Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Villins. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Villins thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

Jesyka: When I was super young I knew I was going to be a singer – it was just one of those intuitive gut-feeling kind of things that has never changed. I was 5 or 6 years old when I first asked for voice lessons, because I was so in love with Judy Garland in ‘The Wizard of Oz’ and wanted to grow up and be able to do what she did. I was surrounded by music in my house growing up and I was never able to picture any other way in my head. It wasn’t really a choice that I was going to ‘start pursuing music’ – it was just always kind of that way.

Jesus: My dad was an old school ad man and jingle writer and my mom was a soul singer, so I grew up in a house filled with music and creativity. I started learning to play the guitar by sneaking and playing a nylon string guitar that my mom had in her closet, and started messing around with recording with the various tape machines and random audio devices my dad had laying around for his work. The idea that I might grow up to be a musician was a pretty natural path to imagine growing up in my family, but I’m pretty sure it was hearing and seeing Eddie Van Halen play for the first time that was the point of no return…

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

Jesyka ♱ Jesus are VILLINS: a gothic disco rock duo from New York City. Featuring the powerhouse rock vocals of lead singer Jesyka and the blazing guitar heroics and pop production prowess of Kareem ‘Jesus’ Devlin, Villins are a fearless musical duo that are in a league of their own.

The first time Jesyka saw Kareem, he was playing lead guitar on Lady Gaga’s The Monster Ball World Tour HBO special. After beating out hundreds of other hopefuls, Kareem (along with Ricky Tillo) toured the world with Lady Gaga. It was during rehearsals for The Monster Ball Tour that Gaga gave Kareem his stage nickname “Jesus” as an homage to his passionate playing and powerful stage presence. A born and raised rocker at heart who also loves all things theatrical and glam, Jesyka wondered what working on a musical project would be like with someone like Devlin…

From 2011 to 2016, Jesyka was the front person for her New York City-based hard rock band, Syka. The duo first collaborated when Jesus produced and co-wrote Jesyka’s previous band’s EP ‘Stay Wild’. During the development of Syka’s Stay Wild EP, the two found they had magical creative chemistry and began developing the concept and sound that unbeknownst to them would soon become Villins. Villins officially formed in late 2016 and began honing their unique gothic disco hard rock sound and live show blending arena pop production, tight choreography, and custom laser effects. Now, Villins are using their combined powers to take over the world one show at a time.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

We hope to inspire the world through living our dreams to the fullest, showing by example that anyone can go from having nothing to creating the life you dream about. Our personal mission is to create succesful songs, tour the world, and surf as many of the top surf destinations around the world.

Have you ever had to pivot?

For us, the pandemic created a real unexpected pivot point. We prided ourselves on our ability to bring an arena style performance to un-expecting small venues through the production work we had put into our show, but when live music was suddenly shut down, we found ourselves reexamining our creative approach and priorities.

Contact Info:

• Website: Villins.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/VillinsOfficial
• Facebook: facebook.com/VillinsOfficial
• Twitter: twitter.com/VillinsOfficial
• Youtube: YouTube.com/villins
• Other: Villins.bandcamp.com Soundcloud.com/Villins Patreon.com/Villins

Image Credits
Studio photos by Mark Doyle Stage shots by ⁣@thomaseganphotography and @jbuschardt