Hello! First, I hope you are doing well despite the disaster happening in Poland!
Hello there! Thanks for the opportunity to talk. Fortunately, I live closer to the western border, so the flood didn’t affect us, but I appreciate your kind words.
Please introduce Nervous to our readers.
Nervous is my small opportunity to manifest my thoughts on life, philosophy, and psychology, while also being a way to experiment with the art of music itself. Since I’m the only person behind everything in Nervous, you could just call it my solo project.
Can you tell us more about “Acquiescence”?
Acquiescence is a concept album based on my experiences of growing up, entering adulthood, and coming to terms with who I am. The music is primarily rooted in black and death metal, as this is my main form of expression. However, my inspirations mostly come from classical music, progressive rock, and soundtracks. I started composing this album at the beginning of my studies at university, so releasing it is the culmination of a period of at least 5-6 years.
When did you start writing music and who were your early passions and influences?
Metal and progressive music have always been a part of my childhood, thanks to my parents and grandfather, who introduced me to my earliest influences. Bands like Opeth, Devin Townsend, Dream Theater, and Pain of Salvation were always playing in our house or car, so I naturally became familiar with this kind of music from a very young age, and these bands were my main inspirations when I first started learning how to play an instrument. I also loved thrash metal bands like Megadeth and Annihilator thanks to my dad and loved drawing thanks to my mom. I got my first guitar when I was around seven, and from that moment, most of my life was shaped by learning complex thrash metal riffs and progressive ballads. I started composing music almost immediately after I began learning the guitar, so I already have years of archives (in the form of MIDI or recorded demos) of songs composed since elementary school.
What are your main impulses for writing metal music?
I believe metal music is the most cathartic and extreme way to deal with emotions while also pushing the art of composing music into places many other genres fear to explore. The drive to create this kind of music comes from several sources; the need to release emotional energy through the instrument, the need to compose something interesting, or simply to have fun.
What do you personally consider to be the most significant moments and pieces in your musical work?
There are many songs and motifs in my music that are special to me, most of which have never been shown to the world, but I'll mention a few examples from Acquiescence. Acquiescence II and its first riff definitely bring back a lot of memories. It was a first song composed by me in this more of a black metal-ish style, and breaking out of my comfort zone back then showed me a whole new artistic path. This genre also allows for a more raw, amateur production without losing authenticity, which was a big motivation for composing the whole album in similar vein with my still developing, poor skills in production and mixing taken into account. Fragile is also a very special song to me, telling the story of two similar people dealing with similar problems, as is River, which closes the album with a choir that emphasizes the lesson learned throughout the journey.
How would you describe and rate the music scene of the city you are currently living in?
Honestly, I have no idea. I’m a musical hermit. I have no contacts in the industry and have never played in a band. Poznań has a pretty small live scene, as we have very few good venues, so bigger bands rarely come to our city. As a listener, I often travel to Warszawa or Wrocław for concerts.
When it comes to being a musician, what are your criteria for quality? What are your main challenges and ambitions as a musician?
I associate quality mainly with the sincerity of the music’s message. If the music is authentic and honest, it can be good regardless of the production or composition. Personally, in my process, I place great emphasis on arrangement, composition, and developing the motifs presented in the music, as well as on the atmosphere. The biggest challenge is always finalizing projects and acknowledging that the music is “finished,” while the ambition is to have enough strength and force of will to complete albums and explore music as long as I find happiness in the process.
What do you usually start with when working on a new song or lyrics?
These days, I usually start with general concepts and a vision of how I want the music to sound. I get images or thoughts that I jot down on my phone, and later, in line with that vision, I explore how to bring that image from my head into reality. Of course, sometimes I’m just practicing on an unplugged guitar while watching TV or playing a game, and my fingers come across an interesting motif, which I then may capture on a video, or tab it out, or even record it directly into a DAW if the idea is especially intriguing. As for lyrics, during the process of creating music, these images and words come to mind, along with certain expressions that aptly define what I’m thinking and seeing in my mind’s eye. I’m also writer in my spare time, so compiling these individual ideas and words into lyrics for a whole song feels quite natural and easy to me.
Please tell us a bit about the selection process for deciding what to write about. What sources do you draw from for research purposes, and how much time do you generally spend on research and gathering material?
As I mentioned before, the impulses are varied, so the selection is mostly based on my instinct and what I can do myself using my slowly developing skills. Acquiescence was a very honest and simple manifestation of my personal struggles during my adolescence. On another note - I have already written a whole progressive-tech-death sci-fi fantasy metal concept album inspired by soundtracks from my favourite games and films, so this one awaits it’s materialization until I feel I can do it and do it well. I also want to create a few ambient and orchestral albums, so in other words - I am all over the place. It all depends on what I'm currently interested in and what grabs my attention enough to put me in a flow state, where I can compose music in a particular style. Generally these concepts take years to come to fruition, but I’m planning to do some more spontaneous, simpler works before I go further into the progressive, perfectionist metal rabbit hole.
As more and more people produce and release music, there has been an exponential growth in promotion agencies. What's your perspective on the promotional system? To what extent do you feel it possibly undermines musical freedom?
Personally, I have very little experience with services like that, but I do believe that in today’s sea of bands trying to break through the noise, it’s one of the few ways to help yourself in the process of promoting your own music, especially as a solo artist. I have a very DIY approach to making music, from composition and recording to production and cover art, but as someone working full-time in a corporation, I don’t have enough time and means to promote my music myself, so I really appreciate agencies that can take care of that for me or labels that can help distributing it. As for creative freedom—I think we always face the choice of using our skills to make things either sincerely or insincerely. I’m privileged to have a normal job, so I can afford to make music my way and according to my natural creative impulses.
The metal scene has changed considerably over the past century. What, in your opinion, could or should be new forms and formats for music? Should we preserve the old-school spirit or move forward together with musical "evolution" (or "degradation")?
Music will continue to evolve, technology won’t stop progressing, and people’s minds were in a different place ten, twenty years ago than they are now. My father also dreamed of being a musician, but he couldn’t afford a proper guitar or recording equipment in communist Poland, controlled by the USSR at the time, so I think we’re very fortunate that we now have such easy access to these tools, and music is no longer just an art for a select few who used to dedicate their entire lives to it or had better material conditions. In a post-communist country, this fact is appreciated much more than in the West. As for tradition or progress, I still believe you can find a balance between both and draw from everything. Personally, I love the album format, I am always listening to music in full albums from start to finish, and I almost never listen to singles, but I absolutely understand the need for artists to adapt to the market and show themselves to the world more often than every 2-3 years with an album.
Music-sharing sites, blogs, and a flood of releases in general are said to be killing music. What's your view on this topic?
In my opinion, music as an art form is in the best place it’s ever been. We have widespread access to music from every era, to appropriate materials for every instrument imaginable, sheet music, transcriptions, tabulatures, artist histories and bios, and interviews, and so, so much more. It does take away some of the mystery that, for example, my parents experienced in the '80s when music was expensive, and when you bought an album - you didn’t know what you were getting or you couldn’t read the band’s entire history on Wikipedia as we all like-minded people do nowadays after binging a new artist. However, I believe that music, composition, learning instruments, and knowledge about these things should be widely available, so I don’t mourn that lost mystery and accept the fact that times are changing. There’s no point in getting upset about things beyond our control. Social media will continue to evolve and with it, music.
Please recommend two bands to our readers that you feel deserve their attention.
In metal music, I will always recommend the now-defunct project Slice the Cake and their progressive-death metal magnum opus Odyssey to the West. Acquiescence is dedicated to their main composer who passed away from cancer. Regarding the evolution of the metal genre, I think Vildhjarta is a band that will be paving the way for progressive playing in the future, and they are worth keeping an eye on. I’d also mention Matt Uelmen’s soundtrack for Diablo II and the soundtracks of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Star Wars: The Old Republic, composed mainly by Jeremy Soule and Mark Griskey if you’re looking for some inspiration from the soundtrack world.
What are your plans for the near future? Thank you and see you next time!
At the moment, I’m absolutely swamped with both my corporate job and promoting the album, so first, I plan to take a break and take care of myself. After that? Who knows. I have material for at least a few albums and am still composing new music. Nervous is from definition - neurotic, so expect the unexpected. Thanks for the conversation!