Voice In My Head
Gervs on Following His Inner Voice, No Matter What Happens
Written by Joshua Perna
Photos Courtesy of Kevin Boris @ Subaltern Co.
In the first five years of his career, Pop/ R&B artist Gervs has had a whirlwind of successes and heartbreaks. From sold-out shows and multiple viral moments to the dissolution of his record label, he’s committed himself to releasing incredibly honest music no matter the circumstances. After his latest full length album, Gervs is now ready to embark on his next chapter.
“It felt impossible,” says Gervs, leaning forward in his chair. “We went from this crazy high… and things almost immediately started falling apart.”
It’s a flat and unassuming winter day in the suburbs of Ocean County. The housing developments sport the color palette typical of this time of year in the Garden State: gray skies casting a diffused light on wet asphalt, the brownish green of grass desperately trying to survive on cold, wet lawns. While it may not be the most romantic backdrop, it’s one that Gervs is very familiar with as a New Jersey native. As we began our conversation earlier in the day, the very first snow of the year began to fall in steady gales.
Gervs is seated in his home studio, a spacious, converted basement unit nestled deep within the suburbs. A red light bathes the open space, with varied musical gear and furniture spread throughout the studio. He sits with a comfortable ease, a creator on his home-turf, the symmetrical tattoos of roses on either side of his neck poking out from beneath an oversized red hoodie. When he speaks, he folds his hands together, revealing yet another set of rose themed tattoos. Perhaps they serve as symbols of passion for someone to whom passion is a great sense of motivation.
"It felt impossible."
"It felt impossible."
“This space inspires me every day. I used to produce everything in my bedroom, but after a while it became difficult to make music in the same space I was trying to relax in,” says Gervs about the new space. “This is my desk: I'm always comfortable here and ready to work here.” And he’s not exaggerating: on the wall next to his desk hangs a white board with the outlines of over ten new songs, a batch of music that is set to follow-up his LP record Voice in My Head, which dropped almost exactly a year before our conversation.
Voice in My Head, a 13-track body of work that runs just shy of 39 minutes, is his third full length record and his most sonically ambitious project to date. “That album took forever to make and it still reminds me of stress when I hear it,” says Gervs. “But I still think the music is great. I love a lot of these songs.”
The power of the record lies in its breadth, showing the full sonic range of what Gervs is capable of. Songs like “Home” and “Won’t Stick Around” are upbeat, guitar heavy tracks, bringing energy and pop sensibility to the album. Gervs’ vocals truly shine, however, on songs like “Promise?” and “Long Time No See,” where traditional rhythm sections are peeled away to reveal ballads with heart and melancholy. Both of these extremes can even be heard in the same song: “I Feel Alone In The Bed With You In My Arms” boasts lush, wide-open verses that break into hook sections with full-out dance beats.
Gervs’ journey is one that feels familiarly linear: an independent artist begins self-releasing music that consistently increases in quality and complexity with each release. In 2018, Gervs released his first project entitled Emotions. An ambitious debut release with 8 tracks, Emotions shows that Gervs’ identifiable voice was with him from the start, with songwriting and production that, while not as polished, showed the potential of what was to come. “I’m still proud about it,” reminisces Gervs when asked about Emotions, “I’m not embarrassed about my early music. It was my first project and I think it left a mark.”
“It was the year after I graduated high school. I wanted to start making steps towards what I really want to do in life, which was music,” says Gervs. After trying his hand at producing his own music, Gervs was aware that his production limitations were far behind the quality of his vocals and songwriting. “I was not as good as I wanted to be, so [my brother] Joe took over for me and ended up producing the entire album.” Once that arrangement was settled, Gervs met with local producer and engineer Rei Diaz who engineered vocals that were written over demos. Once the tracks were brought back to his brother to produce, Gervs’ first album was complete.
Gervs’ affectations are not stereotypical of a brooding artist. While his music has a great sense of melancholy and introspection to it, the man behind the voice dons a much more casual demeanor in person. He talks about his early days with a lightness and an apparent fondness, smiling as he reminisces about the first releases he made. “I didn’t even remember that… I started producing other songs at the time but I don’t even want to mention them, they were terrible,” he laughs. If there is an anxiety or self-consciousness to talking retrospectively, he doesn’t wear it on his sleeve. He seems to be enjoying the chance to recollect his past.
The first seismic shift in Gervs’ career happened in 2019, when he met and began his collaboration with Louie Vigorito, known by his stage name “Louyah.” This partnership would eventually take him through the next four years and three LP record releases of his career. “After our first session working together, I was so happy,” recalls Gervs. “Louie was everything I needed to help me take that next step… He was so talented to the point where I was like, ‘I need to work with this guy.’”
Vigorito, along with creative director and visual artist Kevin Boris, moved in with Gervs over the series of pandemic lockdowns, and this was the period of time where the group began seriously producing music at scale. After releasing his sophomore effort Settle Down, a record with both Louyah and producer Dakun at the helm, Gervs’ identity as an artist became fully realized. The record was highly influenced by R&B and boasts a track-list of mid-tempo, groove laden ballads, comfortably sitting in relaxed pockets and establishing vibes that ooze a cool, detached melancholy. By this time, Loud Era Records materialized as an official record label and began promoting both Louyah and Gervs as two of its most prominently featured artists.
“I loved that song, and I loved that people loved that song.”
Gervs’ first viral moments were found with the song “On My Own,” a success that helped push Settle Down to a #88 peak on the iTunes Pop Charts. His third LP, 24/SEVEN, was released shortly after in 2021, keeping the momentum going with his fan-base from his first two releases and cementing Gervs’ release cadence with another slickly produced full length record released so shortly after his sophomore offering.
It was after this release that Gervs’ biggest viral moment took place on the track “Innocent.” The single amassed millions of views on social media and earned Gervs his first multi-million streaming numbers. From notable playlists to even an unofficial endorsement from BTS’ Jungkook of his song “Another Day,” Gervs finally saw a proof of concept that his music had the potential to reach wide audiences. “‘Innocent’ popping off assured me that what I was doing wasn’t for nothing. I had a feeling that song was going to be the one to go, and I was so excited that people were appreciating it. I loved that song, and I loved that people loved that song,” says Gervs on the late success of the single.
As an independent record label, Loud Era Records’ creative team was so small that the artists were required to move in lock-step with one another. When one artist was producing their record, all members of the team would chip in to bring it into fruition. When it came time for another member of the team to put out and promote their album, it was all hands on deck to make sure they accomplished a successful release. Resources were siphoned from one artist to another and back again, depending upon the needs of the group. This ultimately meant that if one artist was succeeding, other artists on the label were required to put their schedules on hold.
In summer of 2021, Loud Era Records had the biggest viral moment in the company’s existence with the explosion of Louyah’s single “I Used to Care.” The moment was on the back of a viral Tiktok, uploaded by Louyah, in which members of Loud Era Records surprised the artist by getting his single on the radio (and if you look closely, Gervs can be seen in the back seat.) With tens of millions of views, television appearances, and flights across the United States, the team at Loud Era Records were jettisoned into a level of success and pressure they were not entirely prepared for. “It felt impossible,” recalls Gervs on this period. “We went from this crazy high… and things almost immediately started falling apart.”
"Over time the energy changed."
"Over time the energy changed."
It’s at this point in our conversation that the tone takes a noticeable shift. As the snow continues to fall in heaps just outside, the affable and easy-going body language of someone recalling fond memories begins to slowly ice over. Gervs leans forward in his seat and his answers start to become more intentional. It’s becoming apparent now that the story is about to take a turn. “I can't really say exactly all of the specific things that happened, but over time the energy changed.”
By 2022 Gervs would begin to release singles that led to his 2023 release Voice in My Head. Throughout this period, however, the synchronicity of the creative team slowly started to fall apart. “The amount of time to make that project was absurd,” Gervs says, looking off into the distance. “It should’ve been out a year before it was released… everyone was stressed and it wasn’t even anybody’s fault. I hated making that album, and I don’t like that.”
In January of 2023, Voice in My Head was finally released, with Gervs desperate to maintain some of the inertia that was achieved in the year preceding it. All of the inertia in the world, however, wasn’t able to prepare him for being blindsided. With very little public fanfare, and only a matter of months after Voice in My Head was released, Loud Era Records ceased all operations, removing from Gervs both his record label and management team. Gervs found himself in an unprecedented position: he had a brand new record he was incredibly proud of and no formal way to promote it.
There was a requisite period of mourning for Gervs; the teams and systems he had built for himself over the previous three years were gone, virtually overnight. This completely impeded his ability to give Voice in My Head the attention he thought it deserved, and put the greater arc of his career in jeopardy. “I feel like the album is almost non-existent, in a way. I still love the music, but the feeling that I wanted from it, I never got. The amount of love I thought I would get from it, I never got,” says Gervs. “I didn’t want to do anything. Literally. I couldn’t even think about writing music.”
By the end of 2023, however, Gervs had a greater clarity about the situation. Grieving the end of his record label was so much more to him than just the end of a business entity: Loud Era Records held within it many hopes and dreams that Gervs had for his future, and it represented to him his closest group of friends. Time, though, helped him contextualize the loss, and realize what he still maintained once the label was gone. “I think it made me stronger, in a lot of ways. I think I had a huge realization of the importance of doing what I can to help myself,” says Gervs. Starting in the late autumn of 2023, Gervs began piecing together what will become his fifth studio album. “I've just been healing with time. I got a lot of my life back together. I was going crazy for a minute. But I’m writing again.”
"I can go wherever."
"I can go wherever."
So here Gervs sits: in a new album cycle, in a new studio, in a new year, writing the music that will soon become his newest chapter. “I've been writing a lot more. I’ve been feeling inspired. I've been feeling creative. I've just been excited just to make music again, which I haven't been in so long,” he says reservedly, with an optimism that’s hard to hide from the tone of his voice. From the highest highs to the lowest lows, Gervs has learned that the only voice he can truly rely on is his own, the one deep within himself, pushing him onward despite the circumstances. Just as he sings on the titular, opening track of Voice in My Head, he knows that it’s the true self, the thing far behind the anxieties and trepidations, that will continue to serve as a sense of motivation and direction as he ventures into an unmapped future.