Exposed Vocals Interviews Sarvain
I was born march 17th. I’ve lived in Oklahoma all my life. Music and writing are two things I’ve always been interested in. I have a finished novel I need top proofread and make revisions to. Hard rock occupied my time in music when I was younger. It wasn’t until I heard Depeche Mode – Violator and Nine Inch Nails – Broken not too long thereafter that I got into anything electronic based. I’ve played traditional style music with physical instruments since I was 14. I believe having started out that way has prepared me better for making midi/sampled music based off DAWs and controllers. I’ve been experimenting with sound clips and loops since the early 2000s. I had put off music to focus on writing, but at the behest of my brother I got back into music and took on pretty much the same setup he uses for creating music. I have many musical inspirations but Radiohead is probably my longest standing and most beloved one.
Exposed Vocals: How did you hear about Exposed Vocals? What made you decide to sign up?
Sarvain: We are mutual followers on Twitter and I like anything that promotes music for upcoming artists.
Exposed Vocals: So tell us your story. Where did you grow up? What made you decide to become an artist?
Sarvain: I grew up in rural and suburban Oklahoma. We have a pretty loyal music scene, but certainly nothing on the scale of the metropolitan areas of the coasts. There are obvious exceptions to our low turnout of music in country and alternative music.
I wish I had a good story as to how I ended up in music, an old man down the street who gave me a guitar or a life-changing, epiphany moment, but I just kind of fell into it. My brother received a guitar for his birthday or for Christmas when I was eleven or twelve. I have tinkered with music ever since.
Exposed Vocals: How did you come up with that name? What was your inspiration behind it?
Sarvain: It was a character name in an mmorpg I used to play. It might be a place holder, but I know once you decide on a name you should stick with it – within reason. I do more traditional styles of music as well. I will probably go by my given name on that end of things.
Exposed Vocals: What do you think about online music sharing? Do you ever give your music away for free? Why?
Sarvain: That issue could take me a good thirty-thousand words or more to get to the heart of, but I will leave it as short as possible. An artist should be able to charge what he/she wants for their music. If the market is there, then someone will pay it. If there is no market, then the artist lowers their price. Many record labels are going the way of the well known movie rental chains of the 80s and 90s, which is bankrupt. They haven’t kept up with the innovations in entertainment and have failed to accommodate the listening audience. I see a virtual marketplace that is completely unfettered by big business and where people pay the artist directly and the middle men find other occupations.
I have all my music setup for free to download on Soundcloud. If I begin getting more traction and it looks like I can quit my day job, then I will probably charge through other venues. I intend to always provide my music directly to people that are interested, for free, on Soundcloud.
For those interested here is a plug for my soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/sarvain
Exposed Vocals: Since everyone was a start-up once, can you give any smaller or local bands or artists looking to get gigs and airplay some tips?
Sarvain: I would say I am just now re-immersing myself into music. I had quit creating anything musically, for a while, to focus on writing. It is like anything else in life. You get what you put into it. There is an element of luck and being in the right place at the right time with the right people, but the surest wayto make it in music is to put in the hours and to apply what you learn from experience. There are no magic bullets. You can’t bank on talent and/or charisma alone to get you where you want to be and you have to take calculated risks at times.
Exposed Vocals: Do you ever make mistakes during performances? How do you handle that?
Sarvain: The few times I have performed, which is kind of rare with how introverted I am, I just kept going. Usually non-musicians won’t even notice if you go out of rhythm for a bar or you hit the wrong note. I am my own worst critic and learned long ago that most of my mental errors were from the pressure I put on myself to perform. I say figure out how to deal with that element of making and performing music, then worry about perfecting your craft.
Exposed Vocals: Do you tour? Anything interesting happen on tour that you think our readers would enjoy hearing about?
Sarvain: As much as I have been around music and musicians you’d think I would have went on tour or something, but I haven’t. I have done a few “shows” for friends and families. Nothing major. I think if I could deal with my stage fright and general introversion I would love it. People wanting you to do well, supporting your creation, and giving their energy to this aim. It sounds amazing.
Exposed Vocals: Where do you usually gather songwriting inspiration? What is your usual songwriting process?
Sarvain: Music is very intuitive to me. I see the music I am making as landscapes and I populate those landscapes with people, places, things, and concepts I want to see there. It is difficult to explain exactly what I mean, but it is fun. As long as it remains fun and doesn’t feel like a job I will continue to create these soundscapes for myself and others. Trying not to sound pretentious about it, but I do tend to listen to my own music more and more. I started making it specifically because the style of music I do is not overly common and I wanted to hear more music like it. Sure, you have plenty of people composing on midi and through samples/loops, but it seems very formulaic: here is the beat, here is the bass drop, here is the hook. Rinse and repeat. Don’t get me wrong, that can be an effective formula and I have used it myself, but I want to test boundaries and experiment. Specific inspiration comes from a lot of things: my love of history, philosophy, dreams, the arcane, and feels.
Exposed Vocals: Do you have a band website? What online platforms do you use to share your music?
Sarvain: I probably won’t make a website until I see more actions on what I create. I have experience making websites, and I wouldn’t want anything I wouldn’t feel proud of having my stamp on it. That takes some time or some money. All of my money tends to go into musical equipment at the moment. Music also takes up a good deal of time.
I am on Twitter and Soundcloud currently.
Exposed Vocals: What are some really embarrassing songs that we might find on your mp3 player?
Sarvain: Most embarrassing might be that I lost my mp3 player a while back and haven’t replaced it. Though I am not embarrassed they were on there, I am sure people would give me strange looks for some of the music I had on it:
Britney Spears – Toxic
Chris de Burgh – Lady in Red
Phil Collins – Sussudio
Rod Stewart – Young Turks
Exposed Vocals: If you were given half a million dollars and a year off, what would you do? How would you spend it?
Sarvain: Make sure my family is taken care of, then I would probably buy an rv and travel for a while. I’d be making music on my laptop while I could, and seeing nature/the world the rest of the time.
Exposed Vocals: Any planned studio upgrades? What are you working with now?
Sarvain: Going to get a studio-quality dynamic mic for my future vocals. You probably won’t hear vocals on my electronic music, but I wouldn’t say it is out of the realm of possibility. That is actually a pet peeve of mine with modern music. I will be listening to some lovely piece of music and all of a sudden some voice that sounds like a re-packaged American Idol piece of fill-in-the-blank comes in and ruins it. I think the modern understanding of what it is to be a good singer is highly flawed. Good singing adds to the music, doesn’t try to be the center of it. Sorry for the tangent.
A better midi interface would be nice. Right now I use an old keyboard I found by a dumpster as my midi controller, so a new one of those would also be nice. I tend to use a DAW for recording but it is not a very popular DAW, so not many people have picked up on the samples or loops I do use. It is funny when I hear a song on the radio and I recognize it as a sample from earlier software I messed around with. I tend to stick to creating my own sounds. I see sampling everything as the shortcut and lazy approach. At the same time, if a sample or loop fits the mood of what I am doing I will use it and I have constructed entire songs out of them.
Exposed Vocals: How do you find ways to promote your music? What works best for you?
Sarvain: At my brother’s behest I got onto twitter and intend to make a facebook page soon. I discovered Soundcloud as a platform through research. I think my approach is to keep creating and creating. If someone likes it and spreads it to his/her friend and that friend tells another friend, well that is how something goes viral. Unfortunately most people won’t like or share a song if you don’t already have likes or shares. It is the mob/social nature of things. You have to be mindful of that and do some of your own promotion or hire promoters. I think I understand how the interwebs work enough to promote myself, and I continue to see a demand for what I am putting out. So far the reviews and critiques I have received have been positive. If I ever do receive a negative one my ego may be hurt, but I will take from it what I can to make myself better.
Exposed Vocals: If you could perform anywhere and with any artists (Dead or Alive) where and who would it be with? Why?
Sarvain: Jim Morrison, Bowie, Trent Reznor, David Gilmour, Grimes, Radiohead, Purity Ring, are all good choices. However, Chopin and Beethoven would be my first choices of who I would want to make music with. I would want to do it in this time period, Red Rocks Amphitheater in Morrison, CO – for the acoustics. I think both of them would be amazed at our musical technology and would stretch the limits of what can be done in music. You have to remember that Beethoven grew up in a time when pianos were cutting edge musical technology and Chopin didn’t come about all that much later. Imagine what musical geniuses like that could do with our modern equipment.
Exposed Vocals: So, what’s next? Any new upcoming projects that you want to talk about?
Sarvain: I am going to see where things go. I wouldn’t be against releasing an EP or LP. Though I see that format as a little antiquated, it is always good to give people a choice to buy an anthology or playlist of what you have made.
Exposed Vocals: If you weren’t making music, what would you be doing?
Sarvain: I still do it alongside making music. Writing. Hopefullymy syntax and grammar is sound in my responses. I would look foolish otherwise, right? I also do a part-time job that I scrape by on.
Exposed Vocals: Do you remember buying your first album? Who was it? What was going through your head?
Sarvain: MC Hammer, whatever his first album was. Cassettes were interesting. I am not sure what was going through my head. Maybe that I needed a pair of those pants. I imagine youthful confusion had something to do with it.
Exposed Vocals: How do you juggle the rest of your responsibilities while trying to stay ahead in your music life?
Sarvain: I tend to not text people back or respond in digital formats for a while. I am probably not juggling it so successfully with my private life at the moment. Luckily, my job has no major responsibility that comes with it at the moment, but that is always subject to change.
Exposed Vocals: What should fans look forward to in 2016?
Sarvain: I intend to keep getting better equipment for my music to improve my sound quality. That is always something I will strive to do. I might release an EP or something if I see enough support from my listeners/fans. Thanks for your time!