INTERVIEW: Nicola Gruhn – Virvum

Technical death metal his afire with fresh faces and ambitious first steps, and few have been more ambitious than Switzerland’s VIRVUM. Combining progressive and technical death metal with atmospheric elements, the band has proved a hit with the international tech populace, and so we thought it would be appropriate to catch up with guitarist Nicola Gruhn on their recent tour with ALLEGAEON and NE OBLIVISCARIS.

How’s the tour going?

Nicola: Super good! I mean, we’ve got all this exposure, we’re playing in front of like, two, three hundred people every night, so yeah, that was the purpose of it. We did one with this band, we did one last year, supporting BEYOND CREATION. That went really well too because it was the first one and yeah, there was a demand.

We caught VIRVUM last year at Tech-Fest, do you think that has affected your reception this time around?

Nicola: That was our first UK gig, and now that we’ve played two more, well… Most of the people are here for NE OBLIVISCARIS, as you can feel it. I mean, we only have one album out, so there’s nothing changing, nothing big.

That brings us to our next one. Have you got anything planned for after the tour?

Nicola: Yeah, I think just continue writing for album number two.

So how do you think things will be different this time around?

Nicola: We’re not gonna stay the same, we’re not gonna do the same album twice. Well, I hope we manage to not do the same album twice. Just try to evolve, and bring more influences on the table, you know. Maybe what I can say is that I’ll try to go into a more rock-orientated thing, but the question is, “Am I able to do this?” When writing stuff there’s no limits, and nothing that keeps you from doing anything you want, so chances are also high it’s just gonna be straight-up death metal.

How far through the writing process are you at the moment?

Nicola: Not too far. I’ve got like, two songs ready. I’m a very, very slow writer, so I’ll delete everything that’s not, you know, grabbing my ear. Definitely a perfectionist. That’s why it took so long to write the first album. It took me like, I don’t know, as a total, in time spent, six or seven years? The material was written over a very long time.

VIRVUM’s material is very reminiscent of FALLUJAH, it’s very atmospheric. Are you going to incorporate more of that style, or is it going to be more tech-orientated?

Nicola: Certainly not more tech-orientated. Like I said, I’m basically just trying to create good songs, instead of just fast, or crazy songs, you know, structure-wise. Thanks for bringing up the FALLUJAH influences. I hear it a lot, but dude, I played that band! Like, I did one tour with them right after they released the first album, so I was heavily influenced by that. At that time I was writing stuff for our album. Basically right when I got home from that tour, I was overly motivated and so I had to, you know, bring something to life here.

They’ve certainly pioneered a new genre with the atmospheric aspects of their sound.

Nicola: I think they stayed the same, like the last two albums. They are a super high level, and Scott [Carstairs] is one of my favourite guitar players, but it’s so hard to reinvent yourself at such a high level, and so it’s just kinda… Another FALLUJAH album.

So what do you want to achieve in the next few years as VIRVUM?

Nicola: There’s a lot of aspects, especially like I wanna push the musical side of course. For me, that’s the main goal, but on the other hand, there’s lots of things going on around the band that people usually don’t know about, like the business side of things, how can we actually, I don’t know, afford to stay on the road? How can we actually, as an adult, you know, maintain a normal work life with a touring life? It’s a hassle for everybody, and the bigger you get, the bigger that hassle becomes, because, you know, family gets in the way, or a job gets in the way, and that’s how it goes. We will try to solidify everything basically with the second album. Maybe try to go one step up, getting better tour opportunities, and move forward as fast as possible.

Sounds promising. One last question: Any music you care to recommend?

Nicola: Oooh… Metal-wise, I kinda stick with whatever I’ve listened to for the last two or three years. I listen to a lot of non-metal stuff, like synth, I even listen to a lot of hip hop, like BUSTA RHYMES, stuff like that is always fun. Or a lot of post-rock, stuff that really lets you immerse in it, like you need an hour off just to listen to a certain album and you really dwell in that kind of music. It’s hard to find that music because it’s also those bands that are in there, that are big in those genres? They’re just as perfectionist as we are. With metal, it’s about songs, writing good structures, some cool solos, some catchy licks, but post-rock is kind of the opposite of that. You really have to care about the tones that you produce, like how good that reverb is. Post-rock songs have even less rules, like, structure-wise. Nobody cares about the song structure of post-rock. It’s all about, you know… How does it make you feel? How does the tonality or the effects on certain instruments make it better?

That covers all of our questions. Thank you for a fantastic interview!

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