Two drumsticks click together rhythmically. Joe sits behind his virtual kit, focused, with an energy more nervous and physical than Paul’s composure.
Joe, thanks for joining us. We have just spoken to Paul; now we want to understand Volcren’s rhythmic heartbeat. What is your role in this ‘experiment’?
(He spins a stick between his fingers.) My role is physical movement. Paul brings the voice and stories, but without me those stories would hang in the air. As our Suno Bible says, I keep things from becoming static or falling into a boring singsong. If the bass Paul mentioned is the guide, I provide the push, turning emotion into a beat that hits you in the stomach.
The Volcren website describes a sound combining ‘visceral energy and introspection’. How does that translate into your drumming?
It is a delicate balance. We move between driving passages and minimal ones. I am not a human metronome; I am a hybrid creature. We often use a hybrid of acoustic and electronic drums. In songs like Lies or Woman in Jail, I have to be aggressive, heavy. In others, like Out of Uniform, I support the weight of a confession: the drums become powerful because they have to hold all the pain Paul is spitting out.
The Suno Bible spends a lot of time on directing you through AI. What makes you sound so human?
The secret is syncopation and rejecting mechanical perfection. Paolo Righini doesn’t ask Suno for just any drums. His prompts insist on tight, dry snares, expressive tom fills, and grooves with a post-punk or funk pull. In Fluido Ipnotico, for example, the rhythm needs to be almost a mantra: ‘batte il tempo col tamburo, mentre il mondo gira scuro’. There I create the ‘fluid’ the listener has to drown in.
Is there a song where you feel your drums really define Volcren’s identity?
I would say Asphalt Jungle. It is rhythmic and seductive, but you need to feel the city’s mechanical quality. Or the songs with an ‘Urban Groove’, where the tempo slows to around 95 BPM and I have to create a deep, almost hypnotic beat, leaving space for melodic bass to move like a second voice. As the Bible says, the goal is a ‘syncopated groove’ that never lets you forget that, even though we are virtual, the sweat you feel in the music is real.
Joe, how would you describe your relationship with Suno technology?
Suno is my ‘sound workshop’. It isn’t a replacement: it is a virtual band that Paolo directs firmly. I come from the dialogue between his human impulse and artificial architecture. The machine builds the walls of sound; I am the one who hits them to see whether they are solid. (Joe strikes a cymbal with a sharp, crystalline crash.) The war is over, soldier, but the rhythm never stops.
English translation of the official Volcren interview.
Read the original interviews in Italian (PDF) ↗