bulletty все записи автора Dope Stars Inc. was formed in 2003 and have quickly risen in popularity with their unique sound merging rock and industrial music. One of the most popular bands on Vampirefreaks, these guys have huge following and emit a hardcore rockstar image with professional quality music to back it up. Interview by Diabolica_Robotica and jet.


You guys have one of the largest and most loyal fanbases - why do you think that is?

Victor: Our fanbase has been always really loyal and growing day by day since the early days. We always try to stay in touch with our fans at our shows but also with trought networking. It helped us to estabilish a strong connection with our fans and spreading the dsi music by word of mouth. Especially our street team, the Theta Division Corp. did a great work to promote us and bring new people into our music. In the end we’d be nothing without our fans, as happen for every band and if we are here is thanks to people that support our music. Unfortuantely during the last year bacame very difficult to keep this contact so strong as it was in the past, but that’s just cause we’ve been into a lot of work lately, touring and recording the new album. But we still get back to all our fans when it’s possible.

Speaking of hardcore fans, have you received any strange mail or gifts from fans?

Victor: We often received gifts from our fans during these years and we always loved them all. They have been always very nice and it is a real satisfaction to see people really involved in our project. It gives us a lot of motivation to go ahead and work hard on our future to not disappoint all the people that likes our music.

It seems as though a large portion of your fans are female. Do you think that's because of your image? And does that make males more or less likely to listen to the music?

Victor: Yeah we got a large fanbase of girls out there and of course it’s understandable considering our band image. Even though I’ve to say more and more males are getting interested in DSI also especially after the release of Gigahearts. Sometimes some people get a bit scared or annoyed by our band image and judge our project even before listening to our music. So in the end a too strong band image can be a tricky thing. But we are like that, and we believe more and more people are intelligent enough to look beyond all this and judge considering what really counts: music.

When Brian left the band, did you know immediately that you would like Alex to step in? How has his addition changed the style and the sound of DSI?

Victor: When Brian left we immediately found Alex as it was actually the best guy we could ever find at guitars and he demonstrated it plenty till now. Brian was not into composition of music so the basic style didn’t changed. On the other side Alex contributed to bring something real inside DSI music thx to his special guitar style. Especially the amazing guitar solos and wavey clean guitars added a touch of class that we could not achieve before with Brian. It is always sad when the line up change, but we always do it in the good of the band artistic development.

How would you compare the recording process of Gigahearts to 10,000 Watts of Artifical Pleasure, Neuromance, or the Make A Star EP?

Victor: The 1st EP was a very quick and rough experiment but it came out cool. By the times of the EP I had a basic experience about production and mixing also. But people loved it cause of this too. With Neuromance I had the possibility to understand and experience more about production working with Thomas Rainer and John Fryer. This helped me to develop production skills and take the responsibility to produce Make A Star EP and Gigahearts. The difference is when you take care of production for your music you can work on a complete message that is not only made of notes, chords and lyrics but also include the nature and shape itself of the band’s sound and the different emotions that come from them. A different production can change a lot the style of a band and taking care of this directly we could have with Gigahearts to express our artistical message at capital letters.

When you go into record, do you already have a concept for a song, or is it something that just sort of develops on its own as you go along?

Victor: Basic versions are often guided by the instinct but after the gross part of the song start to get a shape a concept should be developed to go ahead and complete it. It is really important in my opinion that each song should have its special role inside an album and should focus on a particular song idea. This idea should be expressed clearly and should not get lost in details to help the listener to focus on it and understand the feeling that inspired it. Also the production in this sense play a main role, cause each good production should look at the essence of a song and should make its best to put it in vivid light.

What roles do Grace, Darin, and Alex play in the recording process? Have those roles changed over the years?

Victor: Since the first EP the composition and recording process didn’t changed much. As musician and performer of various instruments and also producer of the band I usually take care of music and lyrics composition and work on basic pre-production. So basically when the basic idea of the song is ready we work together to arrange the song and get it to the final version. Especially Alex did a great work on Gigahearts fixing guitars, adding guitar solos and clean passages. Then we work in my home studio fixing the structure, adding/removing stuff and applying modification to the structure and other things. Then we record everything again (lately we do it at the Subsound Studio were I work as sound engineer and producer) and we move to the final process of mixing. For Gigahearts it was a bit different cause we could move/change stuff also when mixing was done. This helped a lot to fix things also in the latest days of the work in studio and till the day before the final mastering.

Was there a consious decision to move in a harder direction on some of the tracks on Gigahearts, or was it just a natural progression?

Victor: We already had many hard tracks before but since we also have some very soft songs in this album it was good to fix this balance with some very hard songs. That’s cause we really wanted to experiment some more melodic tracks without scaring the tough guys out there. This way we also have a complete set of very different songs now. Picking tracks from Neuromance, Make A Star EP and Gigahearts to bring a very mulit-faced live show.

The video for "I'm Overdriven" was well-recieved. Do you have any plans to record another soon? And if so, which track will it be for?

Victor: We are planning to do a new video but we still have to decide wich song. Besides we are also looking for a director that can fit our style.

What influences you, both as a person and an artist?

Victor: I’m strongly influenced by whatever sad happen to my life. And lately a lot of bad stuff happened. Also when writing Gigahearts it was an hard period for my personal life. But I have to say it often helps me to throw all this anger and bitterness inside music. It’s a sort of catharsis for me and it makes me feel better. For me music is everything and it’s my cure. Without music I’d feel better dead.

What's the best show you've done, in your opinion?

Victor: Glauchau and Berlin at the tour with ASP were damn great but also the show at Amphi Festival this summer was cool. We actually had very great experiences at every shows till now. We spent some fucking great days that we will never forget. Besides till not I can say we never had any particular issue and especially technical issues at any show. And it’s a kind of surprise considering I play live since 11 years now and something wrong always happen eheh. Now we have just announced the new upcoming dates of the “Gigahearts Tour” that will touch Italy, Germany, Netherlands and Uk. We have some dates in Russia and Spain to be confirmed. Maybe also Greece and France will follow but we are working also to get in Finland. With some time we’ll also finally reach USA.

Any horror stories from live shows, or have you been lucky in that respect?

Victor: To be honest I was afraid about something like that but after some experience I can really say our fans are some really lovely guys and girls. We never had any kind of serious problem with them and they have been always very respectful toward us. Really nothing to say about it! We love them!

Do you have any shows coming up that you are really looking forward to?

Victor: There are many shows I’m looking forward. Here is a list:

08.04.07 - Italy - Milano - Dark Celebration Fest**
23.05.07 - Germany - Hamburg - Logo
24.05.07 - Germany - Duisburg - Pulp
25.05.07 - Germany - Saarbrücken - Roxy *
26.05.07 - Germany - Bielefeld - Falkendom
27.05.07 - Germany - Leipzig - Wave Gotik Treffen **
28.05.07 - Germany - Berlin - Knaack
29.05.07 - Germany - Ingolstadt - Paradox*
12.08.07 - Netherlands - Utrecht - Summer Darkness Festival**
25.08.07 - United Kingdom - Bradford - Infest UK Festival**

* Without Entwine
** Without Entwine and Jesus On Extasy

Especially I can’t wait to be in Netherlands and Uk playing. It’s like from 3 years we are working hard to get our ass over there!

And I know you've been asked this approximately 1,000,000 times, but I'm sure people still want to know - any plans to tour the US?

Victor: We are working to tour in USA next year hopefully. We usually like to do things only when we are sure it will be big fun and success. We have already big plans in mind to reach USA but this means a lot of work. But don’t worry we’ll make it soon!

Are you working on anything else that you'd like to let everyone know about?

Yeah. I’m working on a new project with members of My Sixth Shadow and Dope Stars Inc. Right now it’s a very hard period cause I’m also doing productions for other 2 bands and I’m in studio for the whole week. So I’m working on it over the week end even if I’d need some relax sometimes. But soon we’ll go on tour and, even if it would sound strange considering I’ve to perform live, it would be a big vacation for me. Finally!


And finally, I'd like you to sum up the Dope Stars Inc. philosophy for VF.

Victor: Young Loud and Synthesized. Cyberpunk with attitude. Fuck Yeah.

You're a mixture of rock 'n roll and industrial. do you feel this makes it hard for you to fit into either scene or do you feel it makes you accepted by a broader audience?

Victor: I think it makes us different from the other bands. We are not afraid of being accepted less or more just doing something standard. We like to experience life and music different and this is probably the reason why DSI got a loyal fanbase. Of course doing pretty straight music without contaminations is often a good “sales point” but for us it’s more important to do something we like instead of selling 2 or 3 copies more.

"Can you imagine" is one of my personal favorite dsi songs, can you tell me more about what this song is about and the songwriting process behind it?

Victor: This song together with Just The Same For You has been an experiment in order to show the melodic side of our style. The song speaks about the mistery of universe and the fact there are millions of unknown things out there we can just imagine. But it’s also true there are some kind of emotions and things that have an universal meaning, like for example the meaning of love, hate, war, peace, racism, tolerance and of course stupidity and ignorance. There are probably many civilizations and planets out there but I’m sure a lot of things always stay the same but just appear different. As it already happens in our world and different cultures. Talking about the music it is an evolution of what we already tried to do with songs like Make A Star but this time the style was more clear and well defined. I believe even if Can You Imagine is a very different song from the others you can still feel the DSI hearth beating inside it.

You state that the main theme of your lyrics is "post-industrial tales about worlds where the human beings merge with the machines and artificial intelligence develops emotions and feelings which leads them to the same suffering that also controls our daily lives. " , with your "neuromance" album coming from the popular sci-fi book neuromancer. tell me about your connection with science fiction, what other books / movies are you influenced by?

Victor: My passion for hi-tech and cyberpunk imagery started when I was really young and was transmitted to me by my father as he was working inside the businness of informatics. Cause of this I’ve always been in touch with computers and technologies even before the “Personal Computer Era” and also worked most of my life as IT consultant and computer technician. I’ve also studied for 2 years Physics and Informatics but had to give up to work and follow my bands. Then i got into sound engineering and now i’ve finally found my professional dimension working practically every day with other bands too that come here at our studio. Connected to this also my passion for science fiction and authors like Frank Herbert, Philip K. Dick and movies connected to the cyberpunk imagery staring from Blade Runner till Mad Max. So when the project started considering the music It was quite natural to develop the lyrics concept toward this kind of scenarios.

how do you view the style difference between your side-project "my sixth shadow", and dope stars inc?

Victor: My Sixth Shaodow is a project that started 5 years before Dope Stars Inc. and of course has been important for my development as an artist and composer. It’s a very different project from Dope Stars Inc. but if you listen to the songs closer you can notice some analogies in the style. My songwriting has been of course influenced by this as well as any artistical experience i did in the past.

tell me about the "theta division" dope stars inc. army.

Victor: The Theta Division Corp. is the official street team of DSI. It has been really one of the most incredible experiences that happened to DSI life cause it showed how much people still love to support bands with their hearth. Right now the street team is in standby but registrations are still open. We got a very cool idea in mind right now to make it work even better than before. A new simple and very strong system that will give the opportunity to all our fans to promote us but also have great fun. I can’t wait to see it back on track as it helped already a lot to support our career. Especially I’d like to thank Mynx (USA) and Fay (UK) as well as Flatline and Saide (Russia) and all the other Theta Division Managers for the endless support they showed till now. But also I’d like to thank all the fansites that has been recently launced in Germany, Uk, Brasil, Czech Rep., USA, Spain, Poland, Israeli and many more. They are doing a very great promo for us.

what's the story behind the "make a star (sims 2)" dope stars inc music video?

Victor: The video has been developed by Helena Spox, a girl that maintain our Czech Rep. fansite. We discovered she was very talented in doing these kind of videos so we asked her if it was possible to make one for Make A Star. It has been one of the many wonderful things a fan did for us and we really would like to thank Helena once again for his great support!

Any thoughts on doing some club-oriented remixes with more electro sounds and no guitars?

Victor: Yeah I already did something similar for Suicide Commando. We have no problem with electronics and less guitars. We just do what we think fits in our musical vision beside the instruments involved.

you guys have a great visual style, and apparently pretty popular with the females. what role do you think the visual / style element plays in dope stars inc and what are your stylistic nfluences?

Victor: Our band image is very strong and connected to our musical style. It’s always important to feel every side of a band to understand their musical concept. But of course music is the most important thing. After Gigahearts something changed and also we are changing our visual concept to focus it more on the real thing to show the live side of the band. After 2 years of extreme photosessions it’s time for some rough and healing rock’n’roll.

what's your goal for the future?

To hit big stages, tour everyday and experience all this together. Touring and playing live is the best thing that can happen to a band and really changes your life. These are moments in life you have to catch on the fly cause they will not come back. We are planning new releases and got big plans for the future. We can’t wait to reach a bigger audience and spread our music worldwide.


I’d like to thank Vampirefreaks for this opportunity and I wish you all the best for your website that is in my opinion one of the best website in this scene. Your ideas really rocks! Fuck Yeah!


В колонках играет - can you imagine