Samuel Virgo on “ICU,” Creative Independence and Seeing Through the Noise

I gave myself the name Svirgo19 when I was 15 years old, as it was my social media handle—well it still is on Instagram anyway. But I got to a point where I wanted to distance myself from the person and artist I was when I was a teenager/young adult and just embrace me as an adult now and this new sound I wanted to make. So it just made sense to start again and use my own name whilst starting a new project.

“ICU” looks at the way narratives are shaped and truth becomes obscured. Was there a specific event or pattern that pushed that idea into a song?

There was quite a few to be fair. It was a range of things from the genocide in Palestine, the other genocides in Congo and Yemen, the Hudson River helicopter crash and then that plane crash that happened in DC where the army helicopter crashed into a passenger jet. Aside from the weird string of incidents in the sky in 2025, just simply having to hear what our government are doing—or most of the time not doing—is quite exhausting, especially when they spend every day talking rubbish all the time to try and twist their way out of trouble. Hopefully Andy Burnham will be better though, fingers crossed.

How does the title “ICU” connect to the song’s questions about seeing, perception and manipulation?

It’s just me saying I see you doing what you’re doing, or what you’re trying to do and what reality you’re trying to shape with your words, and I’m not going to fall for it.

You deliberately moved toward a more repetitive, hypnotic structure here. What could repetition communicate that a more linear story could not?

If you say it enough times eventually people get the message. In theory.

Your influences stretch from Fontaines D.C. and The 1975 to Tyler, The Creator, Blood Orange and Dean Blunt. How do you absorb such different voices without losing your own center?

I appreciate these bands and artists for who they are and what they make. I have no urge to be like them, so I’ve never felt like I lost my own center. I am my own man and my own artist at the end of the day, but I love the soundscapes they build and I love the different emotions and feelings they create with them, either with their voices or with the production. I just absorb all of that and try and channel it into how I create my own soundscapes. These words that I put out are my own, but the soundscapes I certainly absorb and inspire what I do.

What did producing and engineering the EP yourself allow you to protect creatively?

I was able to protect my time. I wasn’t waiting on anyone other than myself and didn’t clash with anyone over the direction of it. The other thing were the subjects and the words. I’m open to changing things around, but this time I didn’t really feel like doing that, hence why I struck out on my own for this one.

When you work alone, how do you decide that an unconventional choice is genuinely serving the song rather than simply being different?

For me, it comes down to whether the choice makes me feel something. I’m not really interested in doing something differently just so it sounds different. If an unconventional idea makes the emotion of the song stronger, or says something that a more obvious choice wouldn’t, then I’ll keep it. I’ll usually listen back a few days later with fresh ears too, because sometimes you can get attached to an idea just because you’ve spent so long working on it.

Your lyrics leave room for listeners to create their own meaning. Is there ever tension between openness and wanting your original intent to be understood?

I think there can be, but I’ve learned not to let it concern me that much. When I write something, there’s usually a very specific feeling or experience behind it, but once the song is out, it belongs to whoever is listening to it as well. I’d rather someone connect with a lyric through their own experience than understand exactly what I meant. Sometimes I don’t even understand what I experienced or what it means to me; I just understand the feeling and I try and put it into something physical like words. The original intention is important to me, but I think leaving enough space for people to find themselves in the song is part of what makes music powerful.

You have played everything from intimate London rooms to The Alternative Escape and BARE in Norway. How has live performance changed the way you build recorded music?

I think playing live has made me think more about the sounds and how they translate live. When you’re in a small room, you can immediately feel what connects with people and what doesn’t, and that’s taught me to think more about the energy of a song rather than just how it sounds through headphones. We are very fluid and loose sometimes with the structure of the songs when we play live. We interpret and change things around sometimes just to add to the live experience.

My guitarist loves a solo, so we always add a few of those in there to surprise people, and it also gives people something to react to and a moment they wouldn’t get from listening online, as those moments don’t exist there. They only exist when you come and see us. Playing places like Alternative Escape and BARE in Norway has also shown me how differently people can respond to the same music, which has made me more confident in trusting my instincts—and so far no one’s ever said we weren’t good. So we must be doing something right.

As the first glimpse of the EP, what promise does “ICU” make about the world listeners are about to enter?

Whatever you think this world is, it probably isn’t. Trust your instincts, but also have a good time.

Virgo’s latest single “Slip Away” continues that forthcoming EP with a more intimate look at losing yourself in love, while “ICU” establishes the project’s appetite for ambiguity, independence and instinct.