As Movement moves to Munich, the foursome that makeup the eclectic inVain chat about their music and influences.
inVain are four young musicians, who pour their different styles into a crucible of joint creativity, the result being bitter, energetic but melancholic songs, which are anything but ordinary. With u-turns right in the midst of a tune, dreamy lyrics and the mashing up of different styles song after song pinning a genre on inVain is difficult - if labels are needed, Alternative Rock is the best fit.
How would you describe your music to someone who hasn't heard it before?
Our music is just kind of unique. It's basically rock music but just unforeseeable. I mean, writing our songs is just one crazy act. We just meet and mash up our ideas and concepts and in the end, there's one song which can only be described as inVain and is totally different from all the others, but in some way, they fit together. You have to listen to it to understand this. We can't really tell what is happening in our jam sessions, it all just sort of sputters out of us, the songs literally anathematise us. We have actually no control of the whole thing and we don't know where it'll take us. What we know, is that our base is a kind of energetic and melancholic Alternative Rock, combined with emotional lyrics, pounding instruments and wacky B-parts.
So, how did you get together?
Our singer Geli and bass player Dave have been making music together for some years working on various projects; they met for the first time at the local music store and decided to work out some ideas. When our guitar player, Timu, a friend and school colleague of Dave's, and drummer Joey, a good friend of the band for years, joined the project, we knew it was perfect. You couldn't really tell why, everyone just felt confident and was sure of this constellation being the one and only cast for this band.
Who are your musical influences?
We basically listen to all kinds of Rock music. It's important for us not to have any prejudices in the music business and we listen to the stuff first before we judge the artist. inVain consists of four different members with different styles and tastes, everyone takes their influences from another place, but to name some bands that we like - Funeral for a Friend, The Distillers, Radiohead and Limp Bizkit.
You see, we just asked every band member just to name one spontaneously, and the constellation couldn't have been any more different. We like many different bands, but love our own stuff, which is a huge mash up from all the styles of the four band members and the music we like to hear.
What subjects do you tackle in your lyrics?
Geli does all the writing for the lyrics and she assimilates mostly personal feelings and bad experiences of life into her writings. Like a diary of her way to see the world, channeling all the different impressions of life in its different shapes. A mixture out of concise experiences, weird dreams and deepest inner feelings, strained on paper and sung with passion.
Your music is available through Movement (available on PLAYSTATION Store), how are the Internet and downloads changing the face of the music industry?
The growing importance of the Internet in the music industry is unstoppable and very important for the development of the business. It's important to accept and support developments like that to accelerate the progress of technologising the world and to enable flying cars some when.
It's also a great possibility to increase the sphere of influence of music. By uploading music and to facilitate the downloading for everyone, the access to music will be way easier and much more people will be able to hear and talk about music, bands, albums and artists in various forums. Many artists offer their newest records online, so it's a huge process which has already started.
In Germany, there's a little pun that says, "Who doesn't want to go with time, has to go in about no time." We think it's a very big deal and necessary to modernise the whole world and increase the participation of people in music in general, but you can't deny that it's still the coolest thing in the world to hold a copy of your favourite band's newest album with all the artwork and stuff in your hands.
What do you think of the general perception of music from your country?
The music scene in Germany and the common sense of the people who live here isn't something to complain about. You see a lot of weird things here in local music stores when you look, but it's not as bad as it seems. We have quite a lot of artists and bands who write some really nice stuff and you can see some substance in it. There are a lot of plastic pop things here, but people also reward handmade music which you know someone put a lot of work into.
Germany's not just a follower concerning the music scene, the people are able to develop their own kind of music, and the field reaches from a wide Metal scene and big Electro festivals to boy bands and stuff. Every single style of music is reachable and we think that's very important to the development of music in a country. So in Germany, music is a big thing and it's discussed nearly everywhere and it'd be quite hard to avoid it in your everyday life here.
Are you touring this year or will you be doing any festivals?
Yeah, we'll play some gigs this year to promote our new record. Most of them will be in clubs, but we're gonna play the some festivals too. That's an unsettled thing here between us four. Dave for instance prefers playing open air, while our singer Geli prefers the club gigs, because of the closeness to the crowd.
Anyway, we're looking forward to all the upcoming gigs this year to finally play the stuff from our record and are very pleased to be part of the PlayStation Movement Project and to represent Germany with our music. This will be an exciting year.
inVain's Movement videos can be downloaded from PLAYSTATION Store. More about inVain can be found on their MySpace page, www.myspace.com/invainmusic.
A rose by any other name
Europe Invades Rock Band
