Getting to Know… Joviac | Interview 🎤

For the 131^st interview on The Musical Hype, we get the scoop from progressive Finnish metal band, Joviac.

“Ican say with 100% certainty that 🎙 Joviac is honest and genuine music that comes from a very personal place.” That’s great to know, particularly coming from a progressive metal band! Like so many of the musicians that appear on the Getting to Know… series, the subjects of our 131^st interview aren’t from the United States.  Rather, they hail from Finland, a country often associated with metal.  Joviac is comprised of Viljami Jupiter Wenttola (vocals, guitar),  Antti Varjanne (bass) and Rudy Fabritius (drums).  Viljami answers our burning questions regarding the band. Enough small talk – let’s hear more from the band, shall we! Without further ado, here is Getting to Know… Joviac: Interview #131.

Let’s get this started off right. For those who may not be familiar with Joviac, what would you say makes your band distinct or unique? How do you rock the audience’s socks off?

 🎤 Viljami Jupiter Wenttola (VJW): Joviac is a progressive metal band from Tampere, Finland. To me the progressive metal genre has always symbolized freedom. You have the freedom to make a 40-minute-long prog epic or you can make a straightforward rock song with the most used song structure in the world. We have a little bit of both in us, even though our longest song is only a little under 9 minutes long. Emotion for me is the most important thing in music, and basically whatever flows out of me, I let flow. So at least I can say with 100% certainty that Joviac is honest and genuine music that comes from a very personal place.

Okay, let’s explore some juicy backstories. How did your Joviac form and what were some of the goals or the visions you had as a band early on?

 🎤 VJW: I founded Joviac after my previous musical projects came to an end in 2016. I learned a lot of lessons the hard way in previous bands, and with Joviac I was going to start off fresh from square one with new wisdom. I luckily didn’t have to look very far for band members. Antti, our bass player is one of my closest friends and he was the first person I asked to join. While we did our debut together with just the two of us, it was after that with the addition of Rudy Fabritius on drums when Joviac became a real band. In many ways I see our newest album, 💿 Here And Now, as our first album and our debut album as a kind of beta test, a glorified demo, a means to an end. The biggest lesson I had learned in previous bands that I have to make the music. I can’t be 100% invested in anyone else’s art. I never take for granted that I can do my own thing with these talented, amazing people who on top of that happen to be some of my closest friends.

Let’s talk more about goals.  Have your goals or your perspectives changed since first starting out? What do your aspirations or goals look like now?

🎤 VJW: Not really. Our main goal is to just keep moving forward and to grow. The one actual concrete goal I’ve had since day one has been to build Joviac to the level where we can go on tour abroad. It’s true that Finland is a metal country, but we’ve never really had a big success story when it comes to progressive metal, so the scene here is challenging. Bands like Haken, Leprous, Devin Townsend, Dream Theater sell out mid-size venues and DT even draws a lot of people to ice hall level venues, so there is a market for progressive metal, we just have to tap into it. I think that road comes from abroad.

Everybody is influenced by somebody else. Who would you consider some of your biggest musical influences and how are they influential?

🎤 VJW: I wear my influences on my sleeve. If you come from the same progressive metal background as I do, you can pretty easily hear who I’ve grown up with. My biggest heroes would probably be Dream Theater, Pain of Salvation, Devin Townsend, A.C.T and of course Toto! I love the freedom of expression and complexity that the progressive side affords, but if you’re able to wrap that up in a tight and engaging package, I think that’s something special and that’s definitely what I’ve always gone for.

Ah, the fun stuff.  What’s your craziest tour story or the wackiest thing that’s happened during a performance?  Feel free to be creative.  

🎤 VJW: We get asked this a lot and each time I have to shamefully say that we haven’t really had our Spinal Tap moments yet! Joviac has only existed for a little over 3 years! The worst things that have happened to us on stage would be our backing tape glitching out, but even in that case Rudy can just switch it off so fast that no one even notices that anything went wrong. Here’s hoping that our “Hello Cleveland!” – moments are still ahead of us!

Up until this point in your career, what would you describe as your favorite song you’ve recorded or performed live? What makes that song special?

🎤 VJW: I think 🎵 “Straws” off our newest album 💿 Here and Now is noteworthy. It’s exactly an example of what I was talking about with wrapping things up in a tight package. I’m just really proud with how that song turned out, and it’s always really fun to play live. People also seem to respond to it quite well!

Is there anything else awesome, cool, or left of center the world should know about you? Secret talents or surprising tidbits?

 🎤 VJW: I don’t know if this applies, but I just started my own Twitch channel! I do gaming, but I also stream songwriting! So if you’re interested in seeing how Joviac’s songs take shape, you can head over to www.twitch.tv/willjupiter to find out. The channel is still just a week old, so I’m still figuring stuff out, but I’m sure it will be a fun community when things get rolling smoothly.

Closing things out, what is Joviac currently working on, promoting that you can share with us or want us to know about? We love secrets, but there’s no pressure. 

🎤 VJW: We released a new single under a month ago titled “Misplaced”! I’m super happy with how it turned out. You can find it here. I almost drove myself to the brink of burn out this summer trying to write our next full-length album. It didn’t quite work out, but I did manage to write quite a bit of cool music and we are tentatively looking at hitting the studio to record some of this winter. You can follow our social media for more news or head on over to our website where I keep a news blog. There you can find the most behind-the-scenes information if that’s your thing.

Thank you so much for sharing taking the time to answer these questions, and best of luck moving forward.   

🎤 VJW: Thank YOU! You had interesting questions; I hope my insight was even somewhat interesting.

Sincerely,

Viljami Jupiter Wenttola

Joviac

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[📷: Carolin Büttner, Joviac, Brent Faulkner, The Musical Hype; Icons made by https://www.flaticon.com/authors/freepik (Freepik)]