KVILLA – Interview

Burly Brit riff beasts KVILLA have released their brutal new single and video, Stigma, out now. This pounding piece of blackened hardcore is accompanied by a massively striking new video – https://youtu.be/Q402HagOVNw . With all of this in mind, we asked the guys to introduce themselves:

Q1. What is the full band line-up, who sings and who plays which instrument?

Full band line up:

Sean Ossoway- Vocals

Ryan Leigh- Guitar

Josh Stead- Guitar

Adam Peeroo – Bass & Samples

Andrew Nestor – Drums

Q2. How, when and where did the band form?

The band was co-founded in 2012 between Ryan, Sean, and our ex-drummer Max. It took us years to really get going and we didn’t write our first official Kvilla song until 2018. We got our bassist – Adam, and current drummer – Andy in 2019. Our new guitarist Josh has only just joined us this year and makes the line-up feel truly complete.

Manchester is an amazing place and is full of talented musicians. Everyone knows Oasis etc but there are so many underground bands and musicians to see. It also has many awesome venues. Especially Rebellion where you can see massive and upcoming bands from all over the world in such a tiny venue that it feels like you are at your first ever rock show. Adam especially has fond memories of seeing King 810 there and our band night out to see Raging Speedhorn, Loathe and Employed To Serve.

Q3. When and how did the band really start gelling and solidifying?

The band really started to solidify during 2019 after we got Adam to join as the bassist. This was when we officially became ‘Kvilla.’

At the time that he joined we just had a couple of songs. With his help we managed to write a few more and our sound started to take shape in the form of our EP ‘The Ward’.

We’ve only managed to gel more and more overtime, especially with the addition of our second drummer – Andrew who brought the music to the next level with his technicality and progressive style. Now we also have a second guitarist (Josh) we can start work on the second phase of Kvilla with the album.

Q4. Who are your musical influences?

Our musical influences are many, everyone in the band likes different music

We can all agree that we like heavy music and together our taste probably spans almost every metal sub-genre there is

Sean is more of a death metal/death core sort of guy. He loves a good breakdown.

Ryan favours hardcore punk and black metal. Basically, anything emotional sounding or atmospheric

Adam is our resident nu metal/electronic music fan. He also makes electronic music under Karma Waves.

Andrew loves prog and progressive metal, or anything he can groove to especially CKY and Pantera.

Josh has been in punk bands previously and makes djent in his bedroom.

With all of these different backgrounds, black metal crossed with hardcore became a weird place to end up with but we love it as it is something new we can bring to the table.

Q5. Where did the name of the band come from?

The name of our band is actually a small town in Sweden and in Norse it means ‘sickness’. We thought it sounded cool and different from our contemporaries. We incorporate a lot of black metal elements so we thought we could bring some heritage to our band. We fully intend to put in a show in that sleepy town in Sweden at some point to see what the locals think.

Q6. How far back does your history with each other (the band members) extend?

Ryan & Sean have known each other for well over a decade now, they went to high school together

Everyone else came on board in 2019 or after so we’re still fairly new to each other but we’ve become firm friends.

No family relations, we just happened to meet each other somewhere along the journey to where we are now.

Q7. Where have you played or toured?

Thus far we’ve played a few shows in Manchester, one of which was among the first livestream performances during the pandemic!

We’ve played with the likes of Tortured Demon, Portrayal of Ruinn, Mexican Painkiller, Vlka Fenryka, and Beyond Salvation who we love and are part of the amazing 0161 Metal Community.  We have  a small Edinburgh and Glasgow ‘tour’ with H8teball, Drekavak, We Make Mammoths and Dal Riata.

Q8. In your opinion, how is your band different from all the other bands out there?

Our band is different from others in that the amount of influences you can hear in our music is a lot. We’re shooting to be as creative and as exciting as we can be. For example, Red Pill is more of a thrashy/hardcore punk style track compared to Stigma which is more of a heavy hitting track.

Our music is really emotional while being heavy at the same time. We take inspiration from loads of places such as Converge to Mayhem and beyond to new wave of black metal such as Deafheaven.

Q9. If a deaf person were to ask you to describe the sound of your music, how would you describe it?

If I had to describe our sound to a deaf person, I would say climactic, heavy, emotional, raw, and abrasive.

Q10. Where can we find your social media sites?

You can follow us on social media at:

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/kvillaband

Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/kvillaband/

Bandcamp – https://kvilla.bandcamp.com/

Youtube – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNAxSSwxPz3TLotB1YHTaqw

www.kvilla.co.uk