we’re doing heavy. Okay, let’s work on some melodic stuff. ‘Rain’ was one of the first songs that we wrote. Steve, and John sat in a room and played around with the acoustic guitar. John was making some music with different chords, piano, and singing different melodies, pulling up our little notebooks of rough lyrics and ideas and just humming stuff until we got a melody we liked.

“Every record is like a timestamp on my life or a new chapter of my life, and I feel like, looking back over the last few chapters, I’ve learned a lot…”

I hopped in the vocal booth, and I learned quickly that confidence is a huge part of singing because, going in there and not feeling super confident in what I was doing, I’d hear the take and think I’m so lucky and blessed to have the guys in the band that I have. I’d step out, and instead of just not making eye contact, we’ll figure it out. It was Oh dude, that first line sounded great. I think you can really nail this part, whatever it may be.

All love, all, smacking me on the ass and getting me back in the booth, going like, ‘Dude, you got this, you got this.’ It’s your first take. Just get in there. To have that confidence and to have those guys behind me pushing and rooting me on, cheering me on, was a huge factor in discovering my voice and what I could do and what’s yet to come. I learned that definitely going up with and just having that big chest, full confidence, especially in the live performance aspect of not being able to sing and hide behind someone else. I’m up here, I gotta do it.”

Was there a point where you crossed over that confidence line? Do you feel like there was a crossover point where you walked in and you’re like, I don’t even need to be told, I can smash this.

“When we played a couple of festivals before we had an official announcement, it was definitely like, ‘We’re gonna go out there and there’s gonna be people that are scratching their head because the lineup looks different.’ and we haven’t made an announcement just yet.

The first couple shows of our last tour in the Summer for me it was about a week of, ‘Alright, it’s been eight months since we’ve toured and we have a couple new songs and we have a 50 minute set list…’ because we’re one of the rotating headliners. We have 50 minutes, and we’re trying to cram in all these songs. I was very focused on hitting the parts and hitting the marks of where I wanted to be on stage and what I wanted, how I wanted to address the crowd at this moment, and all the little bits in between the songs.

After about a week of playing those new songs and getting back in the rhythm, it was one of the first six or seven shows. I just went, ‘Oh, click, okay.’ All the rest is muscle memory, so just go up and have fun and rip these songs because people are singing along and you want to give ’em a good show. Just chest out.”

That must have been a good feeling?

“It was, it was good. I can’t say there was an exact moment where it clicked, but there would be sections of the set that each night I was thinking ‘Oh, I’m really looking forward to that bit,’ or, ‘I can’t wait to hit that line on that song.’ Things like that, where it all compounded. Then, I look back, and we’re two weeks into a tour, and I’m really having fun out here again. This is the best time of my life. It’s great.”

I Prevail try to reinvent themselves every couple of records. Do you feel like Violent Nature is another reinvention of the band, and this is a new chapter for you and the band?

“Yeah. I think before any big changes happened, we started to discuss what that meant. We had the EP and Lifelines and then we had Trauma and True Power. Thematically and visually, the art and the content of the music all felt like its own grouping and this time around, it felt like it was time for us to make some sort of adjustment, whether it was tonality or imagery.

There are just a few things that we are certain that we want a little bit of a change to mix things up while trying to keep what I Prevail is. That’s always been fun to see what a new era will look and sound like. That usually comes when we start writing demos. Then we start bringing in ideas and references of moods and feelings that we’re after.

Then it starts to shape itself, and then we can look at it and go, ‘Okay. I think we’re starting to feel and get what the vibe of the new beginning of this new era may be.’ To be honest, I don’t think we will know exactly what that all looks like until the end of this album cycle or when we start writing the next couple of demos in the future, but it’s fun to look back and go, ‘Wow, that was what that was. That’s what that era meant.’”

“This time around, it felt like it was time for us to make some sort of adjustment, whether it was tonality or imagery…”

Where do you see it going or where would you like it to go?

“It’s tough to say because I look at some of these songs on our new record, and there are a few different songs that have different moods and styles we were chasing after that we haven’t touched on in the past. I would love to explore more of that both sonically and lyrically. That’s all to be said because I don’t wanna lose what makes I Prevail. I want to make sure that we all always sound like I Prevail, whatever that may be to someone. But, I’m looking forward to seeing what we learn about ourselves with this record and what we can improve and enhance the next go around.”

Violent Nature as an album and as an experience, and what you’ve been through. How would you describe it in a couple of sentences?

“Violent Nature is very visceral. It’s very emotionally dense for us. It’s where some of our best lyric writing and best instrumental writing have been able to shine through. I’m very excited for people to hear the record and see what we mean by that.”