The BV’s are a band from Augsburg, Germany. Their bittersweet, looping, disintegrating mix of indie pop, shoegaze, and krautrock came together by chance in the cascading granite greys of a wet English winter in 2016 when Fred moved from Augsburg, Germany, to Cornwall in the UK for a university exchange program and moved in with Josh. After living together for four months, they decided to record some demos for fun, which became their first album, "Speaking from a Distance," released in 2017 on the German label Kleine Untergrund Schallplatten. After Fred moved back to Augsburg, the BV’s continued to make music over the internet, releasing an EP ("Interpunktion") and a second album ("Cartography") with Kleine Untergrund Schallplatten and touring extensively in Europe and the UK, including appearances at Indietracks and Madrid Popfest.
In 2022, Josh moved from the UK to Augsburg. With the band now finally all living in the same place, the BV’s have spent the last year recording their third album, "Taking Pictures of Taking Pictures," which will be released on 16th February via Kleine Untergrund Schallplatten and Shelflife Records.
1. How did the band form and what does the band name mean?
The band formed by total accident. When Fred was moving to Falmouth for university, he saw an advert for a spare room in Josh's house on Facebook and asked if he could move in. We became friends, realised we like all the same bands, and started making some music for fun. Fred sent our demos to Ronny, who runs KUS, and he wanted to make them into an album! Hannes joined after that, and we had a couple of bass players (including Ben Woods from the 4AD band The Golden Dregs) before Matthias joined us in 2018.
2. Previous musical projects? How'd you first get into music?
2. Previous musical projects? How'd you first get into music?
We've all been making music and playing in bands since our teens. Fred and Hannes both played in Endlich Blüte, an indiepop band also signed to KUS. Hannes is also a sometime drummer for the English band Jetstream Pony. Matthias played in the cult Augsburg krautrock band AB Repeat, and both him and Fred play in San Antonio Kid, an Italo-Western psych band. Josh used to play in the powerpop band Planet Jazz.
3. First concert that you ever went to?
3. First concert that you ever went to?
We are officially too old to remember. But some recent shows we've been to as a band are Teenage Fanclub, Alvvays and soon Slowdive.
4. What's your writing process like?
Our writing process has changed a lot over the years. In the beginning, we were writing a song a day and recording them straight away, with no equipment except a guitar and a laptop. Now, as a full band, the songwriting process is much more communal, with all of us contributing ideas and shaping the songs as they are written, and the songs are written and developed over longer periods of time. We do still like to improvise and write songs quickly though - two or three songs on the new album were written entirely in the studio as we were recording them.
5. What other artists or songs inspire your music?
5. What other artists or songs inspire your music?
We all listen to and are inspired by lots of different music. It's important as a musician to expose yourself to as many different genres as possible, otherwise you run the risk of writing the same songs over and over again. Obviously we are really inspired by New Order, The Cure, Molly Nilsson, DIIV, Sarah Records, Alvvays, and the bands in our scene that we've played with. But we also take a lot of inspiration from other genres like krautrock, noise, ambient, black metal, hip-hop, coldwave, punk and jazz. Our playlist is a mix of all of that.
6. What's the live experience like and your philosophy on playing live? Do you think the music live should be identical to the recorded version or should it be it's own thing?
Most of our songs involve some improvisational aspect, and so they always sounds at least slightly differently each time we play them. Then there are songs which are almost completely improvised and never sound the same. But even when there is no improvisation involved, I think songs change and develop every time you play them, and unless you're playing with a click and backing track and programmed guitar sounds, they're never going to sound exactly like the record.
7. Has the band toured? What has the touring experience been? Best shows? Worst shows?
We love going on tour! And we've done it a few times, once in 2017 and then twice in 2019, firstly in Europe and then in the UK, coinciding with our performance at Indietracks Festival. Our first post-pandemic tour was with Jetstream Pony in November 2022, and in 2023 we played loads of cool shows, including our first ever one in Scotland at Glas Goes Pop !
Some of our best shows have been at popfests (Indietracks, Madrid Popfest, Glas Goes Pop, Cologne Popfest), but we also loved touring the UK in 2019. Our show in Nottingham at the legendary DIY space JT Soar was a real highlight for us. Also, our first ever gig, supporting NZ Flying Nun legends The Bats in Augsburg in 2017, was a really special moment. And Antwerp, where we played a show about half an hour after crashing our tour van into a Porsche, was a surreal and wonderful experience.
Our worst ever show was probably in Kortrijk, Belgium in 2019. The bar we played in was almost completely empty, except for a few very drunk people who kept trying to get on stage and grab the microphones before they got kicked out. After we finished our first song the room was completely silent - no clapping, not even booing, just pure silence.
8. What's up next for the band?
8. What's up next for the band?
Our new album, taking pictures of taking pictures, is coming out on 16th February via Shelflife Records (in the US) and KUS (in Europe). Then we'll be touring to promote the album and playing some summer festivals too. And we're also really excited to start working on new songs for whatever we do next.