Postwave trio Violet Silhouette are gearing up for the release of the brand new EP, Feverblue. Featuring the just released “Strange Wind” single, Violet Silhouette is ready to build on the danc-punk and industrial vibes present on their debut SEMIPERMANENTDEREALIZATION. TGEFM is proud to share our recent roll of the dice interview with the three-piece to discuss their influences, the future of music and what they are into right now.
Thank you so much for agreeing to this interview! What should our readers know about the members of Violet Silhouette, your history and your sound?
Dan: I had been playing in bands with Justin and Zaii separately and we had wanted to create something new that was more of a dark, electronic sound that we could dance to with these sometimes ethereal, sometimes heavy guitars and synths. While crafting the sound, we made some nods to influences like Cold Cave, Drab Majesty, and Soft Kill, but stood on its own. and we shared the same vision and it just clicked for us right away. Once we started playing live, it took on a whole new energy since we could get pretty intense during our performances. I like to call us a dollar store Depeche Mode when people ask what we sound like.
What album or band or significant singles made you go “Yeah, this is what I want to do” Not just an influence but who or what was the catalyst?
Zaii: For doing music in general it was when, in early high school, I heard my next-door neighbor playing his drums to Metallica. I remember being really stoned and thinking, “what the fuck is that I want to do it”. For Violet Silhouette, it was a pivotal moment in my early twenties when I stumbled into a thrift store to check out their CD collection and took home the four albums that would forever change me: The Cure‘s Disintegration, Depeche Mode‘s Violator, Duran Duran‘s Rio, and Skinny Puppy‘s Mind: The Perpetual Intercourse.
The world has been going through some shit over the last few years. One phenomena I recently learned of is the idea of pandemic nostalgia, whereas while we were unable to live in the present thanks to lockdowns, we revisited our past loves. This led many people to the music they loved when they were younger. With the obvious 80’s industrial influences in your sound, have you found pandemic nostalgia to work in your favor, and what are your thoughts on the premise?
Nostalgia is comfortable and has a romantic quality to it, but it’s dangerous if you stay too long. I definitely found myself listening to a lot of Radiohead, particularly In Rainbows and KID A. It definitely changed the way I’ve thought about songwriting and production. I love the deliberate quality of everything and I probably watched their In the Basement performance on Youtube a few dozen times.
Nobody can deny the world has been changing drastically over the last few years. Where do you see the future of music, both for Violet Silhouette and also for the scene at large transitioning in light of these events?
Z:. I am somewhere between optimistic and downright cynical when it comes to the future of music. I mean, we might get a “future” in music but it might not be the one where the human spirit is involved, or is involved but to a little degree. We might get a future where an algorithm decides what it thinks people want to hear. We’re already sorta seeing that with visual art. However, I’d like to think that the troublesome restlessness that plagues the human species might be the saving grace in not allowing computers to dominate our perceptions and interests. For Violet Silhouette, I think there is excitement and anticipation for what’s to come.
One of our obligatory questions in these interviews also tends to be the one I have found most important on a personal level. Who are some bands on your radar that TGEFM readers may not know about, but you think
they should?
Z: Rain Boar — it’s an alt-rock outfit with elements of shoegaze, ambient folk, and psychedelia. An offshoot project of mines when I’m not producing with Violet Silhouette. At the moment there are just bedroom demos on bandcamp. But more to come.
D: I’m a really big fan of Donzii right now out of Miami. If you get the chance to see them live, you won’t be disappointed.
Roll of the Dice is a short interview format with a variable amount of questions. A pair of dice is rolled and the total, between 2 and 12, is the amount of questions we can ask. All questions are given to the interviewee(s) at once, and no follow-ups are allowed. The interview may be lightly edited for content and clarity.
Bad Dad (occasionally called Ed) has been on the periphery of the punk and punk-adjacent scene for over twenty years. While many contributors to this site have musical experience and talent, Ed’s musical claim to fame comes from his time in arguably the most punk rock Blockbuster Video district in NJ where he worked alongside members of Blanks 77, Best Hit TV and Brian Fallon. He is more than just an awful father to his 2 daughters, he is also a dreadful husband, a subpar writer, a terrible dresser and has a severe deficiency in all things talent… but hey, at least he’s self-aware, amirite?
Check out the pathetic attempts at photography on his insta at https://www.instagram.com/bad_dad_photography/
