Matthew Burnette, Staff Writer

VEAUX is made up of brothers Aaron and Dominick Wagner as well as long-time collaborator Andrew Black.

The band shared a video on their Instagram page of the moment they found out that they were getting a chance to play at the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival for the first time on Sunday June 15.

Their excitement was palpable.

“Growing up and hearing about it, I’m also like a huge Beastie Boys fan and that was like their last show ever, and so it just kind of has this legend in my mind of just being an amazing festival,” explained Aaron. “We were just not expecting it. It just kind of came out of nowhere, so it was just a really beautiful call to get.”

Dominick noted that getting to play at Bonnaroo, in his mind, establishes them as a true local artist.

“We’re not from here originally, so finally being a part of a big, local festival felt like ‘Oh we’re here now,’” he said. “We’re a part of this and we’re not transplants as much anymore but we are a true part of the ship kind of thing.”

“We just love playing and so any opportunity to play is a great day for us, but to be a part of something like that is incredible and then like I literally get to finish a set of music and then go watch Vampire Weekend. That’s a great day,” Aaron added.

Later this year, the band is releasing their second EP after 2024’s “Love in the Midnight.” The five-track EP, “The Grand Continuum,” was produced by Grammy-nominated music producer Jeremy Lutito who first saw the band at their first EP release show.

“I love his perspective of us of kind of holding us true to what the experience is in a live setting and not so much what works on radio,” said Aaron. “We’re just going to let that figure itself out when it needs to figure itself out.”

Aaron, who has produced all of VEAUX’s work since 2020, describes Lutito as a hero of his and a long-time reference for the band. 

The group started playing together in 2011 in Denver. The Wagner brothers grew up there and Andrew found his way to the city as he was “running away from Texas.”

Both brothers were already in a band together, and Andrew joined them after that band dissolved.

Aaron describes the Denver music scene as a real “walk-up scene” where people casually make their way into music shows at various local venues.

“That is one of the most talented music communities I’ve ever seen,” he said. “It was a really great place to grow up and kind of like get your reps in. Denver is a great place for bands to be bad and get good.”

Though a great place for young musicians to cut their teeth, Aaron explained that you can only get so far there which prompted their move to Nashville.

“We just kind of got this wild idea to come to Nashville and get our butt kicked a bit, you know?” he said. “We wanted to be the worst band in the scene and figure out how to work our way through that, and to be shoulder to shoulder with the best songwriters in the world and learn how to make great songs is really inspiring to us.”

When the band first started playing, their sound fell more into the rock category, but Dominick explained that as they pushed themselves as musicians and songwriters and moved to Nashville, their sound naturally transformed.

“It was just like meeting people that were better at the things in the ways that we wanted to get better and just throwing ourselves into it as hard as we can, and it’s kind of evolved,” he said. “We still have our moments for sure of a little bit of our roots coming out there, but I think a lot of it is where we are geographically just naturally changes our sound and our instincts.”

Aaron added that the band’s music also shifted after their former band mate left to pursue other things in life. He says there is no ill will between them, and the name VEAUX is actually inspired by him.

“When we sat down to make new music and it was coming out different, it kind of felt like an opportunity to be like hey maybe we just let that lie and let that stay there as something beautiful and as a thing,” said Aaron.

Despite many siblings detesting the idea of being in close quarters with each other continuously, Dominick and Aaron grew up in a missionary family and spent a lot of their childhood travelling the 26-hour road trip from Colorado to Mexico.

“It does feel weird, honestly, if we’re not in a band or on a bus or something travelling long distances together because it’s just something that we’ve always done,” said Dominick.

The two come from a family of seven children where they learned that most things would have to be shared with Aaron saying that they were basically raised as twins.

When Dominick started playing drums as a kid, Aaron decided he wanted to play them as well albeit unsuccessfully, often being relegated to the bongos

Vice versa, when Aaron later picked up the guitar, Dominick got one too but in a different color

“Him and I could not be more different in almost every way, but we’re just kind of used to being able to share literal physical, emotional, spiritual space, so we get along really great,” said Aaron. “Honestly, I wouldn’t be in a band with anybody else. I’ve never been in a band without Dom. If one of these guys were to be like ‘I’m out,’ I’d be like ‘Cool, what are we doing next? Are we working for waste management, like what’s the plan?’”

While joining an already established dynamic can seem like a daunting task, it was one that Andrew was willing to take on. Though Andrew and Aaron hit it off immediately, he said that it took him and Dominick a little bit to connect.

“It took Dom quite a while to warm up to me, but I knew that Dom and Aaron were connected, and they were never going to go anywhere, but then Aaron and I became fast friends after moving to Colorado,” he recalled. “We spoke the same language, and we were kind of in each other’s brains, and so I was like ‘Well I don’t think I can leave Aaron either’ so me and Dom for a while were just like ‘Alright, well we’re both with him.’”

“There’s a reason why somebody in the group or family is like ‘I want this person around,’ so it’s like I just have to trust that their instincts are correct, and then I can go from there,” explained Dominick. “It was just a matter of us just being available and around for each other and seeing each other’s consistency in how we work and how we don’t work and then just going from there.”

The two eventually connected as the brothers supported Andrew through a break-up. All three agree that their ambitions in music aren’t material.

“For me at this point in my life, I just want sustainability so that these guys can win,” explained Dominick. “I don’t know what that means, and I don’t know what that looks like, but I will exhaust myself trying to get to that point where I feel like they are completely taken care of.”

“There’s a few other things that we want to do, but that’s not the end,” added Andrew. “The end is we want to be able to continue making art and music that we love and be able to take care of everyone around us. I want us to be able to say what we need to say and for people to continue to want to hear it.”

“I think my priorities are not to be the biggest band in the world, but I want to make the best songs in the world, period,” explained Aaron. “We came to Nashville to be around the best and until we write a better song than Paul McCartney, then there is still work to be done. That’s so inspiring because there is objectively no finish line.”

The guys have a rule that everyone has to have their hand in everything they do, and most of the time, the songs where they don’t all agree usually don’t amount to much, according to Aaron.

“We recorded, I couldn’t even tell you, hundreds of song ideas where one of us wasn’t feeling it, and I think we just developed a trust in each other that over time always proves to be correct,” he said.

“We have gone the other way as well where we will ignore our instincts and know that a song doesn’t fit but we need to put something out, and it’s like we’ll force ourselves into doing it because we need the schedule of putting something out,” added Dominick. “Then we’re surprised that the song didn’t take at all, and nobody is streaming the song. It’s because the song stinks, and we knew it and tried to force it.”

The band says that they find influence in a lot of different artists like NWA, Fleetwood Mac and even referenced a minute texture from Black Sabbath yet manage to create a sound all of their own.

Though they might have at first, the band says they don’t mind as much when someone compares their work to other artists or pick up on the references.

“It’s like oh you are connecting this to an emotional experience that you had in your life and for you it’s all intertwined with these things,” said Andrew. “It’s like I don’t think we sound like these things that you referenced but that song meant something to you, and you thought this meant something to you in a similar way. You’re having an experience and I’m really grateful that you shared that with me.”

VEAUX considers themselves “genre-less” which is how they are able to pull from multiple places for a single song.

“I think we’ve always not understood the idea of genre which sort of reflects in our music,” explained Andrew. “We’re fans of good songs, good artists and great albums.”

Andrew noted a quote from John Mayer that the band that the band always connects with: “Good music is always waiting for you.”

“Something about that hit us hammer to nail and we have carried that with us for years and continue to discover new great music that you wouldn’t think would be in our wheelhouse,” he said.

Aaron added that it wasn’t a conscious decision to be genre-less, it just happened over time naturally.

“We don’t get together to try to be weird or try to force things in. It just is who we are,” he explained. “I think when you are genre-less, instead of the music being about a certain aesthetic or a certain feeling or a certain whatever, which is fine because I love that kind of stuff, being genre-less you are able to hold up a mirror to somebody and let them see what they want.”