Q&A: Devon VonBalson Defies Genres With Two Debut Singles
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY NINA KUDLACZ ☆
DEVON VONBALSON IS ALL ABOUT THE LOVE—The 25-year-old has been making music since he was in diapers. Now, he’s exploring his passions through solo music.
Hailing from a family of musicians, creativity and intensity flows through VonBalson. Outside of drumming for indie rock band flipturn, VonBalson has been writing and producing solo music for about two years. After releasing his debut solo single "Slow Burner" on Feb. 18, he recently released his second on March 18, titled “Rat Race.”
VonBalson started his first band, SolaFide, alongside his best friends at the time a decade ago in his hometown of Jacksonville, Florida. A few of his musical inspirations include Mutemath, Phoenix, Lewis Del Mar, The Velvet Teen, Mock Orange and Twenty One Pilots.
Recently, VonBalson has been listening to Harry Styles’ new album, along with Bassvictim’s album “Forever,” Glom, Spill Tab and the song “No Crimes” by Son Lux.
One of the hardest parts for VonBalson about navigating a solo project is determining what genre he falls into. He takes inspiration from alternative rock, hyper pop and experimental indie, but would rather make music he’s proud of than confine himself to one genre.
At the core of his solo project is one theme: spreading love. Read below to hear more about “Slow Burner” and VonBalson’s self-expression through his music.
Photo by Amanda Laferriere @ajpgphoto
LUNA: How long has music been a part of your life?
VONBALSON: There's photos of me in a diaper, reaching up to tap on top of a floor tom or a drum. Both of my parents are musicians and my dad's a drummer, so I grew up with drum sets in the house, and always having access to a kit. I think when I was 12 years old, I realized, wait, this comes pretty natural to me. Maybe attribute it to genetics or something, but I realized I really enjoyed it.
LUNA: What are some of your inspirations?
VONBALSON: I grew up going to shows and getting really influenced by a bunch of my favorite artists, and just really badly wanted to replicate what they were doing. The feeling that I got when I went to a show. It was like oh my god this is so inspiring. I feel so rejuvenated and healed and inspired and hopeful, and I want to replicate that feeling for other people with my music or my show.
LUNA: Who do you look up to?
VONBALSON: My father, he's definitely my hero. He played in bands when he was my age and younger. He was like 23 or 24 when he found out my mom was pregnant with me, and he sort of left that life behind. Being in the position I'm in now, I look at that and I'm like, oh man, that is such a sacrifice to make. I'm just forever grateful for having a father that's been invested in my life and then my music career.
LUNA: What do you love about performing?
VONBALSON: The performance is so intoxicating because it's like an energy exchange. You have no option but to be completely vulnerable. I walk out on stage and it's the best feeling ever because I can just perform as me. And when I'm pouring out all of my passion and my energy into the drums and into the performance, I feel like the audience gives it right back. It's this beautiful exchange of energy and instant feedback from what you're doing. It's the coolest thing because in real time, you can kind of feel, like, the impact that you're making.
LUNA: What do you love about making music?
VONBALSON: Production part sort of gives you the ability to go do the performing part. It's like a little cycle, a circle of life in music. The production thing is a bit more, it's more tedious. You're sort of chasing sounds and it's all really open-ended and you never really know when it's actually done. It's really cool and it's such a fun process, especially when the whole focus is just creativity and making stuff that you love personally. I never want to get lost chasing a sound that I think other people would like. I just trust that because I like it, other people are also going to connect with it.
LUNA: When did you decide you wanted to make solo music?
VONBALSON: I knew I've always wanted to do it. I think it just took some time to figure out how to make music, and then it was this uncertainty of I don't know what my sound is and I don't know what kind of music to make. After a couple years of experimenting with that, the first idea that I was really proud of and felt like I need to show this to people, I need to put this out there, was the original demo of Slow Burner, which I think is over a year old now. I've known I've always wanted to make my own music and I feel like just maybe top of last year, I finally realized, okay, I can do this thing.
LUNA: How did this single come about?
VONBALSON: “Slow Bunner” started because I was just trying to come up with a really weird, complicated drum groove. I found a sample and came up with some chords and put it underneath, and it was sort of a natural unfolding of like, well, wait, I'm hearing melodies now. This has song potential.
LUNA: Can you talk about your lyrical inspirations behind the new single?
VONBALSON: As far as where I'm pulling from emotionally, it's just navigating my own anxieties, sort of putting that into a song. Lyrically, it's me sort of realizing I have these internalized anxieties about a goal that I have in life and then realizing that I've placed too much like purpose or emphasis on that, and then sort of navigating the steps to like break that down and overcome it by admitting it to myself and then like presenting that to others. I don't journal or anything, so it's sort of like a diary or a way to externalize emotions.
LUNA: Where did the song name come from?
VONBALSON: I'll do this thing called scratch vocal takes, sort of sing melody ideas but it's gibberish. One of the things that I sang was “Slow Burner.” I didn't really know what it meant at the time, it just felt natural coming out in the original idea. I sort of built around that because the idea of the song is that whatever I was chasing or after, I was getting antsy or impatient with how long it was taking to achieve it. It's this uphill battle, never quite being able to get to it. It's a slow burner, you know, it takes some time. Originally, it was just a stream of conscious type vibe, it's just what naturally came out, but then I decided to lean into it and give it meaning.
LUNA: How does the songwriting process differ with your band versus solo?
VONBALSON: The main difference that I noticed immediately was I'm the only cook in the kitchen, and that felt weird because I feel like I've been used to having an idea that gets filtered through four other creative minds, which is part of the magic of being in a band. You know, you get something that otherwise wouldn't have existed because everyone's bringing all of their own inspirations creatively and musically together. It's sort of just like unleashing. The leash is off, the collar is gone and I can just free roam and do what I want, which is so fun in the name of experimentation.
LUNA: What's been giving you joy lately?
VONBALSON: I've been thinking so much about how lucky I am to have the people in my life that I have. My community, my friends in flipturn, even outside of flipturn, just people that I've met in music throughout the years. I feel like I've just accumulated the sweetest, most humble circle of the purest souls you've ever met. It's like an iron sharpens iron situation. It's these creatives and artists that are working so hard at what they do and it inspires me to work harder at what I do. I love the community that I got going on. That is the number one thing that fuels me and lights a fire underneath me to work harder and keep grinding.
LUNA: What do you want people to know about you as an artist or as a person?
VONBALSON: Music is so important, and it's so healing. What I try to convey in my music and performances is just raw passion and energy. That sort of thing kind of cuts through all of the weird dividing things in life and in society. The world is just so full of noise and chaos. Music is so powerful, because whatever emotion it's communicating, you can sort of fling it onto the listener, cast that emotion or draw them in into it. It's so grounding for me as an individual. When I am performing and when I'm making music, I'm trying to remind you, it's all love. I love you.
I'm thankful that you're here. We should just forget everything going on in this moment and just unite for our love for music. Any amount of hope or inspiration I can instill, that's all I care about.
LUNA: What has been your experience now that the single is out? How do you feel, how have others reacted?
VONBALSON: I was overwhelmed with support. Just because this isn't like a project I'm trying to make “the thing.” It's simply a creative outlet for myself and a way for me to experiment with my own tastes in music and also sort of externalize and process feelings that I have. I just feel so lucky that other people are connecting with it, that means the world to me. If one person can hear my song and they connect with it and they feel so strongly about it and maybe it gets in their playlist, that is the coolest thing to me.
