When you’re a band emerging from obscurity to stardom, quiet Tuesdays at home are a precious commodity. But Christian Vead and Logan Fox Cheeseman—the creative forces behind Fox N’ Vead—know that in this phase of their career, even off days require some work.
Today, that means interviews.
“Hey, if the shoe fits, we’ll take it,” Vead says, smiling. “We’re kinda weekend warriors right now, but it ain’t been too bad.”
The duo has just returned from a weeklong swing through Kansas and Oklahoma, part of a year that’s seen their band perform 60 shows, release their new album Playing the Game and finally break through to mass appeal.
“John Mayer says his albums take about five years to set in with people,” Vead says from his home in Kannapolis, North Carolina. “Our first album (2023’s) Coulda Been Something, it wasn’t until this year that those songs started doing well. So, I’m excited to see where all this goes.”
Growing Up Country And City
The band is made up of Vead, Cheesman, drummer Ashton Redd and bass player Landon Almond. All grew up in Kann-apolis, a small city about 45 minutes outside of Charlotte. It was the perfect combination of city and country—a place where you could go fishing on the lake and throw bonfires in the woods, but still easily drive into the city for a concert.
“It was a good mix,” Vead recalls. “I got to do all the fun country shit, but we still had a neighborhood and I could play sports.”
and Christian Vead.
Fox N’ Vead got its start as a cover band, playing classic rock that ranged from Jimi Hendrix to Lynyrd Skynyrd.
“And whoever it is that sings ‘Play the Funky Music’,” Vead adds. It was the standard, crowd-pleasing stuff you hear on Live Music Night at the local Irish pub, or at weddings and bar mitzvahs.
The group wasn’t singing or writing its own music, and after a few years backing others, Vead and Cheeseman agreed it was time to do their own thing. So, they’d play four-hour cover sets three nights a week, working odd jobs like fixing cars and washing dishes at CiCi’s Pizza in between. All the gig money went toward studio time to record the group’s original music. And in 2023, the band released the seven-track Coulda Been Something.
Fox N’ Vead’s Sound & Touring With Gavin Adcock
Fox N’ Vead’s sound is hard to pin down, but the influences from growing up between the country and the city are evident. Their first album starts out with the moody and brooding title track, bringing to mind late-grunge bands like Staind, then moves into deeper, melodic stuff that reminds every ’90s kid of Soundgarden.
The album shifts into country sounds with songs like “Marlboro Girl” and “All on My Own,” with a hardcore honky tonk jam “Cashin’ In” placed in between. It sounds like the kind of song you’d hear in the background of a bar fight, while the lead singer dodges beer bottles thrown onstage.
The debut album’s biggest hit thus far has been “Another Lie I Told,” a lamenting acoustic-driven song about self-medicating to get over a lost love.
“People have started screaming it at our shows—it’s been wild,” Vead says.
The band’s follow-up was 2024’s Barely Getting By, moving into more of a pop-punk sound. Lay Hayley Williams vocals over the hard-driving “Toxic Love,” and it could easily pass for early Paramore. The album’s biggest hit, “All In,” blasts upbeat chords over its chorus like Jimmy Eat World.
The following spring, the band went on tour with Gavin Adcock, an artist Fox N’ Vead cites as one of its biggest modern influences both musically and professionally.
“I remember the first night we ever played with him, he said, ‘There’s four of you in this band, y’all need to be posting four times a day, one from each of you,” Vead remembers. “And that was some outlandish shit. I’m like, bro, I’m not posting four times a day on TikTok. But he and other artists have told us it’s just an attention game now, and we gotta get as much attention on ourselves as we can.”
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Fox N’ Vead are Playing the Game
The music game is different than the old days, when you’d pray for a break in Rhode Island and have a man come to the stage one night. The days of a record executive discovering you in a smoky club are over. And Fox N’ Vead’s first break came where most bands do—social media.
“A guy named Will Smith hit us up on Instagram and said, ‘Y’all need to come to Nashville and play this Raised Rowdy event they do every Wednesday,’” says Vead. “So, we packed up and left and that really opened the door for meeting a lot of people that kicked us off into where we are now.”
Where they are now is touring pretty much every weekend in support of their latest album, Playing The Game.
With a title like that, you’d think it was a sendup of the unscrupulous music industry, like Pink Floyd’s “Have a Cigar,” or, more recently, Hardy’s “Radio Song.” But the title track is a smoky, bluesy song about paying dues.
The album goes further to solidify the band’s sound, mixing blues with late grunge and a little bit of butt rock. After “Playing the Game,” the album moves on to “Ground,” with an intro that gets you amped up like a good Foo Fighters track before slowing down. If you’re into deeper, darker stuff, “High Agenda” is another self-destructive anthem that starts with a head-bobbing bass intro, then speeds up into something that calls to mind vintage Velvet Revolver.
“We’re kinda calling it crockpot rock now,” says Cheeseman. “Like you just throw a bunch of stuff in a pot, and a bunch of stuff comes out. We definitely all have influences from rock and country and blues.
“Me and Vead will write the songs, but then when we bring it to the band, they’ll put their own influences on it. So, it’s kind of an interesting mesh of all of our personalities and all the kinds of music that we like.”
The album has been Fox N’ Vead’s most ambitious project, and its biggest success, gaining over 15 million streams. Its corresponding tour has brought the collection of surreal experiences artists have when they first get famous.
“We’re selling out rooms we never thought we’d sell out,” says Vead. “Back when we’d play a headline show, it was like our moms and dads. So, to go from that to 600 complete strangers knowing our names and singing our songs, that’s been crazy.”
The band also got a chance to share the stage with Koe Wetzel. “When we did our album show, we had Gavin and Koe Wetzel come out,” Vead says. “We played ‘Bound for the Floor,’ and I looked over and was like, ‘Koe Wetzel is playing with us right now, this is insane, bro.’ And I think I’ll be thinking about that night 50 years from now.”
Next year brings even more touring for Fox N’ Vead, as they aim to play 100 or more shows, as well as record what Vead described as “a ton of new music.”
“We’re gonna be touring a bunch, and we’re gonna be all over your For You page,” he says. “And you’re not gonna be able to get away from us.”
Wanna catch Fox N’ Vead live? Learn when, where and how on Fox N’ Vead’s official website.
