Australia’s Victoria K released her debut album “Essentia” on April 24, 2020, via Rockshots Records. The full length was produced by Lee Bradshaw and features special guest Michalina Malisz (Eluveitie). The Melbourne singer/songwriter has made her mark on the rock and metal scene with the release of her debut single ‘Monster‘ in 2016, featuring guitar work by Brett Garsed (John Farnham Band) along with her 2019 follow up track ‘Lacuna’ distributed in Australia and New Zealand by Warner Music Group (Australia) and is the lead single off the upcoming album.

The single garnered a lot of media praise and created an opportunity for Victoria K to support Swiss folk metal giants Eluveitie for their May 2019 tour date in Melbourne, a performance that had the crowd chanting for an encore.

Although the album was originally a solo project, it has now developed into the current band structure with each member bringing their own energy and experience to the collective. Check out our chit-chat with Victoria about the band’s history!

Beginnings:

We came together to perform the support act for the Eluveitie show in Melbourne. My producer knew James (our drummer) and Sheri. Everyone was connected from there.

Behind the name:

Victoria K was originally my solo project and grew into the current band format from there. The project was gathering some momentum so it made sense to keep the name and continue. It just stuck.

Inspiration:

Bands like Nightwish, Within Temptation, Kamelot are big influences. From a lyrical perspective – writers like Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Charles Dickens, and even Shakespeare.

Inspiration behind Essentia:

Essentia is about the human condition. The concepts are formed by observing others and capturing those feelings and emotions in song. There are already ideas for the next few albums but for when it all comes together, we’ll just have to wait and see.

Teamwork:

I am the main writer, composer and write the lyrics and structures and then work on the music with our producer Lee Bradshaw.

The story behind their new concert DVD, “Live Isolation Concert (you can order it here):

We performed the live stream because tours and shows were not allowed due to the COVID-19 global pandemic. We filmed the show at the time of the live stream, so it made sense to create the DVD. The show took a lot of time to prepare and was just a lot of fun to perform.

Dark, Gothic, Symphonic, Theatrical, Metal!

Describe your music in 5 words!

COVID-19:

It made it impossible to perform shows and tours. The difficulty was in promoting the album Essentia because we couldn’t perform shows. Things in Australia a better now and shows are opening up so we plan on touring later in the year within Australia however any plans for European tours may have to wait until 2022.

Behind the scenes:

We have loads of fun when we are together and never stop laughing. James is the joker of the band and keeps us all on our toes. Julia is like my big sister and, Sheri looks after everyone and Marty is the cool one. It’s a great balance of personalities.