Victoria Ragnarok Radio
Your Name: Victoria, Vic, Vikki – I’m not picky
Your DJ Name: I don’t really have a DJ name but in terms of Nicknames a lot of people call me Midge, I like it and respond to it – quite often its the easiest way to get my attention.
Your Station: Ragnarok Radio
Station URL: http://www.ragnarokradio.co.uk
Your Website(s) URL: http://www.ragnarokradio.co.uk in addition I also run http://www.thetyphon.com which is a more ‘business’ orientated site.
Where are you from and tell us a little bit about your home town: Well I’m from the UK but I’ve lived in various places around it so where I’m from and my hometown are two slightly different things. Where I live at the moment is a former mining and ship building town in the North East of England, its suffered a lot over the years but people are generally hard working and usually (!) optimistic about their future. Unfortunately the metal scene is poor but we do get quite a few good gigs in the region.
Tell us a little bit about yourself: I’ve been into metal since I was about 11 or 12 and I’m now in my early 20’s so still going strong. I graduated from University in 2007 – also the year I went to my first festival. I studied Interactive Media Design and while I was there I started Ragnarok in late 2006. When I’m not busy with work and Ragnarok I do pottery, photography, knitting, play retro games – I have quite a large collection and I also love food, particularly cheese even though it raises your cholesterol!
What inspired you to become a DJ? It’s hard to say for me its less about wanting to be a DJ and more that I wanted to start a podcast. I’d listened to a variety of podcasts through 2005 when they first started getting popular and was a bit frustrated with the lack of metal shows from the UK.
How do you choose the songs you play on your show? Do record companies ask you to play their artists’ songs? It tends to be a combination, sometimes artists approach us to be on the show, we also request artists we’ve heard either at gigs or through magazines, some bands we know in person and just ask. Very rarely do we get asked by record companies to play artists songs but it does happen occasionally.
Do you recommend any new artists or bands? On the show we always try to encourage people to discover new bands all the time, we like to think we offer a mix of established and up and coming artists of varying genres.
What are your personal musical influences? Well I listen to all genres of metal everything from black metal through to power metal and classic metal. I also like classic rock, classical music and american instrumental jazz.
Are you a musician yourself? If so, what do you play and do you have your own band? I’m not a musician but I know a lot of people who are. I tend to occasionally tinker with learning an instrument I can play a small amount of acoustic guitar, do vocals and I’ve played drums on occasion. But I’m not really a very musical person.
What do you love most about Metal Music? I like how diverse it is, its always changing and its quite difficult to get bored with it! Also the folks in bands can usually play their own instruments, theyre talented intelligent people and the music reflects that since metal often confronts a lot of controversial issues. I also quite enjoy the fantasy element as well, it can be auditory escapism as well as internal reflection.
What are your future plans for your radio program?
Well the only thing we plan is world domination! HA HA HA! But seriously, we only really want to be more popular than we are and also get our show earning some money so we can pay hosting fees.
Do you have a saying you like to use? Like “stay classy San Diego” Stay fucking metal.
What was the first Album you ever bought?
First album I ever bought was Marilyn Manson’s mechanical animals – hey, everyone has to start somewhere!
What is the funniest thing that ever happened on your show? I’m not sure Alestorm being interviewed whilst drunk, Tony Kakko when asked if he was popular with the ladies his response was that hes married, sitting in burger king considering using ketchup to correct questions for Marco and having to borrow a pen from the Nightwish fanclub, Turisas’ tour manager getting changed on the bus while interviewing Warlord – he got completely naked!
Have you interviewed, or met any interesting or famous people? If so who? Too many to mention! I’ve met alot of interesting metal people and famous metal folks, I usually always get nervous but I tend to keep a professional air and focus on the interview until afterwards. The only time I almost totally freaked out was when I met Marco – Im a massive Tarot fan and hes much more handsome in real life than in photos ; ) I totally missed all the jokes he made since I was concentrating on stopping my hand holding the mic from shaking around!
If you could hang out with a Rock star for a day, who would it be? We’ll I’d say Marco! I’d love to do a photoshoot with him. Other than him maybe Johan Hegg from Amon Amarth, we could go shopping for cheese – he used to work in a cheese counter.
Tell us something unique about yourself or your Show? I.E. Contests, you DJ naked, give away prizes, etc….
Well I tend to think that we’re unique because we’re a UK based show and there aren’t that many of them out there on the internet. We do occationally give away prizes and stuff but not very often we tend to find we have quite a passive audience. We also try and interview both international and up and coming UK acts and its interesting to listen to the range of responses we get of people at various stages in their metal career.
I’m assuming it’s not for the money so I have to ask: why do you do what you do? I enjoy it there are alot of perks involved with doing the show that are non monetary. But our mission is to promote metal from the UK and to help show folks how diverse metal can be, hopefully we’ll continue to do that. We like to feel in some way we are doing something positive for British Heavy Metal since the scene is getting too bogged down with bad bands.