...Major labels work like you are a stock company to deliver a product which means you’re not there to be creative, you’re there to produce hits that sell and unless you sell over a certain amount they dump you. And that’s just NOT why I do music! If people like it and they buy lots of it that’s great, but that’s not what I’m specififcally trying to do, that’s not my main focus. We’ve reached a lot of people, we’ve got very successful in Germany and very successful in America but a lot of it was just the honesty and the hard work. We’re on the right labels, Anachron Sounds isn’t doing too badly.

J/ What’s it like having your own label then?

R/ It’s like… well it’s a LOT of HARD WORK! Doing the DVD and that release was the biggest stress I ever had in my life. It was just the fact that when the shit hit the fan, and the DVD technical problems happened there was no support. We were the label, so we had to support ourselves and that was tough. I’m not someone who ever gives up, this was my product and my dream, and I had to take charge and just do it. I guess we were fortunate in that we were already well known we didn’t have to make a big investment in marketing and promotion, we just needed somewhere that was a release point for it, and our media company in Germany did a great job of promoting it for us… When I find myself pooring over the paperwork, some sales sheet or whatever it gets really boring, but that’s ok because at least I control my own life, my own product you know? No-one can tell me what to do.

J/ For sure, yeah absolutely.. So let’s move on. What’s your favourite VNV track you’ve written and why?

R/ I don’t have favourite track. Every track is about an aspect of myself, or aspects of how I was at a certain time in my life. They kind of function like an electronic diary. It’s a bit like saying what’s the favourite day in your life, what’s your favourite sad moment. Ermm… Favourite song live, if I could say that?

J/ Yeah sure, shoot.

R/ That would be 'Dark Angel', because it gives me such a boost. It’s autobiographical in a way, it’s coded lie I have to do with some of my songs, otherwise I’d be telling people my deepest darkest secrets. But the thing is that those codes work for other people, and they relate to it. If they feel the passion that inspired those words, the same passion that they felt at that time in their life, then I’ve done my job. Because that is what I love. It’s the connecting on a level that is so unsuperficial, it’s a connection of hearts and minds or whatever..

J/ Yeah absolutely. People think that to get up on stage and do that in front of all those people is madness, but actually it’s the safest place in the world to do that..

R/ Yes! You’re absolutely right. There’s a kind of misperception that there is a division between you and the audience but when you play live and share your life through your words and music and people are loving it.. It may sound stupid but the boundaries disappear and you and the audience unite in a place behind the music and the lyrics. It’s what I do. It’s what I love about what I do. I don’t feel naked I feel protected you know? So protected that in the past I would feel like screaming out my issues.. and believe me in the early days I did.    <J + R burst into laughter simultaneously..>
No I remember doing this gig in Todbury where people said jokes about me after the show that said it was like watching someone bleed on stage. <cue laughter from both sides>
And all my friends were at the front crying going – Jeesus! What is WRONG with him?? Is he aright?? I was laying wrapped in cable on the ground, I was in another WORLD in those days.. <by this point, tears of laughter break from the interviewers eyes.. and Ronan is in full swing, he is loving this tale..> That’s what people loved about the shows.. They’d go: "Come on! Lets’ go see that nutter do his bit!" ....(continues on next page)