Header photo credit: Tobia Denney
Taryn Vankerkhove used to walk into bars with a phone full of demos and no shame about it. A couple of drinks in, she’d grab a stranger, drag them out to the car, and play whatever she and Zach had just written. That’s how two-thirds of her rhythm section got recruited. No auditions required, just a captive audience and a half-decent stereo.
That casual yet all-in energy is still the engine behind Designer, the hard-hitting, woman-led rock band out of Asheville. They write together, road-trip together, and also make major life decisions in the front seat of a two-seat truck. I caught up with the band before their set at Phuzz Fest in Winston-Salem to talk about how they came together, the band name they didn’t so much choose as inherit, and the long road to their debut LP, HEADCASE.
How did you all come together and start the band?
Taryn (vocals): Zach and I are a couple. He had been playing his whole life and was at a crossroads with another band. This is actually my first time ever being in a band. We just started writing together. I had a couple of melodies that were always kind of in the back of my head. We finally just did it and added music to them.
Zach (guitar/vocals): She had sung them to me a couple of times, and I was like, “Those are pretty good songs!”
Taryn: Then Aaron, he’s my best friend. We’re both from Rochester, New York, though we all live in Asheville now. He’s been playing his whole life; he’s an amazing drummer, and he’s been in all kinds of bands. He dropped all of those and moved to Asheville to do this one, because he loves it so much. We love him so much.
Aaron (drums): They sent me the couch recordings, and I booked a flight immediately. I was in utter disbelief. We actually recorded drums that same weekend, because we were like, “Maybe we’ll just be a recording project.” But it got so fun, and the songs were developing.
Taryn: We were a three-piece at that point, and I was like, “I’ve got to find a bass player.” I found Nick, but he’s a guitarist. Still, he was willing to play bass. We were at this bar that’s like our living room, an old honky-tonk spot. I was like, “Hey, check out these demos.” I’d drag people into the car after a couple of drinks to hear them, and it was always a pretty good response. So I kept doing it.
Nick (guitar/vocals): Almost immediately, I was like, “Oh fuck, this is sick. I’ll play. I’m in.”
Taryn: Then I met Andrew completely randomly. I had never met him before in my life. We just clicked instantly. Dragged him into the car to hear the demos, and he said he’d play bass. So then I was like, well, I always wanted two guitarists because I love twin leads and harmonies.
Andrew (bass): And we’re all best friends.
At what point did the lineup finalize?
Taryn: Back in July of 2024, I think. We played our first show, and then Helene hit.
Nick: I remember we were practicing as a four-piece, we’d had like two practices, and then I came on to play guitar, which I was happy about. The whole sound just went boom. Once Nick stepped in, we all kind of looked at each other and started laughing. It was like, “Whoa, we’ve got something here.”
Taryn: And we were called Shampoo at the time.
Zach: Yeah, that was the original name.
What led to the switch?
Taryn: There’s a 90s band called Shampoo. They did the Power Rangers movie theme song; they were huge in Japan. When they came back, there was some sort of threat. They said, “Anyone who nicks our stuff is going to get their head bashed in.” [laughs] We were like, “We should change our name. They must be talking about us.”
You mentioned Hurricane Helene. How did that storm impact y’all?
Taryn: It was awful. We were physically split for a while, on top of just general recovery. Asheville was a mess for a good while. Before it hit, I was just so happy. I felt like everything in my life was kind of making sense for once because I had this band. And then I woke up, and it was changed. There was nothing you could do to go back. I just couldn’t handle it. So I went to New Orleans to drink about it and cry about it.
Zach: Andrew and Nick stayed in Asheville. The three of us went to New Orleans for a couple of months because Taryn used to live there and had support and places to stay. There was no power, no clean water, no jobs.
Aaron: I was living up in New York, but we were touring throughout the separation. I was flying down, and we just kept going.
What was the process of coming back together after that?
Taryn: One reason we went to New Orleans was that we had a show booked there a week after the storm. So we were just like, “Why don’t we go now?” They came down, and we played the show. A couple of months later, we did a little southern tour from New Orleans back to Asheville.
Zach: We were just determined to bring it back. It was such a special thing that had been unlocked between all of us. Booking shows was a way to stay motivated.
Aaron: I would come down for the tours, and then eventually just moved back. Now we live together.
Taryn: When we first started playing live, we actually played out of town more than in Asheville. The first show was in Charlotte. That was sort of the silver lining of the whole storm and separation. We were able to do a little more traveling right off the bat, which is good for a band. It raised our ambitions higher.
Nick: I just remember cutting our teeth in front of those poor people from Alabama. It was like my third show ever. There’s a learning curve, but it’s better to deal with the nerves when there isn’t much to lose.
Image credit: Hannah Sommer
What was the process of putting those songs together and starting to work on the record? Did that start after you returned to Asheville?
Taryn: I finished the tour when they were living in New Orleans, and we ended in Asheville. We did our first recordings at Echo Mountain before the guys flew back to New York. I sort of thought, since Zach was going back to Rochester, we’d better document this. We needed to stay positive about something. Recording was a way to be like, “See, we’re still doing this thing.”
Zach: I might have never come back otherwise. And now it’s a year and a half later, and the record is about to come out. I just kept adding stuff; more guitar, more layers, rerecording. A year of riffs.
And you all produced it yourselves? Did you work with other producers?
Taryn: Zach did a lot of the engineering and made it all make sense before it went anywhere.
Zach: Executive producer. I basically just made the songs make sense so Jay didn’t have to.
Taryn: That’s the guy who mixed it, his name’s Jay Ruston. He’s an LA guy who’s got a Grammy nomination, maybe even a Grammy. He did a lot of big rock and metal things like Anthrax, among others.
I met him online, oddly enough. There was this band from LA called Cobra Man that I was obsessed with, even before I had this band. Jay had done something for them; they tagged him, and I followed him. He was oddly interested when I mentioned I played music, and we just started chatting. He said, “Send me anything,” so we sent him our earliest demos. He mixed those, and we were able to release them. Then he came on for the album.
As you’re getting ready to release the record, what else is on the books that you’re looking forward to?
Taryn: We’ve got some stuff coming up. We’re doing Chicago and Detroit as part of a little Midwest run in June. And then we’re going to Europe in September. That’s the big one. It’s going to cost a lot, but we’re going to find a way.
Aaron: It’s almost a month of shows. Germany, France, Italy. A good little run. It’s coming up quick.
Zach: I’m both looking forward to it and dreading it because it’s my 40th birthday while we’re there.
What’s the process of putting something like a European tour together? Just saying you want to do it and working backward?
Taryn: There’s a booker over there who’s doing it and aligning all the details. We kind of bugged him a little bit. We were in his DMs like, “Hey, listen to us, look at us.” And then he was just like, “Let’s do it!”
Are there any local Asheville or North Carolina artists that have been your favorites to get to know or just listen to?
Taryn: DÖLTZ. We’re excited to see them tonight. We met them at Hopscotch last September; they’re both from Greensboro. They’re playing at the end of the night at Fair Witness, which is a cool cocktail bar downtown. The guys who run that place are awesome.
Nick: CHEEKS. Shout out Mockery and Camel Cash.
Taryn: Shout out to Mary, she’s a good friend who owns a rock and roll venue. And shout out Waywoods and Static Age Records. They’re like two friends of ours really keeping that rock and roll thing going in Asheville. There’s a lot of variety of rock and roll in Asheville, which is really cool, but you’re also fighting for space and attention. So having dedicated spaces matters. There are a lot of jam bands up in the mountains.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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