“Any award that we won belongs to the fans”—Pierce The Veil’s Vic Fuentes reflects on the APMAs

There were many winners at Monday’s APMAs, but the night’s biggest winners were Pierce The Veil. The band took home skullys for Best Live Band, Best Bassist (Jaime Preciado) and Best Drummer (Mike Fuentes), and frontman Vic Fuentes took home the award for Song Of The Year with All Time Low for “Love Like War.” As if that wasn’t enough, a mere 49 minutes before the award show started, PTV announced a fall world tour with Sleeping With Sirens, sending the internet into a frenzy. We caught up with the frontman to get his thoughts on the big night.

Photo Credit: @photosbychrismartin

You guys were the big winners of the night, taking home four awards. Now that it’s all said and done, what are your feelings on it? Has it sunk in?
Man, not really. It was so crazy for us to leave the studio and go dive into such a crazy thing. We went from hanging out by ourselves for the last month, going to little diners and staying indoors pretty much every day, to two days of insanity. At the end of the day, that whole thing is about the fans and people who support AP, all the kids who have grown up loving it, and I think it was a pretty successful night for the first time.

What was your favorite part of the night?
Winning Song Of The Year with All Time Low was pretty cool, because we’ve really bonded with that band over the last couple of years, and we’ve done a couple tours with them. I love doing songs with our friends, like before when we did our song with Kellin [Quinn, Sleeping With Sirens vocalist] and Jason [Aalon Butler] from letlive. I think those kind of things are nice because they bring our band and our genre together to make it even stronger and a little more special by combining bands and showing kids that we’re all friends as, well.

After you guys won Song Of The Year, “A Love Like War” became the No. 1 song on the Billboard Trending 140. Were you surprised the reaction to the song is still so strong, nine months later?
I think it’s cool for All Time Low because it’s a different direction for them. I think it had a darker feel to it than I think they usually do. I thought it might be a precursor to what might be to come for them. I was just happy to be on it, and I think they did a great job writing it.

You’ve played the song live before, but was there a different feeling playing it at the APMAs?
I think the only difference was there were two catwalks on the stage, and that just made me very happy. [Laughs.] I just attacked both of them.

You mentioned you guys have been holed up by yourselves working on the new record. Did taking a night off to come to the APMAs refresh and re-energize you?
It cleaned us up a little bit. A couple of us had to get haircuts and shower. That was nice to drag us out of, like, the dungeon hold of it. I think we definitely needed it. Those kind of things are great. As difficult as it may be to tear yourself away from the studio in the middle of an album, it also gives you perspective on why you do things because we got to see tons of fans and people going crazy. The vibe was so much more alive because there were so many fans there. I think that was crucial. It definitely inspires us and lights a fire under us.

Is there anything else you’d like to say to the fans that you didn’t get to say during your acceptance speech?
That award show was built around all the fans, and any award that we won belongs to them just as much. We’ve always had a close relationship with them, and we try to show that as much as possible. Those trophies definitely represent the bond that we have. It goes out to them. ALT