Rock Stars Of Tomorrow Las Vegas Concert

In the heart of the Las Vegas valley, at a venue geared to guide musicians to stardom, I had the opportunity of checking out some of the best rock-n-roll bands on their rise to the top. These rockstars and some of the music industry's finest gathered with family, friends and diehard fans to support this historic occasion. A name that invokes intrigue and a sound that resonates with bands like Nine Inch Nails, Disturbed or Type-O Negative, it was The Nocturnal Affair that blew the lid off the joint as the headliner. Accompanying them in the line up was Coco Vaughn and the rising star and certainly no stranger to fame, Jager Henry .

Into the doors of this Rockstars of Tomorrow building lies a musicians paradise city, an iconic music academy known for their many legendary affiliations. The bands loaded in, completed their sound checks and gave me the chance to sneak in an interview or two. Past the Labyrinth door knockers and in a hallway of sound booths, Jager talked about how his passions and iconic influences helped him create the fusion of music voodoo that his fans rock out to. Now for those of you who may not already know, with a father like Jason Bonham and a grandfather like John Bonham, Jager was surrounded by some of the best rock-n-roll ever produced for most of his life. That's just it though, even with the pressures and expectations of those who know his lineage, he's stepping up from behind the throne, into the light of his own making.

When asking Jager how he figured out his process of putting together his own unique sound he said, “It's terrifying, it's like, we just kind of went with the flow of what we were doing, and tried different things. I was always stepping back and forth, outside of music, inside of music, and finally just kind of… found that sound and after that, we just kind of ran with it. It was the music I liked, I heard the influences of the things I liked and was just like ‘I wanna put my own twist on it’. There's so many bands out there that kinda sound similar, and I was like ‘I wanna sound similar’ because you want people to understand what you're trying to do but you also wanna have that thing where you're like Woah!”.

Simply put, “Trial and error” and when I asked him about the process of discovering some of his new music he said, “Sit there and play rifts like there was nothing else to do in the day. You forget about eating, forget about going to the bathroom, just sit there and we're rifting, rifting, rifting. That was all we did. Me and my producer were working on it, and I remember when he first played the Heart Of Thrones rift, the title track. When he did, we were in a house, my friend Little Lotus’ house, on his couch, that was the lowest couch I've ever sat on, with his Sphinx cat sitting on my chest. Everything just came to me, it was beautiful from that moment on, everything just became amazing”. I was curious about the buzz from fellow rockers and fans alike regarding his bands momentum and how he felt about that, to which he replied, “I'm just enjoying every moment, you know? [laughs]”.

Jager Henry's passion for their music and casual approach to making it has given them the sounds that people love. When talking about the event, he mentioned, “It's a serious event, but it's also like a thing where we can trial and error, so we're doing a whole different set we've never done before, we're doing a whole new intro. We're trying so many different things out, with a crowd that hasn't really heard us. We can go out there and play it in a different order”. The style and direction they take in creating their music, lives on in the nights event and what may or may not remain for future shows. Wrapping up our little chat I of course had to ask what fans can expect to see coming up for Jager Henry and said, “We're working on more music. We've been writing, writing, writing, and just designing the next thing. We're wondering if we're gonna extend the EP as a Deluxe or start dropping some singles, but we've just been kind of in this mix, you know? Touring is about to happen. We have a tour coming up in May, we have Warped Tour. That's the thing, we don't want to just drop something new and then not play it, you know? We're just going with the flow, enjoying every moment and trying to remember it all and take it all in”. As we concluded our chat, his hope was to see some moshing in the crowd, so the pressure was on for a raging performance.

Before it got too late, I needed to hunt down my next interview deep in the band's green room, the perfect spot for a one on one with none other than frontman Brendan Shane of The Nocturnal Affair. Las Vegas born, their momentum in moving up through the charts, across the United States and overseas has brought them to audiences everywhere and being produced by Grammy-nominated Disturbed bassist, John Moyer, it's no wonder they're journey has been just one milestone after the next. Their latest single “Cross Me Out”, was co-written by rock songwriter heavyweight Jonny Andrews (Halestorm and Three Days Grace) and co-produced/mixed by Logan Mader (of Machine Head and Once Human), and has achieved 2.5+ million views on YouTube and is hitting the airwaves reaching the Top 40 Billboard charts for Mainstream Rock Airplay. They've toured several times now with FOZZY and have rocked alongside some icons like HELLYEAH, Asking Alexandria and Pop Evil while also sharing the stage with titans like 3 Doors Down, Black Stone Cherry, Smile Empty Soul and Alien Ant Farm.

Now I wanted to get a bit of an insider look at the story behind the music and seeing as how Brendan and I go back since high school, I figured this would be a fun little exchange for our readers. We caught up on a personal note talking about family like his mom being present for the night's performance which eventually led us to remembering how it all began, oddly enough as a joke. Like a blast from the past, Brendan recounted, “It all just came flashing back to me, the start of it and you're involved, you're involved from the start, you remember?”, which I forgot about, but he continued, “The original formation of this band happened because I made a fake album cover of a vacation photo of you, Jake, and Kasey. [Laughter] You remember? That's how this band happened, and so it was you guys walking towards… I don't know if it was a lake or [It was Panguitch lake] okay, and you guys posed - it was the three of you walking, and you were walking with the same leg at the same time. It was from behind you guys and I was like, ‘that's a f***ing band cover! That's an album cover’. So I made it, I edited the photo, and I was like, ‘what would it be called? Like what would it… it would be, oh uh, the Feels! It'd be the Feels!’ [Laughter] And then I named the fake record, I called it ‘Ripples’ because I was like, ‘what's the cheesiest, edgiest, it's a water album cover’ and that's when I made the first song, I did ‘Just Run’, I wrote it in like 20 minutes. First chorus, first chorus, kind of bullshit solo, chorus and then I sent it to you guys and was like, ‘oh my gosh, I didn't know you released this song’!?

So yeah, I remember showing that song to a bunch of people and they were like, ‘this is uhh, this is actually pretty good’ and I was like, ‘I wanna see how far the rabbit hole goes’. So I sent it to 92.3, I told them that we were an anonymous band and I didn't tell them it was me because they were already playing my old metal bands music, every Sunday. So I sent them the Feels, I sent them ‘Just Run’, and they were playing it every Sunday like, ‘Who is this band? Like we don't even know, anyways here's the Feels’! We got asked to play at the House of Blues for some Duran Duran tribute band for this Amazon corporate event and we had no idea that it would be a full house, like sold out! And that was our first show, sold out, House of Blues Las Vegas and people bum rushed us when we got off stage because they were like, ‘who are you guys’!? We did like four originals and a few covers. I think we covered the Cure, the Eurythmics, and we did something else”

Recalling those times I had to remind myself if they covered their faces on stage back then, to which he said, “Yeah, we wanted to keep it anonymous. So, I was actually really into Ghost at the time and I loved the anonymity. It was before ‘Cirice’, before they got famous. I was like, ‘I love what they're doing, I love that anonymity thing’ so we took short sleeves, I learned this from Aaron in high school, he used to do this, I cut the sleeves off my shirts and I would put a little shoestring in the top part and I wore that around my mouth [Laughs]. And then I'd put a hood on with a fake wig [Laughter], and I had like those Ozzy Ozborne round glasses. I sang and it was Drew on guitar, and the rest of the band, but because it wasn't a real band at the time, it was the rest of my metal band, Wretched Sky. I told them it was just for fun, like ‘just this one gig, just this one gig’ and we got such a great response, that they were actually pissed after the show, like they were f***ing upset. Yeah man, and eventually it became The Nocturnal Affair, because I remember I told them, ‘oh it's just this gig’ and then people were asking us to play more gigs as the Feels. So, I got a manager, I got like a bunch of stuff to start recording. Ryan went bologna, rest in peace to him, he actually put me in the studio with him to do a few singles. So, I put an actual band together and Wretched Sky comes in one night, the guitar player and bass player just wanted to stop by our rehearsal studio to smoke a dubey and they caught me reheasering with the band, and I didn't tell them I was rehearsing at the studio with the band, I didn't even tell them there was a full band, and they were like, “What the f*** is this?’ and I was like, ‘Uhh, you know, it's the Feels.’ and they're like, ‘Why are you playing with them? Do you not like playing with us anymore? Are they better musicians than us? Do you like them more than us’!? They acted like it was an ‘affair’. So that's why when my management was like, ‘We have to change the name. There's the Feels everywhere else in this country, we need an actual original name.’ I was like, ‘Okay, The Nocturnal Affair’ because we rehearsed it and you know, I love that nocturnal theme, the spooky theme, etc. We were more influenced by goth rock back then.”

What a wild ride it's been since the beginning and with an origin story that screams rock-n-roll already, the end is nowhere in sight for these guys. Knowing that all the fans out there are waiting to hear about what's next for these guys, especially a special couple who flew all the way out from the UK to see The Nocturnal Affair, I wanted to ask Brendan about what's on the horizon. He said, “We have a tour with FOZZY, April to May. We're dropping an EP, it's got a few new songs on there, it's got a few songs we kind of play already but haven't released yet. It's got an older song that we released a couple years back, but I think we released it too soon, so I pulled it. We dropped it, it didn't feel right, I didn't think we were releasing things that were heavy enough to kind of match that energy. So now that my writing is becoming heavier and heavier, heavier and angrier we're re-releasing it, it's ‘Backbiter’ it's gonna be on the EP with everything else, ‘Benefit Of Doubt’ and a few other songs”. We wrapped up our discussion as the event started to ramp up!

Guests and family began to roll in with the fans and industry professionals in tow. Rockstars of Tomorrow housed a sold out event, bands sold their merch in the lobby and the bar was pouring steadily for those hungry for the night's show. I got to cruise around and mingle amongst some of the friends and family, but I was amazed to find two fans who planned their whole trip from their home in the UK just to be here for the concert. So, we shared a pint and talked about The Nocturnal Affair fan club they started back home after falling in love with their music, which is an entirely different story.

First up was Coco Vaughn! With raging metal music that was both unique and something I see myself adding to a few of my playlists, reminding me of greats like Coheed and Cambria or Taking Back Sunday. Their four-piece post-hardcore rock sound lit the stage and energized the crowd, as they should seeing how these guys have already been touring nationwide since 2024 and is composed of former members of Back Alley Pep Rally and Beau, these guys rocked it! They're a Las Vegas born band, T&R Recordings released and distributed their latest single in the summer of 2024 and they're working on a rockin’ new EP, so stay tuned! After the fog cleared and Coco Vaughn cleared the stage, the lights reset and stepping out onto the stage was Jager Henry plugging in and honing into the zone

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Jager Henry's performance and stage presence is something no honest artist can deny is anything but stellar. With the glowing red cross on stage, a homage to their Heart of Thrones album cover, the audience sang along and got into the music as Jager got close and personal with the mic. The mashup of sounds, the edgy roaring, and guitar licks all fuse themselves into something of a new heavy rock and emocore symphony. With having sold out venues like Viper Room, this was no different in what Jager brought to the stage and to everyone in the room who got to rock out to it. Fading to black and after a short intermission, the room began to hum with the sounds of anticipation for the main event. Eyes flew to the stage, the phones and their cameras came out, as the yellow glow of the lights and the heavy beat of the drums suddenly echoed through space.

The Nocturnal Affair began their set in epic fashion with a theatrical performance and wicked drum solo from Kyle Cunningham, a true showman and skilled drummer. The rest of the crew appearing from backstage was Dru Lappin on guitar, Michael James on lead guitar, and Kellen Krolll on bass, opening with Depeche Mode's - “It's No Good”. As the guitars echoed, Brendan Shane appeared rockin’ the red and stepped forward like a true frontman, stoking the crowd and getting people hyped up. His connection with the people in the audience, the way the guys headbanging in unison, the way they moved around each other on stage, all spoke to the sheer caliber of their experience and passion for their art. The people were also going crazy, singing along passionately with their favorite songs, crowding around the stage and snapping videos and pictures by the hundreds, the fan base truly loves these guys. Playing favorites like “A Thousand Ways to Die”, their hit “Cross Me Out” and Weezer's - “Hash Pipe”. It was obvious the house was filled with people who support and love the new age heavy rock music The Nocturnal Affair and everyone involved are creating. After they finished out their set and got their fill of cheering from their audience, they eventually proceeded out to the lobby for meet and greets, signings, and to talk shop. All in all, having had the rare opportunity of seeing these great names in the music industry do what they love doing, casually or in the biggest way, it's truly an exciting time for the rock-n-roll world. As a means of passing the torch, some legendary names and icons continue to help cultivate the sounds of tomorrow, the Rockstars of Tomorrow, but it's the passion for it that drives the heart and soul of these rising stars in the end. After the event wrapped for the evening and the attendance had mostly loaded out, The Nocturnal Affair, their friends, fans, andmsome family headed downtown to a favorite local spot called The Millennium Fandom Bar where the celebration continued in a very Vegas way. Keep an eye out for The Nocturnal Affair on tour, coming out to Count's Vamp'd Rock Bar & Grill on April 24th @ 6:30pm PST