Dahvie Vanity

Jesus David Torres (born September 5, 1984 in North Carolina ), better known by his stage name Dahvie Vanity , is an American singer , songwriter and music producer . He gained fame primarily through the music project Blood on the Dance Floor , which he founded and of which he - at times as the only official member - is responsible for singing and songwriting, and since 2018 also for production. He also received negative media attention through allegations of sexual assault. It is also known by the name Dahvie Insanity .

Private life

Torres was born in North Carolina on September 5, 1984 to Puerto Ricans . He comes from a poor family and grew up with his half-sister in a trailer park . In 2017 Torres spoke for the first time about having lived under depression and suicidal thoughts . Dahvie Vanity was engaged to his bandmate Fallon Vendetta from 2017 . The couple separated in 2019.

Musical creation

Blood on the Dance Floor

Main article: Blood on the Dance Floor (band)

According to Dahvie Vanity, he founded the music project Blood on the Dance Floor in 2006. The first line-up consisted of his friends Christopher Mongillo and Rebecca Fugate . In 2008 the band released their first album Let's Start a Riot! , initially without commercial success. However, Fugate did not live to see the release of the album, having previously died in a car accident. After Fugate's death and Mongillo's exit while recording the next album, Vanity continued the project alone. Garrett Ecstasy was later hired as accompanist, who can be heard on the second album It's Hard to Be a Diamond in a Rhinestone World , and the subsequent EPs I Scream I Scream , Extended Play and OMFG Sneak Peak . During the tour to promote an upcoming third album, the duo split up. After Ecstasy left, Jayy von Monroe and Matty M took over his part at the same time , before the latter left the band after only one recorded song.

With the entry of Monroes as an equal lead singer alongside Vanity, the band's first commercial success came: the albums Epic and All The Rage , released in 2010 and 2011 respectively ! were able to prove themselves in the US Top Dance / Electronic Albums charts in positions 5 and 13. Blood on the Dance Floor reached the peak of their career between 2012 and 2013, when the two studio albums (R) Evolution and Bad Blood , as well as the EP The Anthem of the Outcast, were in the US Billboard 200 charts in 42nd, 137th place and 140 could reach. The following studio album, Bitchcraft , which was released in 2014, could no longer build on the successes and only positioned itself at number 18 in the dance charts. No chart success was achieved in any of the works that appeared after that.

In 2016, Jayy von Monroe left the project, which was then ended for the time being. In 2017 Vanity founded Blood on the Dance Floor together with the singer Fallon Vendetta again and three more studio albums followed with her before she also left the project in 2019. The band's twelfth and final album, Hollywood Death Star , recorded Vanity as the sole member. After that, the project was officially ended.

Dahvie Vanity is the only band member who can be heard on all of Blood on the Dance Floor's works.

Master of Death

In 2015 both band members of Blood on the Dance Floor decided to release a solo album each. Jayy von Monroe's album 10 CMD was created under the name JayyVon, and Dahvie Vanity's album of the same name under the pseudonym Master of Death. It is a concept album about the fight of the benign Skull Kid against the evil force Ultima. Dahvie Vanity took on both of the leading roles with different vocal effects; other parts were sung by Jayy von Monroe and Kerry Louise . The sound of the album is strongly influenced by the dubstep genre and sometimes contains more unconventional song structures than on the Blood on the Dance Floor albums. In 2017 Vanity released another single as Master of Death called Otherside of Fear , which tells the story of the album, together with his fiancée and Blood on the Dance Floor bandmate Fallon Vendetta . The song was later included on the Blood on the Dance Floor album Haunted .

Sinners are winners

After Blood on the Dance Floor broke up in 2016, Dahvie Vanity decided to rename itself Dahvie Insanity and start a new music project called Sinners are Winners. This differed from the previous music in particular through a hard, dark industrial metal sound and an aesthetic influenced by Satanism . The two studio albums For Beginners and The Invocation were released under this name in 2016 and 2017. As with Master of Death, a Sinners are Winners single recorded with Fallon Vendetta, World of Secrets , which was later to be found on Haunted , was released.

Kawaii monsters

In 2019, Vanity announced that Hollywood Death Star , Blood on the Dance Floor's twelfth studio album, would be their last. During the promo phase for this, the musician released the 4-song EP Poison Love under the pseudonym Kawaii Monster (named after the ninth Blood on the Dance Floor album of the same name ) . From November 29, 2019 you could order the first Kawaii Monster album Love From Hell as a CD in the artist's official shop ; on February 21, 2020 it was also released on well-known streaming platforms. The music of this pseudonym can be described as a more pop-heavy version of industrial rock by Sinners are Winners.

Musical style

Dahvie Vanity's musical style spans a wide spectrum. The different Blood on the Dance Floor albums alone often differ greatly from one another. The EPs The Anthem of the Outcast and Cruel Pornography are characterized by hard Metalcore sounds, while Epic contains clear techno , sometimes even Eurodance elements. Master of Death, like the Blood on the Dance Floor albums Bad Blood and Bitchcraft , rely on electronic dubstep background music, which is characterized by bass drops ; the Sinners are Winners project consists entirely of industrial metal music. Dahvie Vanity's singing style relies on both a clear vocal presentation and Screamo ; he can also be heard rapping on many songs. His voice is often distorted with various effects.

In the early years, Dahvie Vanity's lyrics were strongly characterized by explicitly sexual content and provocative brutality, often with a self-expression familiar from hip-hop . Later he expanded his spectrum and took on increasingly serious topics such as bullying , suicide , Weltschmerz , depression or the commercial and superficial character of the mainstream . When the scandals and the associated emotionally charged, negative criticism about the singer accumulated in the course of his career, he also processed them in his lyrics.

Allegations of abuse and other controversies

Dahvie Vanity has repeatedly been accused of aggressive sexual behavior, which in some cases even includes allegations of sexual abuse and seduction of minors . In response to this, several social media channels and blogs were set up trying to clarify Vanity's guilt question and dealing intensively and emotionally with the case. In addition to groups that speak out against the singer and collect negative experience reports, there are also supportive groups that focus on positive experiences with the musician. The debate was considered controversial for years, because on the one hand there was a lot of evidence and several incriminating reports, but on the other hand no solid evidence could be found and some people who spoke out against the singer later revised their statements. One of the first and most famous cases is the then eleven year old Jessi Slaughter . When she claimed to have slept with Torres in 2010, it aroused violent, emotional reactions against both the singer and herself. A year later, Slaughter announced the story having invented and apologized to the band. Former singer and current makeup maker Jeffree Star , who previously collaborated with Blood on the Dance Floor, wrote on his Twitter account in 2010 that he had witnessed Vanity's seduction of minors and that he would end his collaboration with the music project, and called on fans to choose between the two. Still, three years later, Star tweeted that he loved Vanity like a brother, extolled the longstanding friendship with the band and appeared as a guest vocalist on the 2014 Blood on the Dance Floor single Poison Apple . It is known that Dahvie Vanity was charged with sexual abuse once, but not convicted.

The band New Years Day , who appeared as a guest on the 2012 Blood on the Dance Floor single Hell on Heels (Givin 'In To Sin) , mentioned in their comment on being kicked out of the line-up of The Scene is Dead - Tour their resistance to bullying by Vanity's band as a reason for the same. It wasn't until 2019 that the band's singer, Ash Costello , stated that the rift was about Dahvie Vanity's attacks on women. She kept a low profile at the time, as in her opinion in times before the MeToo movement it was more likely that the musician would be believed more than the victims. She also criticizes the police for not following up on her complaint against Vanity and the fans of Blood on the Dance Floor for attacking her after she distanced herself from the band.

In December 2018, the Huffington Post began publishing a series of in- depth articles addressing the allegations against Vanity and giving voice to several women who felt they had been molested or raped by the singer. A total of 21 women, 16 of whom were under 18 at the time of the incidents, spoke out against him. In one of the reports, the newspaper uses repeated statements to characterize the musician as a manipulative man who, through his seemingly warm and charming manner, manages to raise doubts in his victims as to whether there was any abuse at all. Immediately after the deeds, he would continue to be on friendly terms as naturally as if nothing had happened, thereby getting them not to testify against him and instead wondering whether they had overreacted themselves. In this way he could also have won the trust of the victims' parents, so that they would not have worried about the apparently platonic relationship with the mostly much older singer. At the request of the newspaper, which was made in the course of the campaign against Vanity, Spotify removed the music Blood on the Dance Floors completely from its repertoire. However, the well-known music streaming service stated that the band's lyrics did not meet the guidelines of the website and the songs were deleted for this reason alone. Due to the repeated coverage of the Huffington Post and the Spotify controversy, other well-known media became aware of the singer's scandals, which were previously not interested in the musician, and have now also taken on the subject.

Dahvie Vanity has also been criticized in the past for his temperament and disrespectful behavior towards other musicians. The singer Lady Nogrady , who can be heard on the song by Blood on the Dance Floor, Bewitched , which is most viewed on YouTube and can be seen in its music video, spoke out against the character of the singer in an emotional commentary and felt she was being exploited by him . In his statement about the separation of the band in 2016, Jayy von Monroe accused his former bandmate of a totalitarian attitude and exploitative tactics towards him. He would have made him dependent on him by managing a joint property, and would have required a lot of work for little wages, including almost the entire songwriting of the Scissors album . Vanity would also have hired Jayy von Monroe's HIV disease treatment behind a planned tour.

Discography

With Blood on the Dance Floor

• 2008: Let's Start a Riot!
• 2008: It's Hard to Be a Diamond in a Rhinestone World
• 2010: Epic
• 2011: All The Rage !!
• 2012: (R) evolution
• 2013: Bad Blood
• 2014: Bitchcraft
• 2016: Scissors
• 2017: Kawaii monsters
• 2018: Haunted
• 2018: Cinema Erotica
• 2019: Hollywood Death Star

As a master of death

• 2015: Master of Death

As Sinners are winners

• 2016: For Beginners
• 2017: The Invocation

As a kawaii monster

• 2019: Love From Hell

Individual evidence

1. ^ Announcement of the new artist name. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
2. ↑ biography. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
3. ↑ Mention of depression. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
4. ↑ First mention of the engagement. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
5. ↑ HuffPost characterization with mention of the separation. Retrieved April 16, 2019 . 
6. ↑ statement on the formation of the band; Note: contains incorrect information about album publication. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
7. ↑ Band development during the first years. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
8. ↑ US Dance / Electronic Charts. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
9. ↑ US charts. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
10. ↑ Statement on Jayy of Monroe's exit. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
11. ^ Announcement of the end of the band. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
12. ↑ Announcement of the founding and a new band member. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
13. ↑ Dahvie Vanity discography. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
14. ↑ Master of Death discography. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
15. ↑ Haunted. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
16. ↑ 10 CMD. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
17. ↑ Sinners are Winners discography. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
18. ^ "Poison Love" EP. Retrieved February 23, 2020 . 
19. ^ "Love From Hell". Retrieved February 23, 2020 . 
20. ↑ It's On Like Donkey Kong Lyrics. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
21. ↑ Sexting lyrics. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
22. ↑ I Can't Get Enuff Lyrics. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
23. ↑ Sex and Violence Lyrics. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
24. ↑ Money and Hoes lyrics. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
25. ↑ Sluts Get Guts Lyrics. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
26. ↑ Rise and Shine lyrics. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
27. ↑ You Are The Heart Lyrics. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
28. ↑ Sick Sad World lyrics. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
29. ↑ Emotional lyrics. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
30. ↑ Fake is the New Trend lyrics. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
31. ↑ You Done Goofed Lyrics. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
32. ↑ Crucified By Your Lied Lyrics. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
33. ↑ I Refuse To Sink (Fuck The Fame) Lyrics. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
34. ↑ Zero Fucks Given lyrics. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
35. ↑ HuffPost article on abuse allegations. Accessed March 28, 2019 . 
36. ↑ Altpress article on abuse allegations. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
37. ↑ MetalSucks Article on Abuse Allegations. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
38. ↑ Tumblr account versus Dahvie Vanity. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
39. ↑ Tumblr account for Dahvie Vanity. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
40. ↑ Facebook account per Dahvie Vanity. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
41. ↑ Twitter account against Dahvie Vanity. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
42. ↑ BuzzFeed article on Jessi Slaughter. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
43. ↑ Jessi Slaughter's apology video. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
44. ↑ Medium article on sexual violence on the Warped Tour quoting Jeffree Star. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
45. ↑ Request to choose between Star and Vanity. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
46. ↑ Indication of loving Vanity like a brother. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
47. ^ Promoting friendship with the band. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
48. ↑ Poison Apple. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
49. ↑ Rapeseed. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
50. ↑ Hell on Heels (Givin 'In To Sin). Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
51. ↑ Statement about being kicked out of the tour. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
52. ↑ Ash Costello on Dahvie Vanity. Retrieved May 13, 2019 . 
53. ↑ First HuffPost article on abuse allegations. Retrieved May 13, 2019 . 
54. ↑ HuffPost characterization. Retrieved April 16, 2019 . 
55. ↑ HuffPost article on Spotify ban. Retrieved May 13, 2019 . 
56. ↑ Billboard article on Spotify bans and HuffPost investigations. Retrieved May 13, 2019 . 
57. ↑ Pitchfork article on Spotify ban and HuffPost investigations. Retrieved May 13, 2019 . 
58. ↑ Rolling Stone article on Spotify ban and HuffPost investigations. Retrieved May 13, 2019 . 
59. ↑ Bewitched music video. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
60. ↑ opinion on the relationship with Dahvie Vanity. Retrieved March 27, 2019 . 
61. ↑ Statement on Jayy of Monroe's exit. Retrieved March 27, 2019 .