• Interview: Kvothe

• Start by introducing yourself

I'm Kvothe, a Parisian Dungeon Synth composer. I've been composing for a little over two years, but I've been playing music since high school. I mainly play guitar, bass, and synth.

I also do LoFi under the name Kaysera, but I'm mainly going to talk about my main project here because it's the one I put the most of my personality into.

• What first got you into music? 

I listened to music by myself very late. In middle school, I was chatting on Skype with a friend who, one day, sent me a piece of music. He knew that I was a fan of Steampunk and so suggested that I listen to "Endless Forms Most Beautiful" by the band Nightwish (he suggested it to me because of the video clip).

I loved everything about it, the look of the musicians, the artistic direction of the video clip, and especially the music. Nightwish is a symphonic metal band. It's quite easy to listen to but my ear was already accustomed to the sounds of metal because my father listens to heavy metal a lot.

It was only at the very end of middle school that I decided to buy my first guitar. I wanted a violin, but it was too complicated to learn alone and I didn't have enough money to take lessons.

• How would you describe your music?

Lonely, dark and melancholic. This is the atmosphere in which I compose my music, and I hope to succeed in rendering it.

• What are your musical inspirations? 

I'm very inspired by black metal bands Summoning, Bataille and Alcest, and by the dungeon synth’s composers Francis Roberts, Mortiis and Erang. I also listen to a lot of jazz, funk and pop, you can hear it sometimes in some songs (and a lot in my LoFi songs).

• What is your creative process like?

It depends. I often plug in my synthesiser, look for a VST I like and play until I find a melody that touches me. Once I have the melody, I build my piece around it. Sometimes I look for a melody on my guitar and once I have it I transpose it to the piano.

Sometimes I also try not to find a melody but to create an atmosphere (like in "The Scourge" or "Moonless Valley"). In this case I start with an idea or a feeling, and I try to find what sound, what chord progression, and what drums can best represent this landscape I have in mind.

• I see you write a few sentences in the description for each track. How do you get the ideas for what to write?

I am a fan of role-playing games, and as a Dungeon Master, I like to tell stories. Sometimes I have an idea for a story and I’ll try to tell it in music. Sometimes a piece of music inspires a visual, and I try to put this visual in an album cover and in a story. It is a joint work: the illustration, the text and the music progress at the same time in my mind. Also, when I was younger I wanted to be a fantasy author, it must play a role in this need I have to write stories for my music.

• The song “Everlasting Winter” is the one you are most proud of. Tell us why.

With this song I felt something change in my ability to compose. I know how to compose sad songs, but there is a darkness buried in Everlasting Winter that I managed to compose for the first time, and I am starting to master it now. I also started to develop new composition techniques for this song.

• I heard you are planning to release music in physical format. How is that coming along?

To talk a little about Dungeon Synth, it's a retro and conservative style. Even if this style is modernising like all the others, we try to keep the cryptic atmosphere specific to the genre. So the majority of musicians release cassettes.

I was contacted by a small French label who offered to release about thirty cassettes of two of my EPs. The goal is not to make a profit, just to have fun and leave a small trace of my passage in the world of music. As he is alone and works as an amateur, it takes a little time, but in Dungeon Synth time is a mystery.

• What are your future projects?

I don't have any specific project, because Kvothe is a part of me. I will continue to make music, sometimes under the pseudonym Kvothe, sometimes Kaysera. When I want to try something else, I will create a new project. I will continue to be active as long as I have something to tell, but as my mind is full I won't stop making music anytime soon.

• What do you think is the hardest aspect of making music?

Getting back into it. After every EP I feel like my mind is dried up and I can't compose anything I'm proud of anymore. So I take a break, and then when I get back into it, I realise that I like what I'm capable of even more and I feel like I'm making progress. The only hard thing in music and art in general is, in my opinion, getting rid of your prejudices about yourself.

• What message would you like to share with readers?

If you love something, do it. If you want to create something, do it.

Even if it's bad, even if no one is interested in your work, even if it's demoralising sometimes and it takes time. It's important to dream and create, it allows us to escape for a while and leave somewhere a mark of our passage. Don't create for others and don't put pressure on yourself, but if you let your passions escape, what do you have left?

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