Root, root, root for the home team at Vans Warped Tour

Andy Biersack wanted out of Delhi. He would count down the days until his 18th birthday, at which point he would move to Los Angeles.

It’s not that he hated Cincinnati. In fact, the opposite is true. Biersack’s plan was to become a rock star, and he thought LA was where he needed to be.

The teenaged Biersack has been proven right. Now 26, Biersack is the lead singer of Black Veil Brides, a metal band that has made four albums. The two most recent charted in the Billboard top-10. Last year, he released his first solo album under the name Andy Black. He played Bogart’s as Andy Black in February and returns to town for a solo performance at Riverbend's Vans Warped Tour.

“I come back all the time,” he says. “I’m a huge sports fan. I go to three, four Bengals games a year with my family, bring my wife to Reds games, everything. I love where I’m from. I have complete pride in my home.”

Biersack gives a rundown of his Cincinnati bona fides: born at Christ Hospital, raised in Western Hills before the move to Delhi. He attended high school at SCPA. His dad, Chris, is a labor-relations manager at Hamilton County Job & Family Services. Mom Amy is a volunteer-services coordinator at Cincinnati Children’s.

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“I cannot tell you how much I loved going to SCPA,” Biersack says. “To this day it was probably the most important part in my life as an artist and turned so much around for me in terms of my belief in myself.”

Biersack left SCPA to audition for acting work in Los Angeles. While on the trip, he caught a glimpse of the city’s music scene and liked what he saw. It made him want to pursue music, and he returned to Cincinnati and put together the first version of Black Veil Brides, whose glam-metal visual sensibilities are rooted in the looks of the artists his dad turn him onto, like Kiss, Adam Ant and Billy Idol. The Black Veil Brides found a home at the Mad Hatter in Covington and drew crowds to the now-closed club but didn’t meet Biersack’s lofty vision of success.

“We were a makeup-wearing band that played punky metal music in a time where that was kind of passe,” he explains. “Plus, I was not a very popular guy in that scene. I was very cocksure. I know it sounds hard to believe, but I liked to talk about myself. I think that made me someone who didn’t have the support of the scene.”

Biersack found what he was after in L.A. Does that mean it was unattainable in Cincinnati?

“I have absolutely no idea,” he answers. “I’ve thought about that before. I think that I don’t get to have the success that I have today if I’m not from Cincinnati, if I don’t have the upbringing I have and the family that I have and, I suppose, the ethics that I have, I don’t get to come out here and do this. And I don’t have the hunger.

“I was a kid who dropped out of school and didn’t really have any money, so I had to make it. Putting yourself in a situation where you can’t fall down is paramount to success. You have to prop yourself up. If I was still at home, I don’t know that I would have had that tenacity or would have been able to avail myself to the kind of strength needed to be able to create a career and sustain a career.”

IF YOU GO

What: Vans Warped Tour

When: 12:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 19

Where: Riverbend Music Center, 6295 Kellogg Ave., Anderson Township; 513-232-5882

Tickets: $33.25

LINEUP:

Journeys Left Foot Stage:
Attila
CKY
Futuristic
Hawthorne Heights
I Prevail
Jule Vera
New Years Day
Sammy Adams

Journeys Right Foot Stage:
American Authors
Andy Black
Beartooth
Dance Gavin Dance
Hands Like Houses
Memphis May Fire
Neck Deep
Our Last Night
Save Ferris

Skullcandy Stage:
Alestorm
Barb Wire Dolls
Microwave
Sonic Boom Six
Stacked Like Pancakes
War On Women
The White Noise
William Control

Hard Rock Stage:
The Adolescents
Anti-Flag
The Ataris
Bad Cop / Bad Cop
Fire From The Gods
Municipal Waste
Sick Of It All
Suicide Machines
Valient Thorr

Monster Mutant North Stage:
The Acacia Strain
Being As An Ocean
Candiria
Counterparts
Fit For A King
Hatebreed
Silent Planet
Stick To Your Guns
Sylar

Monster Mutant South Stage:
After The Burial
Blessthefall
Carnifex
Emmure
GWAR
Hundredth
Silverstein
Sworn In
Too Close To Touch

Full Sail Stage:
Bad Omens
Boston Manor
Courage My Love
Creeper
Farewell Winters
Feeki
The Gospel Youth
Knocked Loose
Movements
Separations
Trophy Eyes