Vieon

Not much is really known about the sci-fi inspired project Vieon, but his latest release just recently came out, and it was spectacular. The Sound Of The Future was one of the few albums that was able to put me within the solid steel walls and neon painted cyber city of the future, and with that image in my head, I got the chance to chat with Matt Wild about his project and his debut album.

What I usually do is just ask for a little introduction about yourself, if you just wanna do that real quick.

Wild - "Sure. I'm Matt Wild, engineer by day and musician by night. I'm the writer and producer behind VIeon. We've got our debut album out now, and there'll be other little bits trickling out in the future."

When exactly did Vieon start in your head?

Wild - "It's been going for a while since I was at university, when I started taking it more seriously. I'd say I probably started taking it seriously as a project eighteen months ago or something like that, and I started to put together the album. The album was originally a self release. But, I couldn't print it from my own money, and from there it got picked up from the label."

When exactly did you first release the album yourself, and where was it available?

Wild - "Originally it was released in May of this year, and it was originally something we sold via Bandcamp and any gigs we played in the local area and that was about it. And then it got picked up by Analoguetrash, where we added a couple of new tracks for the rerelease, and it got professionally mastered on top of that, as it was mixed from scratch."

So, how did Analoguetrash discover you? Did they attend one of your gigs, did they discover you online?

Wild - "I actually sent them a demo by the recommendation of a friend and it was the only demo I sent anywhere. I sent one demo and they got back to me, they liked it, and I had a meeting with them up in Manchester. We decided it would be a nice thing to rerelease with a couple of extra tracks. Because iTunes gets finicky if you release an album that's less than fifty minutes long."

Which tracks were originally on the self release and which tracks were added on the rerelease?

Wild - "We added two tracks for the new release which were Lost Worlds and Coast to Coast. Lost Worlds was really only in basic sketch format when the original album was released; it was sort of an idea. Coast to Coast was from scratch, again. That one was inspired by eighties arcade racers, like Out Run. I just liked the fast paced adventurous feeling of them."

Well, for being signed to Analoguetrash, the album sure got rereleased pretty damned fast, right?

Wild - "Yea, pretty much. What we had to do was go back to scratch, I had to dig up all the project files, then had to remix everything. And then it went off and got mastered by Addz Milner. The two new tracks I found myself to be working on every night to get them finished in such a short amount of time. So, I would go to work, come home and immediately start working at the keyboards. It was a very busy time because we were also gigging. In fact, people heard these songs live before they actually came out. That was most interesting because Coast to Coast went down absolutely brilliantly live. So, it's interesting to see what people make of the album version as well."

Now, although the label received the album well, were you worried about how fans, and even zines like Brutal would take the album?

Wild - "I had no idea what to expect. Everyone's been very kind so far. So, that's been really good. I had no idea what to expect because I've got no prior experience releasing any music; I had no idea where it would sit with regards to quality or if people would connect with it. It is really, really sort of humbling to start getting these really good reviews."

I know that I gave the release an eight and a half out of ten, and another site gave it a nine..

Wild - "When we originally put out the single, which was Starfighter, I was away at the time and received the first review back. I think it was from Peek-A-Boo over in Belgium and I was absolutely flawed by it. Because for a first release you don't expect such positive feedback. So, it's been really good."

Is there anything on the album, now that it's out, that you wish you could go back and fix?

Wild - "Overall, I'm pretty proud of it. The mastering definitely helped bring it out, because with the original release, the mastering was a bit all over the place because I did it myself. Now that it's gone through that process, it sounds professional. But, I think time will tell over time if I change my opinion on it. There were tiny little blips here and there which you sort of think, 'Oh, I could have done that slightly better,' but I think the new release is better."

I know you've mentioned elsewhere that a lot of guys from the seventies and eighties influenced you. Who were they?

Wild - "People like Vangelis; there's a lot of influences in there. But, it's sort of around 70s synthpop. So, the dawn of electronic music. I try to temper it with more modern influences as well because I like, if I can, to keep the production value high."

You also say that with your music, you get a lot of inspiration from seventies and eighties soundtracks, as well. Are there any movies in particular that you take influence from?

Wild - "I'd definitely have to say Blade Runner. I know everyone says Blade Runner, but it's absolutely brilliant. Also, ones like Escape From New York from John Carpenter, and The Terminator. The theme for that was absolutely perfect."

I know that you also state, kind of how Blade Runner is, that you like the whole dystopian theme? And you put that in your music, correct?

Wild - "Yea, it's something I'm pretty inspired by. The very futuristic, not very dystopian, but all the films and media are very provocative. I've also find cities to be particularly inspiring, as well. You can sort of see that on the album cover. It's something I've tried to reflect."

And you also state that a lot of themes are very provocative. Do you try and put that within your lyrics?

Wild - "I've always found lyric writing quite difficult, actually, because I grew up largely with instrumental music. So, the lyrics are sort of off the top of my head. I wouldn't say they draw from the dystopian feelings. But, lyric writing is something I've always found to be tough, to be honest. Which is why there's only three tracks with lyrics on the whole album. I think Only Human was one of those where there was a slight sci-fi feeling coming through, because the whole cybernetic thing has always fascinated me."

Now, for future plans, what are your plans? Any new material coming out? Gigging?

Wild - "At the moment, we just finished playing a set of shows in our local area, and we'd like to play elsewhere towards the end of the year, maybe get some gigs up in Manchester as well, possibly in London. But, getting gigs is always tough. And, when you're driving a long way you want to make sure it's worth your time and everything else. As for everything else, there was an interesting idea of releasing a new version of Lost Worlds that had a rap over it of all things. Which sounds absolutely bizarre, but it's just an idea that we might try and just see how it goes. The other thing I'd like to do, one of the things I've always dreamed of doing, is write a soundtrack for something, because I'm so heavily inspired by soundtracks. I'd like to try my hand at writing one myself."

You're not the only member of the band, are you?

Wild - "I write all the music myself and I produce all the music on the album, so anything you hear on the album was done by me. When we take it live, we use a live drummer because I feel it adds to proceedings. And we also have a visual engineer with us who operates the lights, the lasers, and the smoke and all the other bits because the live show is something we're very keen on pushing. We're quite proud of that, and we're refining that over time."

You're very fond of live playing, and you've been playing the Sound of the Future for quite a while, correct?

Wild - "Yea, we've been playing those songs since May. We added Coast to Coast in our line up in August. We haven't managed to play Lost Worlds live which is something I'd really like to do. We've been planning to do it, but it's quite a long song and we were gonna finish on it, but you often get curfewed on it, which is a problem if your support bands run late. What we try and do for every live performance is change every song a little bit. If you would come to a gig, you would find that a lot of things change; there's a drum solo that we put in the middle of Starfighter, I one time went off on a slap bass solo in the middle of Only Human which my drummer has told me I'm not allowed to do again. That's one thing I'm particularly keen on is making the live show a little different. I figure if you wanna go to a live show, you want to hear that difference otherwise you may as well have sat at home and listened to the album."

Do you have an idea in your head for a next album?

Wild - "What I tend to do is sort of have a musical sketch idea, and I'll have thousands of those lying in fragments on a hard drive, or I'll just start jamming out. Just before you connected tonight I was playing around with the keyboards behind me and seeing what worked. I have a few ideas coming to me but the album's still pretty new. We're going to push the current album as hard as we can, and after, we'll probably see another single release from the new album, maybe. It's something I'd like do. Maybe a different version of the single. There's also a sampler I know that Analoguetrash are looking to put out towards the end of the year, so I'd like to submit something a bit different for that."

You're going to be sticking with Analoguetrash then for a long time?

Wild - "Yea, they're actually really, really solid guys. They've been absolutely brilliant. We're still unknown effectively, and pushing the media is always very difficult especially on social media. But, we're doing everything we can at the moment with the help of guys such as yourself. And we're trying to push this as hard as we can because we're really proud of what we've got so far. And we're only going to build on that in the future. I told myself I was going to take a few weeks off from making music, but I'm sort of back at it, now. I kinda can't keep away."

And, I think I've covered everything that I can think of at this point. Do you have anything else you'd like to say?

Wild - "I'd like to say thanks to everyone so much so far who have bought the album, came to a live show, or just listened. Everything counts at the moment. And what I'd say to people who haven't listened to us yet, if you've ever been remotely inspired by an eighties sci-fi film or synthpop - I know it's coming back; it's sort of in revival in Europe right now, and I think within the States it's almost coming around for the first time - give us a listen if you're willing to try something interesting and a bit inspirational. Hopefully. It's what we're trying to achieve. You guys, the reviewers, are the best place to go to tell us how we're doing with our jobs."