VNV Nation: Go listen to Grendel, you know, that’s what I say. There are twenty thousand… I hope that's not a sweeping statement, it’s just that I’m saying there are twenty thousand of bands that sound like that. Any style, whatever you want, if you don’t like it, if we’re not doing it, find it from someone else, you don’t have to listen to us. If you're not getting something from us that just makes you feel… dance music, it feels intelligent, it’s good, maybe it reflects your life, helps you with a personal situation, then you're really, truly getting what VNV’s about. And I’m not saying that that is an elitist thing, I’m hoping that you will, I’m hoping that anybody reading this and listening to our music will get something from it and does get something. But I don’t have to hope, I have… Mark and I will vouch for this. We have hundreds, many thousands of people who have come to us before shows, after shows, in parking lots when they saw us, in supermarkets, by email, by anything, to express and share the personal situation they’ve had. We’re not trying to be Billy Graham, we’re not trying to… you know what I mean, like with the whole healing thing. People, I mean you cannot engineer that response, you cannot ask people to change their lives, if people have felt something and it is being touched by it and it’s made them feel stronger and happier and more complete, or at least given them the food for thought to bring themselves to a conclusion. We’re not the answer, we never were, we are the food for thought that hopefully will help you reach a conclusion and allow you maybe to think about things.
Star: The more people that express that to you, do you find that harder and harder to actually really connecting to that meaning somewhat, I mean to a lesser extent… I know that…
VNV Nation: Anesthetized.
Star: Yes.
VNV Nation: Anesthetized, you mean? No, we got blown away in Charlotte the other night when a guy told us a story that just floored us. I always have time for people who say this, I’m humbled by it every single time. I love to know that there's somebody who feels strongly enough, because I mean there people who just stand by the wall because they're afraid or whatever, but if somebody comes up and wants to share something with me my ears are, you know, theirs. If I have the time and I have the ability at that particular situation. But there are people who come up and share stories with us and they’ve had me in tears. People have told me about people they’ve lost and how they suddenly found… you know, I mean I’m not saying our music’s magical, it’s just it seems to be for people and I’m so proud of that. I would rather it be… I’m going to get emotional now. It’s quite a… it’s quite a thing to, I don’t know what words to use. It’s humbling and yet it’s elevating at the same time. If we wanted to write pop songs we would have written pop songs, we would have been rich and famous. We’re not, we’re making music that we enjoy, we’re making music that makes us happy. And I get something of it first thing when I write the lyrics and I feel that it, you know, it represents me and what I’m thinking and what I’m feeling. To share that with other people and there are people who don’t wallow in their emotions that come and say this has really made me feel, I am a stranger person, it’s like a self-affirmation, like it was for me. That's what it was, it’s like listen, like fuck off, this is what I am, and if you don’t fucking like it, tough shit, next, I’ll find other people like me. And there are millions of people out there like us. That's the collest thing, the amount of people who have met at VNV shows and AFIs and other bands like that and they have, they're rally awesome people, and there are a lot of bands who…
Star: My little sister called me up because she knows how much I love you, and she loves AFI, she’s like the biggest AFI fan…
VNV Nation: Me and Davey are great friends.
Star: She saw this poster in the mall that had Davie wearing a T-shirt of VNV, and she called me, she’s like Davie’s wearing a VNV T-shirt.
VNV Nation: He’s a huge fan. But not only that but he sang Beloved with us in San Francisco.
Star: I heard of that, how did that go, and how did you that hook-up, how did you guys hook-up?
VNV Nation: He was in the audience. I said, Hey you, get your ass up here.
Star: Oh wow.
VNV Nation: We’d known him for a while before that, he came on to a few shows and I was introduced to him, and I had no idea of AFI were. I didn’t know if it was a big band, a small band, it doesn’t matter to me, I don’t need to know people in bands. He’s a lovely guy, he’s a really, really, lovely person. Very, very cool, like you can laugh with him and joke with him, but when he starts to talk about his thoughts, I can sit and talk with him for hours.