Exclusive Interview with 'VENIOR'

VENIOR is a Finnish singer, songwriter, producer, painter, and “trashion” designer who currently resides in Berlin and is engaged in new artistic endeavors. Her aesthetic is “Freeky Punky Pop,” according to VENIOR. She combines erratic, experimental beats with powerful vocals, heavy bass sounds, and a strong message with her enigmatic and vibrant artistic universe, which she refers to as a portal into the “Neon Pussy Universe.” VENIOR is here to challenge accepted beliefs, spark movement, and usher in change while wearing her self-made recycled “trashion.” She wants to take you on a journey, encourage people to discover their inner magical, strong selves, and arouse curiosity so that you can look at life from a new perspective. Prepare yourself for the Free-K Revolution!
A serious crisis is facing humanity. We have forgotten our origins and are living in a hyper-realistic bubble where material wealth, consumption, and egotistical objectives determine our course. We have lost sight of the fact that all life is interconnected with us, and that in order for all life to flourish, we must cultivate reverence and respect for the living world. The rebel songs Global Warning and ECO-nomy urge people to remember their true place in the ecosystem. Not here to kill and destroy, but to contribute to the artistic creation that is life on Earth. The songs are from Venior’s debut full-length album from early in 2019. Venior wrote, produced, and mixed the songs. Check out her single ‘Global Warning’ and the exclusive interview below:

1. Can you tell us a bit about where you come from and how it all got started?

VENIOR: I grew up in a small town close to Helsinki in Finland, but spent the summers in the Finnish archipelago on a small island without running water or electricity. Spending a lot of time in nature as a kid has definitely shaped a lot of who I am and the music I make today. I realised that I love to write music already as a little kid, I wrote my first songs when I was around eight years old, I still got my old notebooks with the songs I wrote. I also loved to perform since a kid and took part in various projects like summer theatres, musicals, children’s Eurovision contest and so on. I took every opportunity I could to perform, and that’s how it all got started.

2. Did you have any formal training or are you self-taught?

VENIOR: My parents put me in music school when I was five, first playing the Finnish national instrument Kantele and when I was six I started taking classical piano lessons. But I pretty soon realised that it was singing and writing my own songs that I loved the most. But I continued my classical piano lessons until I was about 15 and then moved on to jazz and pop. I also sang in various choirs and took solo singing lessons, but I feel like I learned the most by just singing and performing in all the diferent projects I took part in.

3. Who were your first and strongest musical influences and why the name ‘VENIOR’?

VENIOR: I remember that my parents had Tina Turner’s CD’s and I loved her voice and energy, as well as a Swedish singer/songwriter called Lisa Ekdahl that my mum used to sing along to when I was a little kid. When I was around ten I got obsessed with Swedish Eurovision music haha. I loved the energy and key changes, I loved uplifting music in general, Michel Jackson was also huge influence on me as a kid. But as a teenager I started listening to indie pop/ rock like Coldplay, Florence and the machine and Bon Iver and that influenced my early writing a lot. The artist name Venior comes from a dream that my cousin had when we were kids. She told me the next morning that she had had a dream about me and that my name was Venior. From that day the name felt very special to me and later when I started to launch my artist career I chose to use it because I feel it represents dreams, magic and the mysterious.

4. What do you feel are the key elements in your music that should resonate with listeners, and how would you personally describe your sound?

VENIOR: I think the key elements in my music is a lot of energy, melodies and a strong message through the lyrics. I love to mix diferent styles and not try to fit into a certain genre. I like to describe my sound as “Freeky Punky Pop”. I feel it expresses pretty well all the elements of my music. It’s experimental, wild pop music with a lot of attitude and a strong message about society.

5. For most artists, originality is first preceded by a phase of learning and, often, emulating others. What was this like for you? How would you describe your own development as an artist and music maker, and the transition towards your own style, which is known as Freeky Punky Pop?
**VENIOR:**
As I mentioned before I started writing my own songs very early, but of course it took me many years to find my own sound. When I was 11 I was a huge fan of a Swedish child star called Amy Diamond, and I remember I used to sing along to all her songs after school, trying to sing like her because I really looked up to her. And she really inspired me to pursue a career in music because she was almost my age and already released albums. But the more songs I wrote I started to find my own unique sound, and what I wanted to sing about. At that time my sound was more acoustic, singer/ songwriter style but when I entered the electronic music scene a whole new world opened up for me. I started collaborating with a lot of producers from all around the world and doing sessions almost on a daily basis. I was also producing myself a little but I didn’t have the confidence to go all in on music production. But after a few years of that lifestyle, travelling around working with diferent producers and songwriters, I realised I craved my own space. And when I came to Berlin, that’s where I found it. I got my own studio in a big artist community and started to produce myself finally. I decided to let go of my fears and just do it! And thats where I started to develop my sound that I now call Freeky Punky Pop.

6. What’s your view on the role and function of music as political, cultural, spiritual, and/or social vehicles – and do you try and afront any of these themes in your work, or are you purely interested in music as an expression of technical artistry, personal narrative and entertainment?

VENIOR:

I think music is a very important and powerful tool for change in society. Music affects the very frequency of vibration that it touches upon and so has a tremendous impact on humans and society at large. I don’t say it always has to be political, good music for me is music that is honest, whatever it is about. But for me it comes very natural that the music I do is intertwined with issues of our times. It’s my way to process and express the way I see the world and so it inevitably becomes very charged with a political and spiritual expression. Singing and performing in front of people ultimately makes you ask the question; when I have a chance to say something to a bunch of people, what will I say? And I definitely choose to say something that I think is important in this moment we live in. Not because that’s what I think “I should do” but because I do think a lot about the ways humans live on this planet and how our societies function and so that’s what I will sing about as well.

7. Do you feel that your music is giving you back just as much fulfilment as the amount of work you are putting into it, or are you expecting something more, or diferent in the future?

VENIOR:

When I purely let music sing through me and let it come out the way it wants to, it’s a beautiful symbiosis of merging with cosmos without expectations and pressure. And I get so much energy from it. I usually get so pumped and full of energy when I write music that I don’t know what to do, other than just keep creating! But there are of course many other aspect to making music and finishing projects than the creative part and those can for sure feel draining, like promotion, legal issues, money and so on… But there’s nothing else I love as much in this world as making music so I have no choice but to just keep going and the energy I get from the creative process usually balances out the other more draining aspects working on your music career.

8. Could you describe your creative processes? How do usually start, and go about shaping ideas into a completed song? Do you usually start with a tune, a beat, or a narrative in your head? And do you collaborate with others in this process?

VENIOR:

It depends my feelings in the moment but I usually start with a beat or a production idea. Some sound or vibe that feels inspiring. And from there I start to hear melodies and rhythms that I record and then usually I write the lyrics after I got the melody. But sometimes I already have a concept or a lyric idea that I know I want to write about and so I start with that and create a production and melodies that fits that idea. And sometimes I just write with the piano. So I guess it depends on my mood. But it’s always about having this little spark of inspiration, in a sound, a lyric, a vibe or a rhythm, anything, and when I feed this little spark it grown to a fire and eventually it becomes a song.

9. What has been the most difficult thing you’ve had to endure in your life or music career so far?

VENIOR:

Talking about my music career I think that going from being signed to a major label to starting my own record label and releasing my music independently has definitely been the most difficult so far. I got signed to a major label when I was very young, around 19, which meant that I didn’t have to learn a lot of the skills that I now as an independent artist need to do myself, so of course it’s been pretty tough to figure everything out like how to promote my music, get gigs, how to financially support all the work I do and so on, but I’m also very happy that I decided to go on this journey because in the end I realise that, sure, being signed to a big label gives you a lot of comfort and help, but you do not own you own music, so if your label doesn’t agree with you on which music to put out, you are not allowed to release any of that music! And that freedom is a pretty rough thing to pay with, so I definitely prefer this harder path because it means I do not have to compromise on my art.

10. On the contrary, what would you consider a successful, proud or significant point in your life or music career so far?

VENIOR: What I am most proud of when it comes to my music career is that I learnt to produce and mix my own music. It makes me very happy and proud when someone says “I love your productions, your productions are so cool” or when my music is played on the radio in Finland and I know that it’s my work, it’s all the hours I spent in my studio tweaking and perfecting the soundscapes that payed of. To know that I can take an idea and turn it into a final production and mix is very satisfying. It makes me proud that I had the courage to get into music production even if it’s a very man-dominating scene. And I hope more women would do it, because it’s so fun and it’s so full of possibilities.