For more than 15 years, The Heroine have been treading along the San Antonio music scene, aiming to garner recognition locally and nationally as one of the hardest working bands in this city.
The core of the group — vocalist Lynnwood King, bassist Wes “Guhly” Vargulish and drummer Johnny Lightning — made it to the final six out of thousands of national entries into a Guitar Center contest in 2008 to see which band would open the inaugural Cruefest, earning the right to strut their stuff in the finals before Motley Crue’s four revered members at The Whisky in Hollywood, California, before losing out to The Last Vegas.
The Heroine is also the only band — again, local or national — to play every single River City Rockfest in its hometown from 2013-18 before the festival’s eventual demise. During that time, The Heroine released Playing For Keeps in 2015 and toured relentlessly for years behind that record.
So excuse the core trio, along with guitarists David Arias and Joey Villalobos, if they were just a tad relieved, excited and grateful to finally see the fruits of the follow-up record, Out For Blood, come to life May 21 during a CD release show at 502 Bar. Fittingly, as frontrunners of the local scene, The Heroine brought along a pair of artists playing their debut gig that hope to achieve the career duration, and follow the roads paved by, The Heroine in Westcreek and Poets Of Propaganda.
According to King, there were a variety of factors in why seven years elapsed between albums. But that rough road made it all the more special on this night as The Heroine played eight of the new record’s 11 tracks, including opening intro “Let’s Go” and “Mamacita Por Vida” (ATM Facebook Live footage here). The group added older single “Who Do You Love” and 2015 track “Hardworking Man” (ATM footage of the latter below; see setlist in 34-photo slideshow).
“I think it’s more “Thank God,” you know,” King told ATM after the show about Out For Blood finally seeing the light of day. “It’s more relief because we’ve had so many obstacles we’ve had to overcome as a band. We had our super highs when we were signed to Universal, and then that whole deal broke us. Coming back and regrouping, and writing, we spent all of 2020 and ‘21 writing. We started recording about eight of the tracks that are on there with this lineup.”
For King, the CD release gig, and any other future performances, nearly didn’t come to fruition due to the global pandemic.
“Jay, I’m serious, I thought we were gonna break up. It just nailed us,” King said. “I was out for 10 days. The band didn’t really get a chance to talk. We knew we were finishing the record. But we didn’t hang out, we didn’t rehearse, we didn’t see each other for almost six months. And then we got together and played our first show together (since then), and it was like we didn’t miss a beat.”
With King slinging his mic stand in his patented way, Vargulish laying down the low end, Lightning pounding the drums with backup vocals, and Arias and Villalobos providing the licks, The Heroine gave newcomers to their live shows in attendance, and those who’ve been watching them perform for 15 years, a taste of what the band is all about on stage.
In addition to the high energy The Heroine is known for, King and Co. scaled back on the Christianity aspects that often dotted their gigs in the past, at times in favor of more humor. Case in point: King at one point joked that Vargulish was “single and ready to mingle,” adding, “Ladies, he has a 789 credit score!”
Meanwhile, Westcreek and Poets Of Propaganda were on the opposite end of the spectrum from The Heroine. Each band was making its live-performance debut and came through having gotten the first one out of the way.
Westcreek had to endure roughly 30 extra minutes of sound issues prior to eventually taking the stage but certainly didn’t lack for support from friends and family, particularly in the form of one female who pierced nearby ears with frequent screams of, “Wooo! Let’s go Westcreek” while the band was attempting to sort out the issues causing the delay.
Finally, Westcreek — which will play its second gig ever Saturday, June 25, at Bonds Rock Bar with Meridian, Skum and a few others ($10 cover) — got the music rolling and was the heaviest band of the three on the bill. Vocalist/guitarist Daniel Bas, guitarist John McKinnis, bassist Eddie Nava and drummer Rocko Cortez can be seen in action on “Take Control” via ATM footage here) and below on “This Life.”
Poets Of Propaganda, featuring vocalist Christopher DeLallo, King’s cousin on guitar Chris Gamez, bassist Terry Sleaze and drummer Dom Galindo, had the simultaneous honor yet nervous energetic task of kicking off the night for their inaugural gig in front of their respective friends and family. They settled in as a unit after a couple of songs and can be seen in action here and below on “Tread Depth.”
While those two bands will likely never forget their first, the evening was another notch in the roller coaster career of The Heroine as the group was able to unveil at last a new rocking album with short, hard-hitting songs that can finally accompany the tunes they’ve been playing live for years.
It also allowed King, at least after the gig, to reflect on how far his band has come — and what may lie ahead.
“I think that 2008 was a validation for the band,” King said of The Cruefest contest. “It validated that the band was good and had the potential to do whatever it wanted to. We were able to pick up endorsements and have some good brands that are still part of our lives. Gibson and Ernie Ball Strings, they give us guitars, they put us on winter and summer NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants).”
But with the steps forward come steps backward sometimes as well.
“It’s a struggle,” King said. “It takes a lot of faith, belief in yourself. We had a tour planned with Voivod in June that our agent submitted. And it just didn’t work out. That was supposed to be our CD release tour. We thought we had it, and it turned out it didn’t work out the way we thought. Stuff like that. Being in a band, there’s highs and lows. You get so stoked, then so down, it’s just one of those things. You have to stay positive.”
While the plan is to tour as much as possible behind the new record, which may feel like a rebirth of sorts thanks to the time off from Covid-19, King isn’t expecting more success to happen overnight.
“I think it’s going to be a struggle all the time,” he said. “It’s always been a battle, especially as you get older. There’s responsibilities and families. But I think that struggle gives us that edge, it makes us more passionate.”
