PHIL VERA

Phil Vera has been writing, performing and producing music since he received an electric guitar on his 13th birthday. He shortly began playing in local bands and eventually formed both Crom and Despise You in the early 90s. As part of a newer genre of music called Powerviolence, both bands performed short, fast and loud songs consisting of breakdowns and constant tempo changes during wild and chaotic live concerts. He also graduated from Loyola Marymount University with a BA in Communications. 

Phil joined the band -(16)- and entered the studio with producer Alex Newport (At The Drive In, Bloc Party, Mars Volta) and later Jeff Forrest (Blink 182, Rocket From The Crypt) to record A Blaze of Incompetence and Zoloft Smile respectively. He went on to record with Eddie Ashworth (Pennywise, Unwritten Law) Despise You’s West Side Horizons (which made LA Weekly’s top 20 greatest LA punk albums of all time in 2012). Despise You would head back into the studio much later with producer Paul Fig (Slipknot, Ghost) to record And On And On… for the popular underground metal label, Relapse Records. The time spent in the studio working with different engineers prompted Phil to start working on his own projects.  

After being approached by director Todd Hickey to write a song for the soundtrack of Takedowns and Falls, his documentary about high-school wrestling in Pennsylvania, Phil helped form Mayan Bull, an instrumental project in 2011. They recorded a 10-minute track A Dangerous Gun with producer Paul Fig (Alice In Chains, Deftones, John Wick 2) in Phil’s living room. The experience would be the catalyst for his next venture. With a new ear on recording, he converted his garage in 2012 into what is now Veracuda Studios: a fully realized recording studio in El Sereno specializing in engineering, mixing and producing. Around this time, Phil also earned an MA in Commercial Music at California State University Los Angeles.  

Since then he has produced a number of records for Los Angeles bands like ACxDC, Fissure, Keverra and Persekutor, as well as his own bands Despise You, Crom, and Trappist, a band he formed with longtime friends Chris Dodge (Spazz, No Use For A Name, Infest) and Ryan Harkins (owner of Grill Em All, a heavy metal-themed restaurant) and recorded and produced Ancient Brewing Tactics in 2018 for Relapse Records and Cross Faded in 2021 for the Tankcrimes label.

His love for film and film scoring has led him to work on short films. He wrote the music for the short film Abuela (2018) and is working on another short film Get Here scheduled for release in 2022.