The fact that there is no other band out there quite like vianova isn’t an accident.
At a time when it is easier than ever to churn out a song that sounds like everybody else, it’s more important than anything else for the dreamers and creatives of the world to push into the widest and wildest corners of their mind and pull out whatever is hiding within.
That’s where so much of who and what vianova is and will continue to be comes from, and in taking that extra bit of care and craftsmanship, they have built up a community and an audience who were clearly craving that different escape.
With latest album, last year’s ‘Hit It!’, Berlin’s finest managed to meld off-kilter jazz, sensationally brash pop and bludgeoning metalcore together like its second nature, and such experimentation still only feels like the tip of the iceberg for where they want to go next.
So as they prepare for one of the biggest Summers ever, Rock Sound caught up with vocalist Alex Kerski to take stock of it all.
Rock Sound: How are you feeling considering just how massive the surge around the band has been over the last few months? How does it feel to know that taking so many risks has paid off?
Alex: On paper, every time people tell us, “Oh, I really did this’ and ‘I really like that’, it’s all been very intentional. It’s the result of a very long and specific thought process. What do we think? What do I think? What should be happening? What is lame? What is not lame? What should we be doing? You’re almost making a point and then being proven right. You’re saying, ‘Yeah, the sky is very blue today, and then you go outside, and the sky is actually blue.
But the reality of it is a bit crazier, because none of us has ever experienced being in an entirely new country on the other side of the globe that we’ve never been to and playing all these crazy shows, and having all those people come up to us and say these things. Actually meeting the people, seeing it, that’s way more absurd. It’s something you can’t really mentally prepare for.
RS: So what do you feel the early intent of vianova was, and how much of that do you feel has moulded into something else? Or has it stayed pretty similar?
Alex: I think it’s a mix of both, really. There are two early intents in this. What do you want to do artistically, and how do you want to do it? And what are the ambitions and scope of this? Artistically, we’ve always wanted to try something more interesting or non-standard. We were never a band that just tried to try to write the next pop metal song, and I don’t think that we even could. I don’t think we’re the band that can write a Bad Omens-esque banger, which I see as much of a strength as it is a weakness. But also, I feel like in the past our music has been a little bloated or not as focused in the way we’ve written songs on ‘Hit It!’. The intention to do something more out there or interesting has always been there. We’ve honed our craft and our influences, but the ambition has always been there.
I remember when I started singing and doing vocals as a teenager; it was the first time I felt I was actually good at something. I was not as good as I am now, and in retrospect, I was bad. But I had the feeling that I’m not fucking this up. I think that’s very powerful, and it allows you to hyper-focus on what you’re doing, and I think that has always been a big drive for us. I think we never lost sight of the goal, but it just took us way longer because we had to figure out what it actually means to be a band.
RS: You never know when it is going to start resonating, and a lot of the time, you have to weather the storm a bit. It all works out; you have to wait for that moment to come.
Alex: And there was a point, especially with ‘Hit It!’, where I personally figured out what I felt like we needed to do, and I just went hard on it from there. Songwriting-wise, we need to go for character and style rather than trying to be the most technical band. We need to make something that is more vibrant. We knew a bit more about how it should sound to become something that really stands for itself. And it was the same with the whole art direction, the branding, the marketing. And to get there, it’s all about communication and getting the points across.
RS: You mention the branding and marketing, and it’s amazing just how deep you have gone into that, especially within the character that you portray. How has wearing the furry hat and pushing the limits of virality and meta commentary affected the way that you view the person when you aren’t on stage? How much have you felt things shift because of how much of yourself is embodied within that?
Alex: I feel like what’s interesting about the hat and glasses and the character alongside the band’s philosophy is that when it comes to things like lyrics, they are intentionally very much down to earth and personal. They’re very no bullshit, and there’s very little like separation, I think, from me and what I’m saying. I want to be very eccentric, crazy, and vibrant, while still having a universal human essence. So on that stage, I just try to be myself, which is corny to say. I try to be more energetic, or throw out mosh calls or maybe make a quick joke or something. It’s how I have wanted to be: a sweet spot where it’s entertaining but still very much me.
One thing that is great about music is that it also lets you communicate a lot. So the way I sing, the way I scream, that’s also part of the performance. And I feel like that makes sense with the image, as well.
RS: You mention that human aspect, and when you look at the mood that is delivered throughout ‘Hit It!’, that is extremely prevalent. There is an almost call-to-arms aspect to your words, a want and need for togetherness, with a real sense of vulnerability slap bang in the centre of the euphoria. What was it like realising such sentiments were pouring out of you as you penned these songs? What do you feel they represent?
Alex: I think it’s more of a cathartic process. It’s funny, because my mom, when she reads my lyrics, or she looks at the YouTube analysis, and somebody’s like, “Oh yeah, this guy’s not okay’ she actually calls me. She’s like, “I watched this YouTube video, and I actually understand the lyrics now, and it’s terrible. So what’s up? Are you okay now?’ And yeah, I am, I am okay. But the cool thing about metal is that we have a culture of just going through negative things in a way that is maybe uncontroversial, where in other genres you maybe wouldn’t do that so hard. But here you look at it, and you work through it, and it’s fun to stylise it and in a way that’s what I’m doing.
Ultimately, my intention was to be more down-to-earth, because the emotions I feel are the ones everyone feels. In metalcore, there are a lot of abstract or over-intellectualised lyrics, but in a bad way. People are singing about a future that doesn’t even exist. Abstract emotions of guys in their 30s, inspired by gaming. I’m not trying to reach out to a fantasy world, I’m just seeing what’s there. And that was me having these thoughts and fears and complex emotions, and that’s what I put on paper.
RS: It’s why it’s so important to carve out your own unique thing for those thoughts and fears to sit in. Because if you hadn’t pushed things in the way you have here, you may still be searching for a home for those things, and they are better projected into art than just sitting in your head.
Alex: I think that is the challenge for us in the future. You can be scared because we feel like you have to satisfy people’s wants, but ultimately, I feel like it goes farther than that. Nobody has gone, ‘Okay, I really want an album that mixes like Djent with jazz fusion and the singer wears a fuzzy hat’. It’s the same with other bands. Nobody went, ‘I want ballads with breakdowns and a guy painted black wearing a mask’, but we have Sleep Token. You need to be the professional, the one who knows what is best for your project in a way that nobody else could. And moving forward, we as a band have to figure out how to do that again with the next album and the next. Hopefully, it is better, or more interesting and cooler than you could have imagined, because, like, we know it best ultimately.
RS: What would you say are the main things that the ‘Hit It!’ process taught you that are now firmly a part of your tool belt? Are there any elements that you know are just going to be embedded in the vianova DNA from now on?
Alex: That’s interesting. This album has been quite different from the music before, because it was the first time we have worked with our producer, Leon Schmidt. He’s not a crazy producer; he’s just the guy that we met who does music, and he’s crazy good at everything. He plays all the instruments, he’s very good at mixing, and this is his first metal project. But because of that, it’s really changed the structure of the songwriting process. And what we learned most is how fast we can get a very cool idea together. If we have those base ingredients, we go into the studio with Leon, and we can bang something out that is actually cool.
Another main takeaway is that I think there are always been moments where you doubt yourself and wonder, ‘Is it worth it’. Or you’re just being overly critical or wondering if we are overthinking it. But when you see that it resonates with people, I’m like, ‘No, it’s 100% worth it.’ When it’s out, people don’t notice when something is different, but they notice that you’ve spent so much time on it. I’ve come to realise that it’s worth obsessing over these details.
