Vorstellan – interview

Brit heavy rockers VORSETELLAN ( https://www.facebook.com/Vorstellan/ ) have just revealed their brand new album, Encephalon. The UK tunesters have also just released a new single and lyric video for the track, Burn  – https://youtu.be/1NDvFIfVCHc . With all of this in mind, we asked the band to introduce themselves:

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

A – Jacob Knight (Lead Vocals/Guitarist) and Matt Donaldson (Drums/Percussion)

Q – How and when did the band form? Tell us anything interesting about your hometown.

A- Jacob started Vorstellan in late 2014 as a solo synth project as a way of coping with personal issues that he was going through. The solo synth project was heavily inspired by the likes of Gary Numan & Depeche Mode. The sound started to change once Matt had joined Vorstellan in 2015 as the drummer. As a result, Vorstellan started to steer away from the synth inspired project and steered into becoming a Hard Rock band with 90’s and early 00’s influences

Q – When and how did the band really start gelling and solidifying?

A – Vorstellan, comprising of the duo Jacob and Matt, have always had positive chemistry as a result of their ever-growing friendship and understanding of each other. After a turbulent time of uncertainty and band members coming and going, we felt things started to solidify when we began recording our debut album, “Encephalon” in September 2018 with Joe and Sam Graves at Innersound Audio, it was here that we learned to rediscover ourselves, what our true purpose was and why we started this journey; spreading the word in an attempt to encourage and help people who are struggling with different aspects of their lives: be it breakups, both dealing with emotional and physical pain, or the lonely and frightening feeling of being lost, find it within themselves to reach out.

Q – Who are your musical influences?

A – As a band, we are very influenced by a lot of the ’90s and early 00’s music from bands like Bush, Silverchair, Placebo, Chevelle, Stabbing Westward, Gojira and Slipknot to name a few.

As individuals, we have found that we listen to a plethora of musical genres that allows us to draw inspiration from ranging from, country to classical and hip-hop to pop, and of course all the sub-genres in-between it’s our obligation as musicians to not abuse that phrase and keep music alive by not discriminating any genre and never being afraid of our influences.

Q – Where did the name of the band come from?

A – The verb Vorstellen is a German word that can usually have three separate meanings:

-To Introduce

-To Put Forward

-To Imagine

All of these are relevant to our cause and fit perfectly as we will be constantly Introducing ourselves and put forward our music in an attempt to imagine a better environment for people to connect with us and feel like a family.

Though we changed the spelling slightly our message will never deviate.

Q – How far back does your history with each other (the band members) extend? Are you friends from school or any family relations?

A – We have known each other for around five years now and are best friends with a valuable sense of brotherhood. We met through a workplace where we were both working at the time and we both just clicked instantly over our love of music as we would talk for ages about music when we should have been working.

Q – Where have you played or toured?

A – We have mostly played shows within Carlisle, Newcastle, Edinburgh and Glasgow, having done shows alongside The Courtesans, North Atlas, The Maension, Auger, As December Falls, Espirit D’Air and Bad Pollyanna. We do want to venture around the UK and meet as many people as we can (as soon as it’s safe to do so).

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

A- Of course this a very subjective and sensitive question to answer, it’s also quite difficult to not sound like we’re both driven by some greedy political agenda but it’s important to us both that we stay true to ourselves and any fans current and future.

Every band or Artist have a message they want to portray, but they sometimes misunderstand the delicacy of how they actually spread their intended message and it can become lost in ego, to us it’s about encouraging all people to be a better version of themselves, to both long-term and new sufferers of a sickness that causes issues mentally, physically and emotionally and also on the opposite end of the spectrum to speak to those who might not fully grasp the concept of what it means to be struggling and help them understand both perspectives, as the saying goes “Every face you see is hiding a personal battle, just because some might not show it, it doesn’t necessarily it’s not there.”

We don’t want people to feel the same way we have throughout our lives, we are both very much still battling our own demons to this day but we want to create an environment where people can come to our shows and forget their worries for a little while and feel safe and feel as though they are part of a family.

We encourage people that support us to message us directly if they ever feel they need someone to talk to as we are always going to be there for them no matter what is happening however big or small their worries or worse, as they are always there for the two of us. We want to shelter people from the hurt, not the stigma. A percentage from our merchandise will be going towards a mental health charity as well. We feel like we have a platform and we should use that platform to make a difference in people’s lives.

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

A – We are a Hard Rock band influenced by 90’s and early 00’s music that mix together hard-hitting drum beats, punchy bass lines and distorted guitars with lyrics that are sung with real fragility that explore pain, love, hate and intimacy.

Q – Where can we find your social media sites?

A – you can find us on Facebook, Instagram & Spotify. You can listen to us on Spotify at https://open.spotify.com/artist/0vcxeJ0EQe6QhSWAjyDU5X