Ecca Vandal finds her flow

In her approach to almost everything, Ecca Vandal takes the idiosyncratic path. In spite of budget constraints, and with no one holding her hand, she’s tossed aside the tired map of how things should be done, choosing to follow her gut — and her gut alone. 

Vandal isn’t “new” to the industry — her first release dates back to 2014 — but this has been her breakout year, during which Vandal’s idiosyncratic style and authoritative sound have amassed viral recognition from a new audience, sending her career into its mushrooming phase, providing much to be grateful for. The South African-born, Sri Lankan artist spent the last few years offline and offstage, a decision made with the utmost intention. But the goal wasn’t slowing down, per se — nor was emerging as a rebranded Ecca 2.0. Rather, her time away was an incubation period, where Vandal immersed herself in actionable introspection, challenging deep-set fears from childhood and parts of her psyche that had been poisoned by music industry encounters. From there, she built an arsenal of self-confidence, and emerged more Ecca Vandal than ever, ready to be in the world again, authentically, unapologetically, and skating goofy with her whole heart forward. 

Read more: At Tony Hawk Pro Skater Fest, skateboarding and music remain linked

Shutting off the Wi-Fi router wasn’t an idea that emerged from the ether. Around her last release — 2017’s Ecca Vandal — she made the expected moves. “I did all the sessions with these high-profile producers and professional songwriters, to learn from them,” she tells me, from a sun-soaked couch in Los Angeles, her mouthful of tooth gems glinting. “I did the LA speed dating sessions, and if I’m honest, the end result just didn’t feel like me. It was glossy. Some of them are really great songs, but it just didn’t feel authentic to where I was at or where I wanted to go. So I parked the songs, and I went deeper in my own cave.” She committed to the cave aspect fully: Vandal and her musical partner Kid Not (Richie Buxton) burrowed into his childhood bedroom, a bunker in the back of a garage with no reception. “I needed to be completely shut off from the world, and any other influences or things that were going on.” 

From that safe, protected space, Vandal tiptoed out, planning to plant her seeds, sit back and watch them grow, waiting for the sun and rain to find them. But the wait was over before it even began. Her life was in full bloom by the tail end of 2024, when Vandal dropped her first tracks back, the punk-rock anthem “BLEED BUT NEVER DIE” and trip-hoppy “THEN THERE’S ONE.” Early this year, the trinity was complete, when “CRUISING TO SELF SOOTHE” arrived — her ode to both skate culture and self-esteem — which, though she’d barely been back online, became an overnight internet sensation. While diving deeper into a DIY methodology, Vandal had sharpened and homed in on her inherent strengths, which aren’t limited to her exceptional voice, a blend of Brody Dalle and Santigold, and the fact that she can casually drop in at the skate park. With immaculate, diverse taste ranging from Björk to Bach as her drawing board, she focuses on her own inherent reactions, realizations, feelings around the music — rather than reflect what is already there. This sonic concoction is not dissimilar to her standout personal style ethic — “the most amazing designers give me stuff to wear, but I always mash it up with my dirty T-shirt, or a high-end piece with my stinky tour socks. I am still in that childlike state when I dress up… because I want to be playful and not take myself too seriously.” 

It’s an ethos that runs through everything Vandal does. “I think I worked out really early on that people look at me sideways all the time. ‘What are you wearing?’ That happened to me as a teenager, but I realized that that’s OK. I’m cool with that. I was always the only Brown kid in school or the only girl at a punk-rock show or whatever. That confidence, being the only one, makes me just show up exactly how I want to show up and not care.”

Born in South Africa with a very traditional upbringing, Vandal was exposed to an eclectic array of music — however disparate it may seem from her current sound. “In the home, it was gospel music. It was soul music. It was traditional South African music, and it was also Sri Lankan music because my parents came from Sri Lanka before they came to South Africa.” And though punk offered a real perspective shift years later, much of these early sounds have seeped into her work today. There is, I realize quickly, authenticity and self-knowledge deep in the bones of everything Vandal does. “Gospel music is heavily choral, and everyone’s singing in beautiful harmony at the top of their lungs. It’s so expressive, and that’s something that I learned from that music as a kid. How to really express yourself fully… I would say Sri Lankan music is incredibly beat-driven. It’s party music and incredibly fun. You’ve probably heard those rhythms done so beautifully by M.I.A. It’s called Baila, celebration music — and that was the music that we partied to as kids.” She takes time thinking of each answer — it’s been years since Vandal has done an interview, though the nerves she warned me of have yet to show up. She’s fluid, honest, and intuitive — just like the version of Vandal that’s gone viral in our feeds. 

Though she has siblings, they are older, growing up was a solitary experience, especially when it came to finding an identity. Left to her own devices, sourcing of her own music and style rested entirely on Vandal’s shoulders. “My friends were looking to other people, and I really wanted to find icons that I could follow. But I honestly didn’t really resonate with a lot of people… I just was more interested in the way people express themselves.” I notice Vandal rarely, if ever, seems to complain — everything comes with a hefty side of gratitude. “I just had a lot of time on my hands as a child. I was sad that I couldn’t go to the club with my sisters, so I had my own little party at home.” Alone, Vandal pored obsessively through whatever records were within reach, without a mentor, but also without a voice in her ear dictating the good versus the bad, in versus out. Vandal sought nothing but an expression she could relate to. And she first found that in jazz.

“No one was telling me that jazz was cool. I just realized that it made me feel something, and I wanted to know a lot more about it,” she says, wide-eyed. Allowing her new passion to run rampant, Vandal secretly auditioned for jazz music school in Australia — and was accepted, against her parents’ wishes. “That was the moment I was like, ‘Oh wow.’ It totally blew my mind and opened up a world of music that I didn’t really know existed.” Quickly, she was a fixture hugging the wall at jazz clubs, consuming as much instrumental music as possible, though Vandal’s world was just beginning to expand. School soon led her to Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, and the broad landscape of vocal jazz. But though the world as she knew it had grown wider, Vandal’s scope was still narrow. Then one day, a friend handed her a Radiohead CD.

“That CD, and guitar-based music in general, changed my world… I became obsessed with punk music. I had a really shitty little guitar, so I started playing really badly into my Garage Band.” Coming from the refined technicality of jazz, she’d immediately found what she had been looking for. “I was drawn to the way that they just freely expressed themselves and used their voices — and that was exactly what they intended to do. It was loud. It was unapologetic. I wanted to do that myself. It inspired me to go, ‘I want to say something and express my own feelings in that way too.’”

When, as young people, we home in our interests — especially if it falls under the “alternative” umbrella — the next step is often to find the “scene.” Spawned from Black Flag in Hermosa Beach, there was the male-dominated Los Angeles hardcore scene of the 1980s. In the early aughts, emo’s third wave — primarily straight, white kids — held communion on Warped Tour black tops and in MySpace forums. The 2010s saw a tight, exclusive, and drug-addled network of American Apparel-ed folks holding court in downtown NYC. 

“By this time, I was in Australia, so I didn’t really find myself within specific communities or scenes at all. I didn’t really feel like I fit into any scenes there. I grew up in a very white neighborhood. I went to a very white school. I didn’t feel like I quite had a place to go, even though I was discovering alternative music. It didn’t feel like I was quite included in that space. It was just me discovering all of this stuff on my own. Community is super important to music and to art, but also, I’m not really interested in ‘scenes because I think that really separates a lot of people, especially for people of my skin color and women as well, you can feel very unwelcome in certain spaces. So I’m not about scenes at all, but I definitely believe in community and building community. I’m all about that. I’m still finding my community. If I’m honest, I’m still finding who that is and where that fits in the world. That’s why I love traveling so much.”

At the top of this year, she packed up her life in Melbourne into two suitcases, and hasn’t looked back since. “I like having that freedom that comes along with just not being planted anywhere right now,” she tells me, beaming through royal blue bangs. 

Over the last week, while enjoying her freedom, Vandal checked some big boxes and played her very first U.S. headlining shows — at NYC’s Night Club 101 and LA’s El Cid. Each sold-out room, complete with a crowd who knew her lyrics word-for-word, was surely a far cry from the “cave” she inhabited back in Australia. To be fair, change has been the only constant this year for Vandal — and she’s embracing it. “It’s a lot, but I feel very grateful for the way that I get to experience the world,” she grins, explaining how in recent months, she and her (now three) suitcases have traveled from Australia to Asia, then Europe to the States. 

Having known, loved, and lived with more than one musician, I have seen how destabilizing touring can be, leaving one ungrounded. For some, despite uncertain sleeping conditions, life on the road is the preferable one — structure and routine, connection and kinship, the euphoric high of showtime before the gear’s been loaded up after the final show and the comedown hits. Home is a hard adjustment. For others, the touring itself is a drain, and returning to domesticity at the end of a run is a beacon of light. Budget, jadedness, bandmates can separate the two camps — but at the end of the day, or the end of the tour, what and where one finds “home” is different for everyone. Home for Ecca Vandal, it turns out, is wherever she wants and needs to be. 

What really grounds her has been the people she’s surrounded herself with. And like everything, intention is at play — “It’s really important that I surround myself with the right people… I feel like if I can have a little bit of a family travel with me, that’s everything. It’s really kind of a family band in a way.” But though she’s been rightfully particular about the inner circle, its bounds are flexible for the right fit. “I’m really drawn to people who have an opinion and who are really strong within themselves,” she explains. “People who’ve had the experience before me and who are willing to share it and to give me advice freely. Because I’ve been around a lot of people who have had the experience but don’t necessarily want to share their experience or their story.” 

That’s another thing Vandal hasn’t had to wait long for. Her feed is a checkerboard of icons, now mentors — there she is, an arm wrapped around Travis Barker, or Shirley Manson, or Hayley Williams — though she describes to me how these aren’t passerby flicks with a famous person. Each photo pays homage to an “OG” who has played a role in Vandal’s ascent. “It’s love and practical support. I’ve been on calls with them, asking for advice. They give me real support, not just like, ‘Oh, I’ve reshared your video.’” In fact, it was Manson who bestowed one of the most important pieces of advice Vandal has yet to receive: “Don’t change a thing.”

The first artist to extend a hand was Fred Durst, who invited Vandal on tour with Limp Bizkit before “CRUISING” was taking off — a tour which would take her new songs and career to another level, not to mention another audience. But it wasn’t just the exposure. “Fred really showed up for us, always checking in, seeing if I’ve slept, even making sure we had access to a bus, which was crazy. I’m forever grateful to him for that because I think it’s the main reason I’m still here — because I slept on that tour!” Fred is an incredible mentor, because he actually cares. He actually invited me on the tour before the third single was even released. He’s always ahead and has his finger solidly on the pulse, a true ally for new artists.” 

A few months back, I stumbled upon another member of Vandal’s fan club: Tony Hawk. When I asked the legendary skater, known for his immaculate taste in alternative music, who he was excited about, who he was listening to — Ecca Vandal was the first name out of his mouth. Appropriately so, her sonic palette paints with the same colors as the punk, fringe music Hawk has long since championed. Plus, Vandal’s music video that was going viral paid tribute to skate culture. Solidifying his own breed of practical support, Hawk posted a clip of himself skating to “CRUISING” — “I lost my shit,” Vandal tells me, about first seeing Hawk’s post. But he’d also sent her a message, “That song means so much to me,” he told her, explaining how the track and its message of perseverance had been the perfect soundtrack for pushing through learning a challenging new trick. 

It was a full-circle moment, reading that. She’d soaked this song in particular with inspiration imbued from the feeling, and ethos, of skating. “Skaters dance on the board. They’re in control, and they’re very present. I was really drawn to how trusting they are with themselves on the board. You have to really trust that you know what you’re going to do. I want to feel that, too.” Still one of her own favorite songs, “CRUISING TO SELF SOOTHE” runs with this. It’s a reminder to keep going — one that Vandal notes will always be relevant.

Though intrigued from an early age, Vandal wasn’t always a skater herself. “Look, I’ve been obsessed with skate culture for my whole life, but growing up as a Brown girl in that community… There were not a lot of girls who wanted to be a part of that. It wasn’t until I met my partner, who is a skater, that I was around it a lot more, always low-key. I just went and watched skaters at the skate park.” But the pandemic changed things. “I decided, ‘I’m just going to learn how to skate.’ Everyone was like, ‘You are crazy. You’ll get hurt.’ But there was something about it. I was ready to push myself. At first, I could not even stand on the board. It’s really hard, just standing on it. It’s a legitimate fear, too. Dropping in is scary as fuck if you’d never done it before. But confronting fears at that time was the psychological challenge I needed. There was something about that period when I was writing music and challenging myself in that way, where I was actually just confronting some deep fears. Learning how to skateboard and writing music at that time really worked hand in hand.” 

Where Hawk took her music to the ramp, the risks Vandal took on the board went straight to the studio. And there, applying the same principles, alongside Kid Not, she dropped in. “If I didn’t try a trick, then I was never ever going to land,” she says, tying the two worlds with a bow. “Richie and I have this phrase, ‘Shit is the best fertilizer.’ Because a shit idea will force you to interrogate why it’s a shit idea, and that might lead to the idea.” Not to mention, when you’re working as a duo, with no label at the time, backing, or budget — trying, and trying again, is part of the journey. But having to do things DIY has paid off — from her visceral, vibrant music videos to production to her unique aesthetic — allowing Vandal to preserve authenticity, and control the narrative, and now, partner with her new label Loma Vista. But relying on and trusting oneself also has pitfalls. “It’s all in a gut feeling, and that’s really hard,” she admits. “Sometimes I have to convince a lot of other people to have the same gut feeling.” 

The key? “Denial,” she says frankly. “There’s a certain level of denial you have to have, because if I’m looking to other people, then I can easily get sidetracked and distracted from what we’re trying to do.” And if we could sum it up on a word, what Vandal is trying to do — that’s easy. “The ultimate goal is just to be free. I feel the most free when I’m doing things that I love. Skating, playing a show, being locked up in a room writing songs or having a meal with my family, the people that I’m on the boat with.” It may sound simple, but I’d implore you to watch Vandal live or put on a music video. Free fits.

Interview/Editor-in-Chief: Anna Zanes

Photography: Sarah Pardini

Styling: Alabama Blonde

Makeup: Kelby Adam

Production: Josh Beech

Editorial Director: Josh Madden

Content Editor: Neville Hardman

Lead Designer: Rob Ortenzi

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