The Von Deer Skulls

So, since you're not too well known, let's get a bit of a history behind the project. Who's involved, and who are you?

Peter - "Ok, at the beginning Freke and Hektor played together and they asked me to do visual stuffs for them..."

Hektor - "Then we worked with Peter and we decided to make more than a unique collaboration, but to have him as a musician. And the band begin like this, we decided to create our own mythology and history, and to develop the visual aspect as much as the music. So Peter was the good choice, because at that time he worked on some songs."

Peter - "By the way, we have created a semi-fictional biography* to serve the project and the videos, our band is like a large tale."

When did you four first meet? Where and when?

Freke - "First meet was in the beginning of 2012, we discovered the art of Peter with my brother Freyja, who played with us on some songs. And we liked what he did on paintings and videos, we discovered after that he was also a musician."

Hektor - "Yes, they talked to me about him and I think also that we can do something with him, he was perfect to develop a universe."

Peter - "And by chance, we're all around Brittany in France; at that time I lived in Nantes and now we're all in Brest. We begun to really work around October 2012. It took a little time to develop and know what we wanted to do."

And what exactly happened that made you four want to work together to make music together?

Hektor - "As we say before, we're all interested by Peter's works, and gradually we all decided to start a new project with Peter as a member."

Peter - "In fact, it was pretty natural to work together not only in a visual way but on a new musical project."

Freke - "After spending hours to discuss artworks, videos and design, we created something completely new and that's why we started to work on something bigger than we thought of at the beginning."

The name of your project "The Von Deer Skulls" makes it sound like you're a family unit. Is this part of image and storytelling?

Peter - "Yes, it's something like a Ramones thing. It's a way to be a family, to grow together."

Hektor - "About the name, it's in touch with the artist pseudonym of Peter (Peter Skull) and with our video and stage costumes, which often have antlers. It's totally a part of our imagery and our fictional history, which mix folklore from different countries. It's like Peter takes us under his wing."

Peter - "Haha, dingus. Yeah, I think I took a little too much space in the project."

Freke - "But we're ok with that. We love his creativity."

Your first single was released in 2013. How was that received by the public? Have you had any feedback so far?

Peter - "Yes, it was for the song "B*tches Of The Wood", the very first song composed as a band. We got some good feedback, I think it's above all thanks to the video-clip which presents the band, our universe and a side (the ambient one mostly) of our music."

Freke - "In fact, we were very surprised to have such good returns. At the beginning it was just for us, to understand who wanted to be."

And, same with your latest EP, "It's Time To Paralyze". I know that we're reviewed you to a good score, but what about others?

Hektor - "For the moment, it's good. We got a good score (8/10) on another review, and people who come and talk to us say very positive things about it."

Peter - "Once again, we were very surprised. This EP is like the beginning, a demo or a presentation of what we are, new things are gonna come."

Freke - "People made some flattering comparisons that we didn't expect and we were not conscious. For the first stone it is very unexpected. But we still have a lot of work to do."

Your EP kind of stated that what was presented was a showing of past sounds. How have you evolved since then?

Peter - "Yeah, as Hektor said, when we began to work together I had some songs from other projects and they were the perfect starting point to our project. So we reworked them, composed new ones to make this EP. It's why we announce 'some new old songs' in the introduction. But 'B*tches Of The Wood' is the one which was entirely composed for the band."

Freke - "That's it, and since we have evolved towards something new, something a bit more loud. Peter changed a little to be more composed, it's more straight and kind of eclectic I think."

Peter - "Maybe, I don't know. I think it's something normal, like a new cycle of our sound."

And, do you have any future releases planned as of yet? Or no? Is it in the works?

Peter - "Indeed, we work on new songs. We don't know if it will be a long EP or an LP, but it will sound more as a band I think. And we have some surprises on it, but for the moment we can't tell you more."

Hektor - "Yes, I think this will take time to develop it, we plan to record it at the end of this year or in the beginning of 2015. With, of course, a new video."

Do you plan on playing live at all? Or have you played live?

Freke - "We don't play often, in fact only in a small group, because it's difficult with our universe to bring all that we want on stage for the moment, with the costumes, the videos, the stage set. But we're working on it."

Peter - "We're thinking in the future to do some simple performances just with costumes and paintings on the back."

And this is where I end off. Feel free to leave any messages you may have below.

Peter - "Stay tuned new things will happen. In any case we work hard for."

Freke - "For those who don't know us, feel fee to watch our first video** to discover who we are, and join us on the web*** to follow our evolution, the new costumes are already on and new visual."

Hektor - " 'Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night'."

* "The band has strange origins, the members come from Germany, Scandinavia and Canada. Formed between summer and the end of October, 2012, The Von Deer Skulls test new tones and material since. Helped by the visual artist Peter Skull (who is now a full member of the band), they work besides on diverse mediums, paintings and videos to develop a little more their identity as a band. To go farther and to present their totem, Peter is the son of the Shadows of the Canadian forest. Hektor is androgynous, semi-deer/semi-wild boar, he comes from Schwarzwald in Germany. Freke and Freyja are brother and sister, "twin", two faces of the same person, and the same person, wolf and lynx, they come from Faroe Islands."

** www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWzz-fueVbw

*** www.thevondeerskulls.com & www.facebook.com/TheVonDeerSkulls