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Victoria and Vancouver Island have a lot of musical talent, and Victoria Buzz wants to highlight some of the best and brightest local artists and bands.<\/span><\/p>\n Every Monday, there will be a fresh \u2018New Music Monday\u2019 article to help people find and support local artists and bands that are up-and-coming, well established or hidden gems!<\/span><\/p>\n For this endeavour, Victoria Buzz has partnered with our good friends at <\/span>CFUV 101.9 FM<\/b><\/a>, UVic\u2019s campus radio station, to find and select the musicians and bands for this regular column.<\/span><\/p>\n To date, there have been 77 New Music Monday features published through this collaboration.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This week, <\/span>Fuzzpeddler<\/b><\/a> is the New Music Monday highlight!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Fuzzpeddler is a three-piece heavy metal band from Victoria, comprised of Rich Noonan on bass and vocals, Zac Vandergugten on guitar and vocals and lastly, Samuel Nadeau on drums.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n They started playing together back in 2022, while Vandergugten and Noonan were roommates, but it was more just for fun than anything.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The duo eventually moved apart, but Noonan ended up living with Nadeau, who entered the fold and allowed them to jam together as a three-piece with a bit more intention.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThat was when we formed the basis of the band\u2014we kind of got our sound and started taking things more seriously,\u201d said Vandergugten.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe really started to get into it\u2014making music, having fun and playing shows,\u201d Noonan added.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The band says they are all fans of metal, but have varying tastes in subgenres. Where Vandergugten and Noonan both lean more into classic heavy metal, Nadeau loves doom and death metal.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Fuzzpeddler says that through their taste in music, and the three-piece dynamic, they were able to find a sound unique to them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In 2023, the band released a demo tape before honing their sound and working towards recording again.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt was just a rough cut, it was five tracks, and we kind of sat on that for a while,\u201d continued Vandergugten.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve got a bunch of material now that we\u2019ve just kind of decided to release as little collections of singles.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The most recent of these came with two singles, packaged together as <\/span>Duality I, <\/span><\/i>which Fuzzpeddler says will have a followup in the months to come.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThose songs in particular, really fit part and parcel with the music we wrote for the demo, so it\u2019s kind of a culmination of our earlier songwriting and now we\u2019re focused on bringing some of our new stuff to light,\u201d explained Vandergugten.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Vandergugten and Noonan share the responsibility of being primary songwriters in the band and each contributed one song to <\/span>Duality I.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n According to Vandergugten, \u201cHigh Priestess\u201d was written about experiences with hallucinogenic drugs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI wrote it quite a while back, as there\u2019s kind of a trilogy of songs\u2014two songs from the demo, one called \u2018Thus Smoked Tharasustra\u2019 and the other was \u2018Vide Supra\u2019\u2014and then \u2018High Priestess\u2019 is the third in that series of songs,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re kind of a mish-mash of my interest in western hermeticism and esotericism, and frankly, psychedelic drugs.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n He added that they represent the integration period of psychedelics, and trying to make sense of drug-induced experiences after taking them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Vandergugten says that an added layer of the song is about paying women reverence by kneeling down before a woman on a throne.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n As for Noonan\u2019s contribution, he says that \u201cEvent Horizon\u201d was mostly inspired by the sci-fi\/horror movie by the same name.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cA lot of the vocals I write have a lot to do with sci-fi, and this one in particular came from <\/span>Event Horizon<\/span><\/i> the movie,\u201d explained Noonan.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s like, \u2018where we\u2019re going, we don\u2019t need eyes to see.\u2019 It\u2019s a portal into hell, that sort of thing, using dark imagery.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n He revealed that a lot of the lyrics come straight from the film\u2019s lines.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Noonan also noted that in the second verse, he felt stuck while writing, so he pulled from his own life and personal relationships, specifically his relationship with his father.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019d never know unless I told you,\u201d he laughed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Check out \u201cHigh Priestess\u201d below:<\/span><\/p>\nHighlight Tracks \u2013 \u201cThe High Priestess\u201d and \u201cEvent Horizon\u201d\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\n