Formula Indie Sessions _ Interview with Survos Music
We are “Survos Music” a husband and wife team that write, produce, record, mix, master and release our music made in our home studio. We started to write music that has christian lyrical content in 2019 and our first release was at the end of 2023. The first album was in finnish and since then we’ve released many songs in english. Musical style ranges from rock and funk to ballads and post-punk.
What is your earliest memory connected to music?
I (Reijo) remember my dad playing the guitar and singing since I was a small baby. He is a pastor who used music a lot in his ministry. Kaisa (the wife) remembers her big sister playing 80’s and 90’s music in her room but Kaisa wasn’t a big music fan herself.
How did your passion for creating music begin?
Reijo has played the guitar since he was about 3 years old. But the real interest in music production started in 2010 after somebody recorded him playing Johnny Cash songs. After that he built a small home studio and wrote and recorded about 15 country songs. Kaisa had a desire to make music only after she became a christian in 2011. Even though she didn’t know anything about music she started to have a dream about making music.
What’s the story behind your current music project?
Right now we are working to release a few more singles in English to fill a full album. We just finished a Christmas song in about 4 days which took about 45 hours to get to be released on the 12th of December.
How would you describe your sound to someone who has never heard your music before?
“Not so contemporary christian music” with a sound that takes it roots from skate punk concert vibes (Reijo used to go to these as a kid) to all the way to rock and post-punk that has an attitude against the religious ideas that “God likes only softer music”.
What is one thing you’ve learned that completely changed the way you make music?
The attitude that finished is better than perfect.
What tools, instruments, or software are essential in your creative process?
The most important part is the ease of access to a guitar or keyboard when inspiration hits. Also we use our phones voice memo to record our ideas all the time. We try to minimize the need of a computer when we write new songs.
Which indie artist or song are you loving right now?
Young Finnish guy “Jeel” who makes christian rap. We can’t rap but one day we’ll make some rap songs:)
How have your personal experiences influenced your music and artistic vision?
Everything is based on our christian faith. We try to incorporate our experiences and musical tastes in our music without any preconceived ideas that other people might have. Some people think that rock music is sin” and others believe that we should not even use any instruments. If we would listen to these and other ideas our music would be impossible to make.
What emotions or messages do you hope listeners take from your work?
Excitement and boldness. We want people to know that it’s OK to be excited about Jesus and if you used to listen other than choir music before you became christian this might be for you. Also we ourselves want to be excited about our music and hope that even “non-believers” would find our sound interesting and the lyrical content would not push them away because the music is so boring.
What’s the most important lesson music has taught you so far?
Just make “joyful noise” and don’t be limited by other people’s ideas of how it should be made.
What is a dream venue or festival you would love to perform at?
“Maata Näkyvissä” in Finland.
If you could collaborate with any artist, past or present, who would it be and why?
Johnny Cash. He was a bold christian with a rough background and had a deep meaning in his music.
Where can our listeners follow and support your music? (Website,Spotify, IG, links)
Looking toward the future, what’s your dream for the next chapter of your musical journey?
Make some 90’s eurodance style music using our new drum machine since we don’t have acoustic drums right now. And also finish our new Finnish songs.
What do you hope listeners will discover about you along the way?
That we are real about our faith and music. We don’t apologize that our music is “christian” but we hope you could be “pumped” by it. We also want to encourage everyone who has a dream to make music to start from wherever you are. Kaisa didn’t have any talent but she started to practise piano 10 minutes a day and now she has written about 85% of our songs.
