Getting to Know… Void Collapse | Interview 🎤

On our 215th interview, Void Collapse fills us in on their background, musical craft, influences and current + future endeavors.

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s a whole, we just try to have heavy early 2000’s era death metal juxtaposed with an arty image, and beautiful passages woven throughout.”  Now that sounds cool AF, 🎙️ Void Collapse (🎙️ Shane Elwell and 🎙️ Terry Oberson)! Also cool are the details the band (or project as interviewee Oberson asserts) reveal while characterizing their identity. Such details include recording guitars (“I do every track all the way through. Basically one-take them…”) and contrasts recording each album to “try to make things more personal.” Clearly, this is an intriguing project that fittingly delivers an intriguing Q&A.  So, without further ado, and letting the band speak for itself, here is 🎤 Getting to Know… Void Collapse: Interview No. 215!

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Starting things off, for those who may not be familiar with you, what makes Void Collapse distinct or unique? How do you knock the audience’s socks off?

🎤 Well, I [Terry Oberson] hope that we’re unique, at least a little bit anyway. It’s hard to tell how people take, and look at your work, from the inside anyway.  Or just have an idea of how your work sounds as you’re making it. I’ve asked my girlfriend, and other people if our songs sound “real” because it’s hard to tell if you’re still new to recording. I try to make different decisions than what others are doing. I used software to record on our debut, 💿 Black Light. Before I started 💿 Gwenda, my laptop crashed. I decided to get an analog board with a digital recorder in it. Hearing the difference was night and day. I’m starting the next album now and bought a tube Randall head to take the place of my Helix. Just little things to try to make things more personal. When I record guitars, I do every track all the way through. Basically one-take them, it gives the songs a sway to them, and they almost breathe. As a whole, we just try to have heavy early 2000’s era death metal juxtaposed with an arty image, and beautiful passages woven throughout. Knocking socks off? Lol, idk, we’re trying. A couple people have wrote us, and said they enjoy it, so that’s always good to hear. 

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

🎤 Nothing too juicy. This band is mainly my baby, it’s a labor of love. It’s a project, but I take it as serious as I can. I was working with a drummer from France when I first started out, and we were both trying to write. It was really hard, because it turned into a game of telephone tag, and nothing was getting done. So, I set out to find drums I could use. I met Shane off a message board, and we hit it off. We’ve been working together for four or five years. We just released our sophomore album, 💿 Gwenda. It’s the first in a four-album concept about the queens of the tarot deck. So, that’s the vision for right now. Actually, getting people to listen is the goal, I guess. In today’s music climate getting people to listen has been more difficult than I could ever think it would be. 

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

🎤 Everything is about the same. I’m not really doing this as a career by any means, and I came into this knowing that. I don’t see how you could unless you were young, and nothing tying you down. Putting something out just is a lot slower of a process than I originally thought. I think it was just naivety on how big the Internet, or world really is. Like when I was about a year in, I tried to do a giveaway for a hoodie on Instagram. The reach is so small nobody even responded or cared. You feel defeated, but I want to put things out, and I’m not going to stop until it is. Hopefully it catches on, that would be cool. Now I try to relax, and let things happen. At first, I tried to dig the tunnel through the mountain as fast as I could, but you get burned out. So, I loosened my grip a bit. 

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

🎤 Sound wise, Cannibal Corpse, Zao, Converge, Origin, Björk, Annie Lennox, Brian Wilson. I’m not a tech wizard guitar player, but I try to be a someone that can put all sorts of sounds together to make almost a collage. Brian Wilson is a big influence on that front. 

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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. 

🎤 We aren’t a live band, so I don’t have any stories about tour or anything. Shane and I live in different states. I’m a dad now, and we both work full time jobs. I have wild dad stories. Lol, I’ve put my kids into tracks before, so that’s wacky, I guess. 

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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 so special?

🎤 When I first started 💿 Gwenda, the first song I did was 🎵 “The Cross Eyed Dove”. The whole feeling for the album was captured in that song. It came out exactly how I wanted to. It’s ethereal, heavy, and tells a story. It’s the first time over the last 10-15 years I set out to put down my vision, and completely executed it. I love that song and listen to it fairly regularly. 

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

🎤 I illustrate, and do classical style flat art. I hit it pretty hard in my twenties, but as I started learning how to record it kind of took a backseat to this music project. I’m starting to get back into it and am trying to get it more into my life again.  

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

🎤 No, no secret here. Lol, okay, we have a split with Before the Storm We Flourished coming by the end of 2021. A Guns N Roses cover coming up soon also, so look out for that. Shane sent me the drums for the new album, and I’m getting rolling on that as soon as I’m done with this interview, which I’m really appreciative for. So, thanks for having us. These questions were really great :).

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Getting to Know…Void Collapse: Interview No. 215 🎤 [📷: Void Collapse, Brent Faulkner, The Musical Hype]

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