We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Paragraph Taylor. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Paragraph below.

Paragraph, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

The biggest risk I’ve taken in my personal and professional life was a decade ago this fall, moving from Dallas TX to Vallejo CA. I’d written what would become the first ManifestiV record in Dallas while playing live guitar with a nü-metal band called Adakain, and that album manifested the exact opposite of everything I was doing live. I’d left a band called Secret Of Boris that I’d started in Dallas, and I felt auxiliary to what was happening in Adakain, so my ties to Texas were more loose than they’d ever been. I’d wanted to move back to CA ever since moving from there to TX both in 1988 & 1999, so when Lillith Taylor invited me to join her in Vallejo, I took that record I was writing out there, asking her if she knew anyone in the San Francisco Bay Area that would be interested in forming a band around it. She then professed her hidden high school talent of playing vibraphone which I’d never even considered a possible element of dark or industrial tinged music, and she volunteered to dust off her chops, assemble a DIY vibraphone, and learn the songs. If I hadn’t have taken that risk, ManifestiV would be like any other heavy dark band, falling into obscurity as opposed to it shining as inspiration for so many in its years since formation.

Paragraph, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I got into music at a young age. My birth father played guitar & engineered audio, so that apple barely fell from the tree, as he put my on my first Mac(intosh) & synthesizer workstation at age 5. A decade later, I finally succumbed to the heaviness of guitar that keyboards simply couldn’t provide, and I started playing in bands & writing my own music. Fast forward to ManifestiV which is more than just an apocalyptic industrial band. ManifestiV unlocks the sovereignty within every human to fully manifest their own realities, away from the shackles of tradition, generation, the “norm”, expectation, or any other regimen that prevents any from seeking their own path for which they’re most passionate. ManifestiV also is the party of the end times, not by way of ignorance or sugar-coating, but via embracing our destiny’s final chapter and facing the harsh reality that humans alone have brought on our own demise as a species. Through lack of denial of humanity’s imminent end, we relish remaining love and celebrate our differences, all too aware of what little time left there is to waste on malicious conflict.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

Music autobiographies help guide a light towards brighter successes in the industry. Just since the pandemic began, Dresden Dolls’ Amanda Palmer’s “The Art Of Asking”, Tool / A Perfect Circle / Puscifer’s Maynard James Keenan’s “A Perfect Union Of Contrary Things”, Nirvana / Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl’s “The Storyteller” and currently U2’s Bono’s “Surrender” show how similar paths, doubts, triumphs & errors align between those with the level of success we still strive for, and our own.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

The beginning of 2020, ManifestiV had an 80+ date tour planned, spanning both coasts of the United States, ending up with an artist visa to live in Berlin, Germany. When the pandemic set in, with all our eggs in that basket & no backup plan to stay in TX, we had little to pivot with, but we listened to the Universe. My grandmother was trying to sell her antique house on a small plot of land in east Texas to no avail, but to us in ManifestiV, anything was better than starting over or living back in the tour rig, especially at the start of a pandemic that showed no signs of slowing down. We took the risk, moved in, recorded a couple albums there, and now have years of trial & error behind us for growing vegetables in Texas. That pivot made it far easier for us, when food is no longer available at grocers, to have a few years of practice growing our own. Without it, we’d still be in a full blown metropolitan lifestyle, alongside a few million others unprepared for when the house of cards fully collapses. All this aids in our mantra as an apocalyptic industrial band to be the last live music playing on Earth.  

Contact Info:

• Website: ManifestiV.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/ParagraphTaylor
• Facebook: facebook.com/ParagraphTaylor
• Twitter: twitter.com/ParagraphTaylor
• Youtube: youtube.com/@ParagraphTaylor

Image Credits
All photos ©2023 Fixated Photography