Hello Vic, thank you for doing this interview with us, how are you doing?

Doing fine :) Impatiently waiting for the moment when everything is ready for releasing a new album! :) How are you?


Probably the hardest question to answer, who is Vic Anselmo?

An extremely emotional, sometimes shy, but sometimes highly explosive creature, that most probably is coming from another planet :).


You are born in Latvia, an pretty unknown country for most of our readers. How was in growing up in Latvia and how did you get in contact with gothic music?

As you may know Latvia is a Post Soviet country. And the Collapse of Soviet Union (that happened during my growing – I was about 5 years old then) was a rather interesting time. It was the time when the world started to be open for Latvian people. That was also the reason for many to be obsessed with material values. After the first advertisement on the TV was shown (It was Snickers chocolate :) ) everybody were running to the shop to buy that stupid thing :) ) Before Soviet Union collapse almost nothing from abroad were available to people, children were searching for some coca-cola cans in the Latvia hotel trash cans (some people from abroad used to stay there), getting a bubble gum was like finding a diamond. I remember how “cool” it was to have a lot of “coming from abroad stuff” at your home, even the labels from bananas were attached to refrigerators door :) )) I remember how once in a week the ice-cream truck was coming to our street – it had only one variant of ice-cream, so called Eskimo- every child from my yard was running like insane to get it:) ).

The music from abroad was in a way the same problem; We didn’t have normal music shops at once - we had a secret “recording studios” at which you had to leave an audio tape, choose from their list what you want on it to be recorded, pay money and then in the next days getting the music you wanted on your audio tape :).

Later on, some shops were open, some musical tv programs were broadcasted, radios were playing new songs that some time ago weren’t allowed to be played. I took attention to all the new music I could, first from the surface coming from massmedia, my family preferences. Later after meeting new people my education continued. That’s how I’ve learned about many bands and styles that eventually influenced my own music:  from blues, soul, country, rock and classic rock (Led Zeppelin; Black Sabbath; Janis Joplin; Pink Floyd,; Emerson, Lake and Palmer; Atomic Rooster;  Sheryl Crow; Tori Amos; Porcupine tree)  to grunge , metal and gothic music (Alice in Chains, Pantera, Devin Townsend, Dead Can Dance.)

My first contact with Gothic music happened through getting to know such names as Type O Negative and Dead Can Dance. But I can’t remember the exact time when it happened.