Ronan Harris of VNV Nation: VNV’s music has never fitted into one genre

Everyone who have been to a VNV Nation concert knows how energetic and fun it can be. I met up with Ronan Harris at the venue a couple of hours before their show at Sticky Fingers in Gothenburg. This show was sold out in less than two weeks after the tickets was released so an additional show was added the day before.

We talked about the shows, the ever-growing love from the Swedish audience and the swedish country. I also tried to get a release date for the upcoming EP “Crossing The Divide” aswell as some info on the next album.

Photo of Ronan Harris by Benjamin Dietrich – Live performance photo by Blackvector

Read the complete interview below.

I started out by introducing myself and told him about my magazine and he really liked the do-it-yourself attitude…

Ronan Harris: I like the do-it-yourself attitude. I don’t know if you know how VNV works but it was my thing that I was doing for years and then Mark joined as a drummer. But I still doing the same thing I was doing back then and it is the greatest satisfaction I have ever gotten in my life. I mean, not everyone’s gotta like what I do, what we do, but somebody does, a lot of people do so that’s the reason to keep going on.

Blackvector: Have you recovered from last night?

Ronan Harris: Totally! I slept five hours, I don’t know. I got this stupid kind of cold on the plane, you know the airsystem, and I went on stage last night and feeling: oh god, I’m not gonna be able to make this, and somebody handed me a shot of whiskey before I went on. I flied all over the stage and I was like I have all the energy in the world. I got out of the concert I think and got back to the hotel it hit me like a wall. I was really given a lot of energy last night but it was a beautiful feeling. I didn’t want to get to sleep and I have been walking around the city all day and I have really had a great time. Yeah, I have totally recovered so don’t worry, I have lots of it left for tonight.

Blackvector: So I guess you are excited about tonights show?

Ronan Harris: Very much, I mean…

Blackvector: As always maybe..?

Ronan Harris: Well, yeah, because the crowd here is so fun. It’s so easy to communicate with them and it’s so easy to make that connection that is very important to me. I don’t understand… Well, ok. I do understand the bands who get up on stage and just play, there are some bands I want to do that, I don’t want them to talk with me. I don’t want a connection, I want that kind of cold atmosphere from them like when I saw New Order in the early 80′s. That was what I wanted from them, I did not want them to sing happy birthday songs, or singing swedish children songs….

Blackvector: I think, maybe the audience are expecting something like that who have been to one of your shows.

Ronan Harris: Yeah, we give the kind of concert we would like to see. That’s how we always modelled our shows. We try very hard to connect with people and that was always my job and Mark’s job was to keep the tempo, to look like the guy at the back of the ship, you know the roman ship doing the drums. I guess we have developed a reputation here that our shows are a lot of fun but it’s not silly or stupid. Having a sense of humor but also taking who we are people seriously and celebrating it. We do sing about what it’s like, or the music is very much about what it is to be a person who feels different in this world, who thinks differently but thinks deeper about things but isn’t super melancholy and walking around with a clown hat on their head. I’ve never believed in wasting my energy doing that, so it’s about conquering….

A guy with a motorcycle was driving around outside and as we had the window opened it sounded very loud and Ronan breaks out… Is there a motorcycle rally out today? Or it is the same guy and he’s like; “VNV is doing an interview – Fuck him, I fucking hate him”. and continues…

And even when we was playing at Arvika we could really connect in a funny way, like a could really get the crowd to move and have a fantastic time and that is the reason we are there. They don’t buy tickets to come along and be bored, they come to be entertained and we want them to hear the music and actually think about and feel it. Even if they don’t get it, they maybe start to get it when they feel the atmosphere of the show.

Blackvector: You have played a lot here in Sweden and the request to get you back never seem to stop. How do you see on that.

Ronan Harris: I would love to do a little tour. A mini tour where we actually jump in a van with the very basics, because we do it sometimes in America. We play in towns between cities in front of 200 people with very limited light and we are just there having fun. On our recent tour we played a show to a hundered people, and this was not a problem for us, it was probably the best show of the tour. So, I would love the opportunity to do a tour of maybe six or seven cities, or towns in Sweden and just play anywhere, just for the fun of it. Because it really what we are about and there are times I don’t like being up on stage in front of big crowds because it feels very impersonal and I like the connection, so the bigger the concert you don’t feel that touch as much. We try, and people notice that they response to it very well and we joke or whatever we do or whatever works inside the venue. But like when we play in Germany we have played infront of 23 000 people at festivals and everytime we’ve played these big festivals there’s a huge crowd there to see us, or when we played at Amphi there was like 16 000 people in front of me. But I love the fact that here we can play for 600 people and they really feels like your best friends or like a group of people you hang out with and now they are here at the venue and are here to have fun together. So, that is why I would love to come back as often as possible and play here. I love to bring more bands and I love to encurage bands to play here but the gig situation has become very difficult lately as a lot of venues has closed down both here and in Stockholm. Which is a real pitty, but I thinkg this venue is fantstic.

Blackvector: Have you ever got the opportunity to check out the country?

Ronan Harris: Oh god, many times. I’ve been coming to Sweden since the early 90′s and I have celebrated mid-summer here in a stuga (stuga = cabin in swedish) in the middle of nowhere, so I’m very very familiar with the country. I’ve been up at the very top of Norway, at the very top of it but I have never been to the north of Sweden. One day I would like to get in like a van or with whatever to get there. Just get up to Luleå or whatever like that and see what it’s like.

Blackvector: How far up have you been?

Ronan Harris: *thinking* I’ve been up north of Stockholm, about two hours north of there when you get up to the mountains and it was quite beautiful.

Blackvector: Way back in 2003 at electrixmas in Lund, you got the audience – me included – to sing a swedish childrens song.

Ronan Harris: Yeah, sorry for that. I didn’t know the name of the song back then but everyone started to sing Små Grodorna (the name of a famous childrens song usually sung at mid-summer) and they have not stopped, they did it last night and they sang it really loud. But remember that this show turned into comedy, for about half an hour we were doing stand up comedy and we couldn’t play because the crowd was screaming and it was fun. Sometimes our shows are like that because it’s about the vibe. It’s about the feeling, the connection and the… I always like to say just because we are wearing black doesn’t mean that we are dead yet. It’s about being alive and I want the people to feel that this was something unique, different and spontanious. And that’s what it is when this happen. But ever since this happened, at every single show in Sweden, people sing Små Grodorna and I can’t stop it.

Blackvector: That was actually my next question. Is that an important part for you as a performer?

Ronan Harris: I think it’s brilliant that people feel the ability to do it. After that show in Lund, Joakim from Covenant came up to me and he said “I am disgusted and amazed”. He said “I have never seen this ever, as even people would even think this was funny or cool to do this at a show as this is normally a song that normal people sing this stupid song.” The fact that the entire audience where totally happy about singing this and laughing about it, so he said that this was unique. I’m very proud of it and it is a symbol that the shows are about sillyness but feeling comfortable and being with friends, even if you don’t know anybody you should really feel that you are a part of something. That’s how I like it to be. Last night I was pointing at people in the audience and said like; come on you, get those people around you to dance.

Then all of a sudden Ronan burst out and says: We haven’t even talked about a song or the music. It’s great, I love this interview.

Just talking to different people in the audience and they become characters in the show and all this little really interesting people who you meet and they become people you always recognize the next time you come through. I’ve done this in many countries that I get to know people in the audience and everytime I see them – I have a wierd memory, I remember everyting – and yeah, we see the same people after like ten years. It is like that you are a part of this too, it’s not just about the band because without the audiences reaction the show is shit. So get the audience to perform as much as we are, that is what a VNV show is all about.

Blackvector: Your new EP has been in the loop for a while now and it was delayed. What are the latest?

Ronan Harris: Yeah, it was delayed. The American label wanted to delay it and by that time it was too late to release it in Europe and the problem was that we was on tour in America and then came back, I have another project and then it was something else going on. So it really was a question of the amount of time I had but all the tracks are ready, so I basically just have to pick a release date.

Blackvector: So, do you have anything set for it?

Ronan Harris: As soon as fucking possible. I just want it out of the way so people would stop writing me and “Where the Fuck is the CD!?” I would love to get it in the next two months and I hope I can do that. I got some very big projects going and I’m also doing productions under another name because I don’t want my name to be on it. So yeah, I would really get that out of the way and to get this Modcom album finished that I have been working on the last couple of years. I have a long list of things that I need to finish. I also started writing on a new VNV album.

Blackvector: Yes, the new album. What can you tell me about it?

Ronan Harris: I can’t tell you anything yet. It’s embryonic. I have written a lot of songs, so I’m at how they sound, the actual production of them, like what kind of sound I’m using.

Blackvector: Is it anything that’s gonna me out of the ordinary from earlier albums?

Ronan Harris: I think it’s like in some cases I’ve written tracks which are really minimal but more aggressive, like electro in the dance scene, but taken if an EBM band where doing it. So I need to stripping things down to minimal parts and make the most out of those parts and being very aggressive with them but keeing them at a very sexy tempo and not going for this 160BPM shit. I the last couple of years I have concentrated in actually writing songs. Judgement was a bit of an, not an experiment but a breach for me because I really take the time to write an album that was half of what I used to do and half to write that every song should be a song. In the past I didn’t have any idea how to write a song so I was adding these sweet melodies and throwing everyting into a song like Solitary or Honour on the album “Praise The Fallen”. They where full of thousands of details and there was no arrangement or a proper structure to it all. So I wanted to develop it into more proper songs, like the last album “Of Faith, Power And Glory” was a nice mixture.

Blackvector: Yeah exactly. I thought it was a great mixture of the previous albums like “Matter And Form” and “Futureperfect”.

Ronan Harris: Yeah, it got those elements, I guess, those indie elements which I like. I was listening to all this kind of music in the 80′s aswell as listeing to all the electronic music I listened to. Fuck it, I do what I like. I guess I was holding back doing “Judgement” and I didn’t know it. I wanted to write an album that was totally about the feeling of the songs, it wasn’t about did it fit into a certain genre or style. VNV’s music has never fitted into one genre because in every album there was always so many different styles of songs. When we were still underground, “Futureperfect” was a mixture of everything from Trance to EBM to soundtrack music. I have listened to a lot of underground music and I like to see in us how the alternative bands in the 80′s were. They were to doing their own thing and as good as they could. It wasn’t about being number one, or being in the charts. You could have a band like New Order or even Nitzer Ebb who all were on major labels and they were doing the best that they could and they were heard all over the world by people from so many different styles. Even Depeche Mode were doing there own thing, just writing songs that made them feel good, but they did it as good as they could and that is what I wanted with “Of Faith, Power And Glory”. To be an album with emotions and a strong message but very clearly defined and not so cryptic like previous albums. I just felt right and very happy with completing it and to say that now it is finished, I can’t add anything, since it will destroy it.

Blackvector: I guess that’s a huge and an amazing feeling that really feel that “this is it, this is the way I wanted”.

Ronan Harris: Yeah, and it works. It’s just like if you are a painter and you gonna paint the picture of… whatever.. Maybe you achieve it or maybe you won’t. I think it’s a mistake to go out with an idea in your mind. Have a rough idea, but I think during the process you take turns, like on the last album with the song “Verum Aeternus”, which supposed to be a hidden track as a variation of a song that was to be on the album, but that song never got finished and “Verum Aeternus” ended up on the album instead. The reason it didn’t got finished was becuase when we did “Verum Aeternus” it ended up becoming its own song, but also bigger and better then the song that I wanted on the album in the first place. It evolved to its own track and in the end it’s like it was ment to be this way. It’s a really stange and spiritual experience I guess.

Blackvector: Just like you said earlier, you have your project with Modcom and I guess you already answered this question if there will be an album with the project?

Ronan Harris: The problem working with analogue synthesizers is that you could never finish the tracks. Most of it is just for fun. I’ve had a lot of fun with it and I really love the harder EBM that doesn’t have a message or something like that. But an album is on the way.

Blackvector: One great thing that I think is that it’s a project that really works live too and got great energy.

Ronan Harris: I got a bad review recently and I think it was the fact that I wasn’t singing.

Blackvector: Maybe he thought too much about you with VNV.

Ronan Harris: Yeah! I did another project some years ago when the whole powernoise was really big and the deal I did with the label was that, under no circumstances let anyone know who did this, because if they knew it was me they would’ve associated it with VNV and it would change the way they feel about the music. Music is music and got nothing to do with association. I’ll give you a very good example. I heard an amazing, an incredible dance track that almost sounds like the best EBM that I’ve ever heard. Like when Techno people do EBM, that’s how it should be. I had no idea who did this, but this is fucking awesome, I mean, I played this in EBM clubs and people are really going crazy and they came up to me and asked “who is this?”. It was this project name, but it’s actually Eric Prydz, the guy who did “Call On Me” and this project is completely different. It’s like I do that for fun. I do that to sell fucking records and pay for the studio. I take time to explain about Modcom is about, the cencept about playing these modular systems. I have two different styles of shows. One is when I’m able to bring all the systems, which is like a wall. Not something I can do when I’m the middle band and it’s a 15-minute changeover. It should be a full experience. I think it’s really for the people who love synthesizers and it also expose this minority of people to what these systems are about and that this is really a very technical approach to make electronic music. I know the majority is going to say that it sounds like VNV. No, it’s not about it. I think it could benefit with vocals and on the album I actually have people doing the vocals but they are processed in a very weird way. It’s not like a singer and it’s not supposed to be like that. It was originally about my love of radio transmissions that I liked to listen to when I was like ten years old.

Blackvector: And I guess the point of having a side project or something like that is not to sound like the main project.

Ronan Harris: Exactly, not to do more VNV. And it’s funny. If I did a side project with an acoustic guitar and singing folk songs I wonder how people would react. I mean, everyone who is creative has many different sides and I think their problem is that their are afraid or that they would confuse the ones who focus on their music by doing this.

Blackvector: That was the last one and do you have any closing words for this interview?

Ronan Harris: The only thing I have to say is that I am really really honored by the support that we get in Sweden and how fanatical, but in a very positive way the people are towards us here and it makes us very happy to keep coming back and we always hope to keep coming back as often as possible. We love it here. Thank you everybody in Sweden for your support.

Blackvector: Great! Thank you very much for your time. It was a pleasure.