Confronting Your Mortality With JACK BERGIN From VOID OF VISION

HEAVY Music Interviews

Melbourne metal outfit Void Of Vision have flown the flag for Australian music for over a decade; the quintessential underdog that remains humble and unassuming despite having more than enough heart to claim whatever patch of turf they, in the minds of most observers, deserved.
Rather than restricting themselves and overstaying the musical welcome they built from their debut EP, 2014's Broken//Bones through to 2016's Children of Chrome, 2017's Disturbia, 2019's Hyperdaze and the amalgamated CHRONICLES series in 2023, Void Of Vision approached each new sonic cycle with the mindset of bettering themselves and their sound in the best and easiest way possible.
By letting it come naturally.
Each release saw the band morph into varying degrees of their growing musical psyche, refusing to allow their insatiable search for self-respect and musical growth to be harnessed in any way, shape or form.
Respected by their peers and adored by an ever expanding legion of fans, Void Of Vision became an entity unto themselves with an air of invincibility around them that was inspiring and infectious. Until they almost lost vocalist Jack Bergin in early 2022 to what was later diagnosed as a "glitch" in his head.
The normally outgoing and accessible frontman was forced into becoming an involuntary recluse after returning to hospital in April 2023 suffering intense headaches before being rushed into surgery for a life-saving procedure that forced him into confronting his own mortality and coming to terms with the now very real fact that tomorrow may not be as assured as he once took it for granted to be.
As he has done his entire life, Bergin again turned to music, but this time it was with a different outlook on life that manifested itself through songwriting for a body of work that eventually became the genesis for Void Of Vision's new album What I'll Leave Behind that is due for release on September 20.
A swirling maelstrom of massive riffs, abrasive edges and sonic bursts of intensity, What I'll Leave Behind is the product of a multitude of fear, sorrow and regret coupled with a renewed appreciation for life that could only come from the perspective of someone who has looked death in the eye but refused to accept it.
HEAVY recently sat down with Bergin to discuss a tumultuous past few years and the music that recounts it.
"I had my first nocturnal seizure," he explained when we ask him about the initial circumstances that saw him wake up in the back of an ambulance, terrified and unsure of how he had got there. "It's basically an unavoidable moment where you are asleep in the dead of the night and your brain will just - basically due to my AVM which is constricting my blood flow - and leads to a… I can't remember the actual name of the type of seizure, but it led to me waking up in the back of an ambulance. I was very lucky to have my partner at the time there, and she was calling the ambulance before we knew it. But it was very weird because for the first time in my life that was a moment that I have zero recollection of. You can have your moments when you are on a night out, and you get drunk, but this was just completely different. It's complete blackout, with no clue of what happened or how it happened. I just went to sleep and woke up in an ambulance, and that was a really wild experience. It's the first instance of what happened. I went to the doctors, and they started beginning the plan to get rid of this AVM in the back of my brain and begin the process for radiotherapy."
In the full interview, Jack opens up about the rest of the journey that nearly claimed his life, confronting the illness, how he harnessed those fears into the process of turning it into music for the new album, removing himself from the public eye in order to recover and hating every minute of it, creating an anterior persona dubbed the Angel Of Darkness to mentally adjust to the changes, how the ongoing support from his bandmates and fans in general helped him regain focus, the continued musical growth of Void Of Vision, their upcoming run of shows with Parkway Drive and more.
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