We were fortunate enough to catch up with musician Vishal Naidu following the stunning release of his single ‘Reveries In Grey’. Read the full interview now!
Hi Vishal, what is your earliest music memory?
Hello! Thanks for having me! My earliest music memory would probably be going in my car to school and listening to some great classic Pop songs; you know, the general mainstream ones out there now. But after a few years, something changed!
I discovered metal, specifically Avenged Sevenfold – While I don’t write music like that, I’m sure I’m somewhere inspired by their melodies. This is the band that started my Metal journey and eventually in folk metal, black metal etc. All this led me towards liking acoustic pieces in these metal bands; that’s how I got into Neofolk!
How did you get into the music industry?
I’d say I got into the music industry during the lockdown. Covid hit us all badly for sure, but it was also an opportunity to focus more on what I loved; it gave me more time – This led to me exploring more about music production and composition.
I started recording some music I wrote and eventually released a demo kind of an EP called “Circadian”. From then on, there was no turning back! I dwelled in the world of releasing, collaborating, playlists, music blogs, Spotify, Youtube, you name it! I started looking into how I could possibly get more listeners, which again led me to explore the music promotional industry.
I have a company called “Sinusoidal Music” now, which helps promote artists just like you guys do! We understand the passion and the hard work that goes into it. Thanks for that! So yes, in short, I’d say during the lockdown in 2020.
Who influenced your latest release, ‘Reveries In Grey’?
My latest release was mostly influenced by Opeth. I’ve been listening to a lot of their albums lately, and I must say the way Mikael Åkerfeldt writes his music is very inspiring. Their older releases like Still Life and Blackwater Park had a huge influence on me, especially the acoustic elements. I have always admired Opeth’s progressive writing; this track is definitely the influence of this band. You can hear a lot of tempo changes and progressions in this track!
‘Reveries In Grey’ is a gorgeous instrumental-cinematic release; what draws you to writing instrumental music?
Thank you for the kind words! For me, writing instrumental music is like painting; I like how there’s a lot of freedom for interpretation and how it can actually relate to everyone based on how they interpret it. It solely depends on what stage they’re in their lives and what emotions they’re going through.
‘Reveries In Grey’ definitely points towards the darker side of my tracks with some rays of hope in between; I particularly wanted it to be more melancholic and write this for introspection. It does cover some of my most vulnerable emotional times – Well, that’s when the music comes out! At least for me.
You are from Bangalore; what’s the music scene like there?
The music scene is getting better here! Especially in terms of rising metal bands! I do go out occasionally for a lot of these metal/rock gigs, and the bands there are excellent! I’m glad that more people are coming out to the music scene in terms of the genres I like, and there are a lot of people doing great things to bring amazing bands from abroad to Bangalore, like BOA ( Bangalore Open Air ).
In terms of Neofolk or instrumental music, I don’t think there are a lot of people who are into it, and as far as gigs go, I’m not sure of any place that’d feature such artists. I only know one artist in India who writes similar music to me, and he’s from Shimla. His name is Harul Vinay!
Who would you most like to collaborate with?
I’ve collaborated with some great artists in the neofolk scene, like Thurnin and Beautiful Death! There are a lot of artists I admire and would love to collaborate with, but there are only a few I can name for now – Silent Island, Dan Caine, Warg, and Elma Niacci, for starters.
What’s your dream venue to play?
In terms of this project, I’m not really sure! Any live gig would definitely be interesting to explore, but on top of my mind (As I did visit ArcTangent ) recently, I saw a lot of great post-rock bands there! I think that’s definitely a festival I’d love to play in, considering the people like post-rock!
Other than music, what are you passionate about?
I’m passionate about coding and business in general! I love building web apps, especially anything linked to music! The business I mentioned, “Sinusoidal Music”, which I run, has some great in-house tools built by my friend and me to help make the processes smooth, which includes Spotify API, Razorpay etc.
What changes would you like to see in the music business?
I think the music business is doing amazing now in terms of opportunities and exposure! But I do feel websites and streaming platforms are putting a lot of pressure on indie artists to release music frequently!
I’m a strong believer in taking your own time to create the music you love – But now it’s a different game out there; if you want to really get exposure – especially on Spotify, you have to release frequently and have a good plan before doing so! This may decrease the quality of the music being produced.
That’s what I feel should change; people should focus on writing quality music and releasing albums (while it may be genre-dependent). I always have this fun talk with my friend Thurnin from time to time about what the best way is, and I do agree with most of his points. I feel spamming your music every 4-5 weeks is not very good for the fan base; it just throws a lot of music at them, and people can’t even keep track.
The best albums take at least 2-3 years to be made, and when it’s released with the right strategies, you’ll make many more loyal fans who will be willing to buy your music and support you than just random listeners/stream numbers on your Spotify which honestly doesn’t mean anything in my opinion. Playlists are good, but what it gives you mostly is streams, not real fans.
How do you feel about how the internet plays a role in today’s music business?
I feel it plays an extremely crucial role. Businesses nowadays are built on the internet, and it’s the same for music now. The days of needing PRs or labels are gone, in my opinion.
While I’m not saying they’re not helpful, they definitely are, and they can help a lot of artists come to the limelight, but it isn’t needed. If you know the right strategies, you can use the internet to get your music out there and also make money from it to keep reinvesting what you’ve made to make better music and reach more people by marketing. Spotify, Bandcamp. Youtube etc., help you reach many new people.
I may be contradicting myself based on the previous point, and it goes way deeper than that – If your goal is streams, listeners; Spotify algorithms help a lot, hence releasing frequently helps too, as they help push your music more, but if the goal is long term good fans who go like “Hey, this album by you is my favourite” then I feel Spotify might be the bad route; a better route is Bandcamp, that’s where true fans are made.
Those are the people who buy your merchandise and buy your music to stream, and the best portal to that, in my opinion, is Youtube. Find channels that can promote your type of music and watch yourself grow slowly but more effectively. Shout-out to channels like In The Woods, Worldhaspostrock, WherePostRockDwells for doing what they’re doing and sharing amazing instrumental music; without them, I wouldn’t have sold out my album CDs.
What would it be if you could choose one thing for fans to take away from your music?
That one thing would be the emotions. It feels great when a lot of people write to me about how my music helps them with their depression or just helps them feel relaxed after a stressful day; I want my music to have this healing effect on everyone listening; everyone has their hard times, but music is what makes things a little easier.
Have you started working on your next release?
Yup, I have a bunch of compositions ready and recorded a few too. Some interesting collaborations are coming up, and I’m building up to my new album, which will probably be released next year.
FVMusicBlog November 2022
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