London in Berlin

I'm sitting on the sofa in our flat/studio in the center of Berlin feeling content. This is why I lifted my laptop onto my lap (no pun intended) looking out the window and thinking peacefully how I will miss this city that I've had the fortune to get to know, even if a month is rather brief. I shouldn't get too ahead of myself, because our time here isn't up yet, but my heart feels full with the good work we've been producing and the shows we played and have yet to play thus far have been spectacular.

As artists, we're always trying to push ourselves outside our comfort zones, challenge our spirit in order to attain purity and push boundaries. I believe this is very important that as artists, you're constantly evolving and feeding that hungry passion. And by keeping things interesting, you must constantly produce work, even if it's "shit", this "shit" work is what helps you find the essence that makes your niche unique and spectacular.

Thomas Edison, founder of the light bulb, was supposedly asked by a reporter what it felt like to experience 1,000 failures when trying to create the light bulb. To that Edison replied "I have not failed 1,000 times. I have successfully discovered 1,000 ways to NOT make a light bulb."

We came to Berlin for many reasons, one was we got bored of London's music scene, another reason was we wanted to experience a new city and get fresh inspiration and the last reason was to see how our music would translate to the Berliners. Although I think London respects our work, most are just not fully into it (yet), maybe that's to due with a cultural difference in style, sound and attitude... Let me put it this way, Berlin is open for anything and they're ready to take new artists by the horns and they follow through with their curiosity.

I think as artists, it's just as important to evolve your art as it is to take the appropriate steps to find your audience, even if that means moving countries. Thing is, if we are serious in making this band our number one job, then we gotta go where the money and the interest is. But don't confuse that with being part of a scene because Ravens will never be part of a scene unless a scene develops around them. We won't actively go out there and try and belong to a group in order to have our audience already there for us. We're way to versatile and really, for us it's not about that, it's about our creations and anyone can follow us from where ever they're from. Ravens are pretty much from everywhere anyway and our influences are mixed up so our sound will always surprise you. No one will ever be able to peg us down because the genre we've created doesn't have a name yet, but I'm sure some journalist will one day come alone and name us something that will stick...

We're our own genre, scene, style and sound.

Daytime begins after midnight

It's been a little over one week in Berlin and already we feel at home here. Yea, there's been talks of relocating down here, but we still got some things to sort out before we can turn that into a reality. There's something in this city that no other city has anymore, Freedom. Not only can you smoke in bars still, but people genuinely don't give a shit pretty much about anything besides politics.

Night time in this city begins after midnight, which at first took us a coupla days/nights to get used to as everything in London shuts around 2am unless you're lucky to find a genuine dingy bar that remains open till 4am. This time change of nocturnal activities actually proves to do us well, because this essentially means our days are technically longer if you get my drift. So we manage to get a shit load more done to which we then around 1am still go out for a night cap.

And another thing, people in Berlin actually give a shit if you're the band playing that night. The sound engineer's and the bands are polite and genuine. None of this faux-ego that folks in London seem to like to put on, pretending they're all kul and edgy. I'm telling you, the real 'edgy' is here in Berlin. Our first gig here was in some underground grotto hidden behind other derelict warehouses where only the headlights of a car could help you find the way to get there.

I'm telling you, if you want the real shit, not this dressed-up-try-hard-BS you get in other cities, COME to Berlin! You'll genuinely feel like a human being who still has a brain and can make your own decision without some 'scene' doing it for you. Once you're in Berlin, you'll feel something that you thought was once lost or robbed from you, that true sense of Freedom, that feeling that the world really is your oyster. That true sense of 'I can do whatever I want' is here in the air and we breath it everyday and it fills our guts with inspiration.

And no one's even gonna try and stop us!