From the Green Room interview with Versa
Thanks for taking some time to chat with From the Green Room
1. What’s the name of the band?
Versa
2. Where are you from?
Victoria, on the west coast of British Columbia, Canada.
3. What type of music do you play?
A mix of post-rock, progressive rock, and indie rock.
4. Introduce yourselves to the readers and tell us what you do in the band?
I’m Matthew Dolmage, and I play flute, guitar, piano, and sing in the band.
5. This is probably a common question but one that most want to know, what musical
influences did you have growing up, and what are some now?
My biggest influences when I first started writing music were Jethro Tull, Sigur
Ros, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Mogwai, Sufjan Stevens, and Andy Creeggan.
Those are still important artists for me, but lately I’ve been listening to a lot more
modern progressive rock and metal – artists like Haken, Caligula’s Horse, Neal
Morse, and Big Big Train – which have had a big influence on our more recent
songs.
6. Have you always been into music? Was it something that just came to you
naturally?
Yes – my mom was a pianist and I’ve been playing music for as long as I can
remember. Hollas, or violinist, grew up in a musical home as well –his parents were
both professional musicians and his father was head of the School of Music at the
University of Victoria, and Jesse, our drummer, also comes from a musical family –
his father is a multi-Juno award winning singer/songwriter.
7. What can we expect from the band in the rest of 2024 and beyond into 2025?
We’ve got a couple more music videos coming to support our most recent album, “A
Voyage / A Destination, Part 2”, released on October 4 th . We’re also returning to
live performance for the first time in almost 8 years, with a show at one of our
favourite venues, Lucky Bar here in Victoria on December 13 th . In 2025 we’ll be
playing a few more shows and starting work on our next album.
8. For someone who wants to know more about the band, were can they find you at?
And where can they find your music?
Best place to go is www.versa-music.com – it’s a link tree to our social media
accounts, youTube page, Spotify, Tidal, and Apple Music streaming pages, and our
Bandcamp, where you can buy physical CDs and digital downloads.
9. Let’s answer some fun questions, what is your all time favorite band?
Jethro Tull, Genesis, and Barenaked Ladies are my top-3.
10. If you could tour with any band and open or have them open for you, who would
you choose?
It’d be an honour to open for any of the bands and artists that we’ve had the
pleasure of collaborating with on the last two albums – we’ve had members of
Haken, Caligula’s Horse, iamthemorning, Neal Morse Band, Big Big Train,
Marching Mind, eMolecule, Moon Letters, and Wobbler play on our recent albums,
which has been amazing. We are probably going to get something going with Moon
Letters in 2025 – they’re in Seattle and we’re in Victoria, so it makes sense! Of the
other bands, I think we’d be a great fit to open for Big Big Train – maybe some day!
Thanks for chatting with me From the Green Room and look forward to chatting
again in the future.
SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/versamusic
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/progversa
Twitter: @MusicVersa
YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/c/VersaMusicOfficial
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/album/32xuWbamGmt85uAKsqPVn5
Apple Music:
https://music.apple.com/ca/album/a-voyage-a-destination-part-
2/1770532955
Tidal:
Bandcamp: https://versaversa.bandcamp.com