Veradas - Hud Money single
Release date: May 8th 2026
Artist Information
- Label: Dipterid Records
- Genre: Psychedelic Grunge
- Hometown: Portland, OR
- RIYL: King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Jane’s Addiction, Osees, Nirvana
Biography
For the members of fuzz-driven psych-rock trio Veradas, the band represents both the culmination of three musicians’ winding journeys through the music industry and a defiant middle finger to its rigidity. The Portland, Oregon-based band is all about following it’s own creative impulses. There are no Veradas “brand pillars,” and the band doesn’t conform to genre standards. After all, how many psych bands count The Everly Brothers as a big influence?
Veradas’s debut album, Universal Relays, is a 10-song onslaught of sludgy riffs, tribal drums, harmony vocals, arty effects, and cathartic hooks. In some form or another, this beast of a record is conceptually or musically inspired by shoegaze, jazz, funk, 1990s grunge and alt-rock, Kraut rock, American psych, the madness of the Aussies, the abandonment of the Pacific Northwest, and, of course, The Every Brothers. Universal Relays will be preceded by the art-grunge single “Hud Money.”
“We’ll take on anything. We’re not afraid to let any genre influence us. Some of these songs are inspired by the most random things, but they still end up sounding like us,” says guitarist, vocalist, and lyricist Travis Ferguson.
Locked in a Portland basement, the trio—rounded out by drummer Shane Fisher and bassist/vocalist John Hetherington—writes democratically, sculpting songs from extended jams. These improvised sessions congeal into imaginatively arranged mini-epics that make full use of the band’s three-piece instrumentation and dual vocal attack.
As the primary lyricist, Ferguson favors themes that grapple with the digital abyss and the full spectrum of the human experience, from fighting the system to fighting just to get out of bed in the morning. His words are barbed and brainy, informed by his trifecta of college degrees in literature, philosophy, and Eastern religion.
“I write about making sense of life in a world that seems to constantly make it hard for you. Why does this device [cellphone] cause so many problems? But in the 1930s, the big issue was everyone staring down at their newspapers. Before that, the Egyptians used to say writing would ruin people’s memories. It’s all a distraction to ruin truth and obscure meaning,” Ferguson says.
The band’s curious name pulls mismatched words from the 1951 science fiction film The Day the Earth Stood Still (Berada), and the 1992 comedic horror film Army of Darkness (Verata). In Spanish,“veradas” is the feminine plural of verado which means “varied,” and in Hungarian it can mean “bloodletting.” While no explicit meaning was intended, “bloodletting” aptly captures the band’s pointed lyrics and frenetic live performances.
To date, Veradas has released a three-song single, a seven-inch record via Time Release Records, and three digital singles. The trio is deeply entrenched in the Portland and Eugene scenes, regularly performing with like-minded bands at venues such as Bunk Bar, The Six, and John Henry’s. Features on Seattle's KEXP and the “Bottom 40" Podcast, along with regional touring, have steadily increased the band’s visibility. This spring, Veradas tours with Fluid Druid through Arcata, Oakland, Seattle, Tacoma, Eugene, and Corvallis.
All three members bring storied musical backgrounds. Shortly after high school, Ferguson formed the Britpop, pop-punk band Marigold, which quickly became Northwest darlings, sharing stages with with Screaming Trees, The Dandy Warhols, Everclear, and the Brian Jonestown Massacre, among others. Marigold worked with Scott McCaughey (R.E.M, Young Fresh Fellows), Ken Stringfellow (the Posies, R.E.M), and Scott Litt (R.E.M), and were courted by Dreamworks but end up signing to Outpost. However, band and label weren’t aligned and Ferguson found himself at 23 years of age sitting at home with no money and no band.
He passed his wilderness years searching and experimenting with different sounds and projects. “Eventually, the only thing that made sense was to stop trying to manufacture something and just write what I like, letting the boundaries fall away,” he says. “It was like chiseling away at a big piece of marble to get to the beauty inside.”
Ferguson first met Fisher in the late ’90s when Fisher’s band Drive played with Marigold. Since then, Fisher has worked with producer Gregg Williams (Dandy Warhols, Emmylou Harris), and achieved publishing success with placements in film and television. Hetherington joined Veradas after relocating from Texas in 2024, where he performed in post-punk and psych-shoegaze bands and also earned film and television placements. Today, the trio is fully self-contained: Ferguson records the band, while Hetherington mixes and masters the releases.
The title of the single, Hud Money, is a thinly-veiled nod to Mudhoney. Its fuzzed-out riffs, pummeling drums, and rugged hooks evoke the iconic grunge outfit, but comparisons end there. Veradas also mines a grunge-gaze sensibility, crafting a noisy wall of sound from layered guitar effects and sinister harmonies.
Ferguson’s lyrics here seethe as he writes from the perspective of a person feeling swallowed up by technology. He sings: I am just a sentimental reject/Cursed of form and not to become effect/why/there’s some form of universal relays/While I myself am lost among the egress. “In the era I grew up in, I’ve seen how the digital world has driven a new stage of human evolution,” Ferguson says. “These lyrics come from the frustration, fear, anxiety, and addiction of the digital age. We all get pulled into the screens. It’s the new norm.”
Upcoming Shows
- May 31st // Seattle, WA // El Corazon
- June 3rd // Portland, OR // Holocene
- July 8th // Astoria, OR // Xanadu Astoria
- July 9th // Olympia, WA // McCoy's Tavern
- July 10th // Portland, OR // Bunk Bar
- July 11th // Eugene, OR // John Henry's
- July 12th // Portland, OR // Music Millennium
- July 23rd // Seattle, WA // Chop Suey
Listen (or download here)
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