An interview with music band Via Novus

In our interview section we will be having an interview with music band ‘Via Novus‘.

Twist Online : First of all tell us about the start of your professional career?
Via Novus : All three of us were members of the now retired MS metal act “Shades Between”. Years after that band was discontinued we started entertaining the idea of a new project. We played our debut show as “Via Novus” in January of this year. We had a rocky road after that, road block after road block. In September we finally established our sound  and aesthetics, then quickly began writing and production for “Dusk To Dust”.

Twist Online : Who or what inspired you to launch the band “Via Novus”?
Via Novus : We come from rather diverse musical backgrounds, so the artists who inspire us span many genres and styles. Probably the single largest inspiration for Via Novus is the way we all connect musically. It’s truly a magical thing to be a part of, because we just all build off of each other in a very natural, organic way. It’s one of those things you can’t just sleep on and not do anything with.

Twist Online : Our readers would like to know more about the band members and their roles in the band?
Via Novus : As far as writing goes, we’re all heavily involved, often with interchanging roles. I wrote the instrumentals for half the EP and Michael wrote the other half. Clinton gives input on the instrumentals, usually in the form of “that’s not going to work”. Once we’re finished with the instrumentals, Clinton will give us a melody at which point he and Michael begin to work on the lyrics. I’ve sort of found myself filling most of the behind the scenes dirty work – producing, marketing/advertising, social media management, web design and upkeep, etc. I think we’ve done a great job at finding our strengths and assigning roles accordingly.

Twist Online : Tell us about your upcoming EP “Dusk To Dust”?
Via Novus : Dusk To Dust is a concept album dealing with themes that each of us have at some point experienced. Addiction, depression, death, anxiety, etc. The story doesn’t really end on a happy note, but I think that’s important because when it comes to mental health, storybook endings are few and far between. So, you could say its more of a realist take on the issue. For us, the EP is about our rebirth as musicians. We’ve had to overcome many of the elements explored in Dusk To Dust in order to start this project. We have more or less reinvented ourselves as musicians over the years, and we’re ready to show the world who we are.

Twist Online : What kind of response has your recently released single from the Ep “August” received?
Via Novus : The feedback we’ve gotten from “August” has been incredible and far exceeded our expectations. Our teaser video is sitting at about 5k views right now. Everyone seems to be impressed with the single. It’s performing quite well – far better than we had anticipated.

Twist Online : What attracts you more, performing on stage or working in studios?
Via Novus : We love being in the studio, but you can burn out of that pretty quickly. The stage is what really keeps us going. We’ve put a lot of time and hard work (and carpentry) into our live performance. We want people to not only enjoy what they hear, but to also be captivated by what they see. Our live package is all about audience engagement/participation, eye-catching visuals, and high energy.

Twist Online : What’s your favorite music genre?
Via Novus : Our sound is best described as alternative hard rock, but we all have different musical preferences. Among those are industrial/goth, grunge, metalcore, hardcore, punk, classic rock, and even pop music. All of these genres influence our music in their own way.

Twist Online : Have you set some target to achieve as a music band?
Via Novus : We all want this thing to be as big as possible, of course, but for right now we’re focused on expanding our fan base. A lot of goals have been set for 2018 one of which is to do some light touring throughout the southeastern united states. I’d say one of the biggest goals for all of us is to monetize our hard work so we can afford to dedicate more time to what we’re doing. We’re taking everything one step at a time and always thinking about how we can take things to the next level.

Twist Online : So you will be releasing the complete EP in Feb 2018 or are we gonna have more singles released before that?
Via Novus : We really went around in circles for a bit on whether or not to do a follow-up single, but since the EP is 6 tracks, we ultimately decided to stick with one single. However, we are currently planning to do at least one more teaser video before release. We’re also in talks with some local talent about doing a full-fledged music video but haven’t ironed out the details on that just yet.