Interview- Latent Anxiety

Ilja Rosendahl creates his own unique style of industrial and gothic music. He reaches further and deeper electronically with his haunting vocals and artistic melodies. His videos are rich with imagination and full of deeper meanings.

Grave Concerns:  What is your musical background?

Ilja:   Music has always been very important to me since I was a school choir vocalist in the 70s and later the founder and frontman of the 80's rock band Platonic Love. With autodidactic methods, I started playing electric guitar in 2001 and recorded songs with a 4-track tape recorder and a drum computer. The result was the album Perception in 2005, which received nice reviews and was finalist in the Song Of The Year Contest. Since then, my production environment has changed a lot.

Grave Concerns:  How did you come up will the name of your band?

Ilja: .  There are two reasons why I chose Latent Anxiety as the name for my music project: Firstly, the initials correspond to the city of Los Angeles where the project was founded in 2001. And secondly, most of my lyrics deal with problems in modern society, such as the growing worry about the future, which is also expressed in the naming of the Latent Anxiety albums.

Grave Concerns:  How many albums have you made and what are the titles?

Ilja: To date I recorded 5 albums named Perception, Sensation, Reaction, Detonation and Suffocation as well as the best-of compilation Liberation with 3 bonus songs. The first 4 albums have already been relased and the other ones will come next year.

Grave Concerns: What are your songs about?

Ilja: They deal with life experiences and impressions in combination with fantasy, imagination or historical events.

Grave Concerns:  Describe how you found your own unique musical style?

Ilja: It's a crossover of dark wave, industrial and gothic themes with infusions of rock, pop and dance music, which has been classified as Electronic Alternative Rock (EAR), an intention to define own boundaries and to reach out for a broader range of listeners. Latent Anxiety's musical style has been and is still being developed and I think that with every new album I'm getting closer to the essence of what I would like to present.

Grave Concerns: If you had to describe your music in 3 words or less what would they be?

A. Well, Electronic Alternative Rock (EAR).

Grave Concerns:  Which of your songs are you the most proud of and why?

Ilja: As singles I picked the songs I also personally like the most. These are Turn Back Time, Psycho Discrace, Love Delirium and Galley as they still make me smile and groove though I listened to them so many times.

Grave Concerns:  Which songs on your albums were the most difficult for you to write?

Ilja: My songs are based on what I like and what comes to my mind. If I find a song difficult to write I just skip it because I think songwriting should flow easily.

Grave Concerns: Musically speaking who do you admire the most?

Ilja: My favorites are talented individuals who dared to be different and have influenced music history. Regarding vocals I like Bono Vox and Michael Hutchence. Guitar players who inspire me are Eddie Van Halen and Yngwie Malmsteen.

Grave Concerns: Describe one of your musically inspiring moments, and the process to becoming a song?

Ilja:  Some of my music was inspired by movies or books. With Galley I tried to translate the visual impression of the movie 300 into music, Psycho Discrace was triggered by the movie Silence of the Lambs and Red Death is derived from a short story by Edgar Allan Poe.

Grave Concerns: What was the best advice you’ve received regarding following your musical aspirations?

Ilja  My recording engineer once told me some stories of other successful musicians. He pointed out how important it is to stay authentic and faithful to my musical proposal.

Grave Concerns: Your videos are visually captivating, large in scope and imagery....how did you come up with the concepts for your videos?   How long does it take to complete a music video?

Ilja:  Actually I love making music videos and to be involved in screenwriting, acting and post-production. The goal for every one of them was to create a short movie, which visualizes the lyrics and mood of the song. From the filming idea to the finished video it can take up to 6 months.

Grave Concerns: How do you define success?

Ilja: Basically I want to entertain and I'm happy when people say that they like my music and that the tunes had an impact on their lives. The imagination what people think, feel and do while they listen to my songs makes me move forward.

Grave Concerns: .Are you currently planning or working on any new videos?

Ilja:   Music videos for all Latent Anxiety albums, except Perception, are already finished. If there will be another album in the future I will certainly consider that.

Grave Concerns: What are your future plans?

Ilja:  Apart from releasing Latent Anxiety I also collaborate with Mortal Loom as vocalist and guitarist. Their album This Vastness will come still this year and currently I'm also working on new music with them under the name Mortal Anxiety. So far, we have done some very edgy and hot own compositions as well as cover songs, such as More from Sisters Of Mercy, Never Take Me Alive from Spear Of Destiny and an english version of Deja Vu from Spliff.

Links:

https://www.latentanxiety.com/

Thank you....

Linda Bennett

ALL 4 THE MUSIC

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