Meet Arvid Arays of Ill Humans

Today we’d like to introduce you to Arvid Arays.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Arvid. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I came to the United States from Siberia, Russia. This was amidst the 2008 financial crisis – a tough time for many people. To buy plane tickets was the matter of selling off personal possessions and leaving behind important people and things. Like most of those adjusting to a new way of life in a completely different place, the beginnings were very rough and uncertain. There were doubts about whether living in the U.S. was going to work out. Thankfully patience, tenacity, belief, and fortune of meeting compassionate people took some doubts away. For some years, I have lived in New York City, an experience that really tempered me – I think that if you could live in such a large, diverse, high-pace city, you will find your way around anywhere else. Personally, however, this was not an environment for me. An everyday race, tons of people indifferent towards one another rushing across the congested streets – I almost never felt comfortable. But I had a great fondness for California – a place of vast spaces that makes me feel content, free, and inspired. I eventually moved to the west coast to focus on what I wanted to focus on – making music. In 2017 I began Ill Humans.

My father was a key figure in developing my musical taste. Together we listened and still listen to anything and everything, there are no boundaries. In fact, my ultimate goal is to write at least one song in as many genres and sub-genres as I can grasp. I love music unconditionally. As an eight year old kid, my first true passion was Dope Stars, Inc – an Italian industrial-rock group that simply blew my mind. Yet, not many people have heard of them. I think the fact that such a talented bunch of people with musical experiments beyond anything I heard at the time were nearly omitted made me realize that I want to avoid the superficiality of pop media and dig deeper for things I genuinely love and form my own opinions around. I have always unconsciously strayed away from the mainstream – mainstream ideas, mainstream places, mainstream trends. I always found something magical, authentic, and unviolated within the underground and wanted to be a part of it. This shaped my sound and my attitude.

I began demoing my first compositions under the Ill Humans moniker in 2017, carrying on into 2018; that’s everything that you can now hear on “The Disruption of Binaries” EP (2019). Completely a dorm-room production, it was still ragged and unpolished days before its release. However, I set a hard deadline for myself, March 7, 2019, because I knew I would not have completed anything for another decade have I not imposed this necessary constraint. I figured that many people find it hard to start something new, whether or not it’s art or part of another sphere. Crossing the first barrier is always the hardest. Mine was technological, as I never formally learned how to compose, play, or record. I always just dabbled with sounds and instruments. But once you feel the first success, as minor as it can be, and get rid of the false belief that you can’t do it – you suddenly grow wings, as cliché as that sounds.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Language barriers, cultural barriers, financial barriers – many things hindered me. But I think struggle fuels art, or at least art that’s truly compelling. Struggle is a very relative notion, though – I may think I had it rough, facing prejudice and ignorance as someone who came from far away, but it’s nothing compared to people who went through things way worse – wars, genocides, poverty, deadly ailments. Some people fell to addictions and made terrible mistakes. Ill Humans aims to talk of deficiencies, insecurities, and struggles in all people. When I started writing songs, I did not try to tailor them to someone or something in particular – anybody can find themselves in them, and I find myself in them too. That’s because nobody is perfect and never will be.

Ill Humans – what should we know? What do you do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Last year, Ill Humans became a duo after I met my good friend and bandmate Edo. Besides loving similar music, we eventually found another commonality – embracing our cultures is important to both of us. As I wrote the first EP all on my own on a university campus, the thematic focus was shifted in a different direction, but ever since we got together, our ultimate goal is to combine the best of two very different worlds. Eduardo’s Mexican-American heritage and deep respect for his Indigenous ancestry put together with a cold sternness associated with Russian people – it’s a blend that I do not think people have seen or heard before. Playing the music that we play, Darkwave and Post-Punk only adds to the type of peculiarity that I hope people will give a chance to. We are really proud of our musical synergy, mutual support in all areas of life, and integrity towards one another. Currently, our debut full-length album is slowly being conceived. We hope to begin showcasing glimpses of our multicultural symbiosis soon.

What is “success” or “successful” for you?
I think for me success is the internal satisfaction that you and only you get after accomplishing goals that you set for yourself, does not matter the scale. It should not be measured by someone else’s gauge, and thus remarks like “that’s not success, success is bigger than that” should be disregarded. If writing and releasing a song is something you assigned personal value to, and you have done it, you are successful. As a developing audio engineer and musician, I will always feel success if a song I write or a project I produce resonates with at least one person. That means I gave them something valuable and it wasn’t in vain. I am not going to throw around promises of touching the hearts of millions, although that would definitely be the success of all successes.

Contact Info:

• Email: mutefanfare@gmail.com
• Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/illhumans_
• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/illhumans
• Other: http://www.youtube.com/illhumans

Image Credit:
Sebastian M. Kolderup-Lane, Miriam Nyback, Stella Sanchez, Christina Xiao

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