Written By Cary Barnhard

Acceptance spent six years touring the US and winning over crowds with their eclectic mix of Punk, Pop, and Hard Rock before releasing their first full-length album. "Phantoms" is a thematically unified work that has won over fans and critics alike. Heat Beat was lucky enough to speak with songwriter and vocalist Jason Vena. HB: You were signed by Matt Pinfield, can you tell me how that came about?

JV: Basically what happened was we were starting the band and we had some songs and whatnot and we decided to make an EP that ended up being our "Black Lines to Battlefields" EP. We kind of put some money together, went in the studio and made the CD ourselves. From there we sent it out to a bunch of Indie labels trying to look for a record deal with whoever was interested, obviously. And Matt got a hold of it and really loved the songs on it. I just remember being in this clothes store trying on some pants in the dressing room, I got this call and it was Matt Pitfield! And the rest is kind of history, really.

HB: When you went to record "Phantoms" you abandoned all previous material and wrote thirty new songs?

JV: We wrote all new material. We kind of put the songs in a big group and went through them and said, "Okay, this is what we want to do."

HB: Were you after an overall theme for this record?

JV: Yeah! What happened is I got engaged and I guess that put me into this kind of cheesy love state, and I was writing all these songs and lyrics that were kind of lovey dovey.