Formed in San Francisco in late 2022, Octavian Winters fuses ethereal post-punk textures with the energy of classic death rock. What began as casual jam sessions quickly grew into a collaborative force, with Randy Gzebb, Stephan Salit, Ria Aursjoen, and Jay Denton crafting a cinematic, urban sound.

By Sandra Pinto

Their debut album, Saints of Absolution, produced by William Faith, captures intensity, beauty, and unpredictability, while their live shows and visual collaborations bring the music to life in striking, immersive ways.

When, where and how was Octavian Winters formed? Give us a short biography of the band.
RANDY GZEBB: OW was formed late 2022 in San Francisco in the middle of the Pandemic. During the first months of Covid, I started working up some drum grooves for a future project and I ran into my former bandmate, Stephan. I asked him over to jam for fun and we had such a good time we kept meeting every week or so.  After a couple of sessions we started coming up with some cool ideas that we recorded, and I sent those to Ria to see what she thought. I only knew her as a keyboard player, I had no idea at that point that she was a singer too. She liked what she heard and came over to jam with us – this was January or February of 2022.  After a month of working together I invited Jay, whom I worked with in a past project. Momentum happened fairly quickly – everyone started adding their parts to the new ideas and songs began to take shape.  There was a real natural progression with the tracks falling together without a lot of back and forth.

Why did you decide to name the band “Octavian Winters”?
STEPHAN SALIT: It was in the midst of lockdown, and it was uncharacteristically quiet as one might guess. I live very close to a micro park that’s called Patricia’s Green at Octavia Blvd.  I was playing with the idea of using Octavian and the Fall season for many reasons but then Winter rolled around. The idea of Octavian Winters fits with a time of the dying of the year, and the returning of the sun.

You play in a post-punk style, where ethereal textures combine with classic death rock energy. Would you agree with this description? What’s the key to blending so many influences without losing your identity?
STEPHAN SALIT: Those elements all float around in our collective pasts, with all of us having played in various bands for several decades… but I am not one to want to follow a formula when it comes to writing.  What starts as strands of melody or breath of texture just flows into a place of gathering and something new is born.  We each bring our own voices to this place, like different colors on canvas, and created a vision for others to interpret.  Since we aren’t setting out to “be” something specific or to meet the idea of a particular image or genre, I think our identity will always remain distinct and authentic.

How is a typical Octavian Winters song composed?
RIA AURSJOEN: It really varies! There is no template. Usually one of us brings up an idea in rehearsal, a riff or a groove, and we feel it out by jamming on it together. It’s usually clear with this first jam whether or not a song has potential – you can feel it, there is something there, and we don’t want to stop playing it. We’ll record those jams, and from there I’ll usually take them home and see what vocal lines they suggest to me. This will give us an idea of how we might section the song, and structure it, and once we have it in a rough format with a good groove and tempo we can start to explore all the harmonic possibilities. There have been a couple of songs I’ve brought in whole cloth, but even with those the rest of the band are creating their own parts around the structure and melody, so it’s always a collaborative effort ultimately. Some songs fall together effortlessly and some take months to hammer into shape, it’s hard to predict.

The debut album was produced by William Faith. What was the most valuable insight he brought to the sessions?
RANDY GZEBB: William brought a calm and deliberate presence to the creative process, providing a sense of stability and efficient progress without the stress of urgency.  Such a change from other producers we’ve each worked with in the past.  These were some of the best productive sessions I’ve personally ever worked on and I think the rest of the band feels the same.

How would you describe the emotional landscape of the full album arriving in early 2026?
RIA AURSJOEN: It feels… beautiful, intense, exciting, and maybe a little scary, especially because the whole world feels so shifted off kilter right now. But if I had to describe the feeling, it would be this: it is when ocean waves swell and build as they come towards the beach, rising until they are crested and almost breaking. I feel like we are in that ocean swell right now, and the album release will be the crest – and after that the momentum of that wave breaking will be powerful and move us into our next era.

Your sound feels both cinematic and deeply urban. How does San Francisco shape your creative identity?
JAY DENTON: First off I love San Francisco, it’s where I’ve experienced Art and Music since I was young and draws all kinds of creative people to it. San Francisco is very cinematic — film noir and Hitchcock , the Maltese Falcon and Vertigo — dark stories set against timeless backdrops. Black & white film, silent movie nights at the Castro theater or something avant-garde at the Roxie. It’s magical. There’s also the diversity in people, culture and ideas from around the world converging here, not to mention food and music and dancing, and that’s all part of the SF experience – you can’t help but absorb some of that and it comes out in your art.

The short films accompanying the singles add another artistic layer. How did your collaboration with David Kruschke first come about?
STEPHAN SALIT: I’d known David for many years and  I ran into him at a garden party, and we chatted about movies and video for over an hour when the subject of trying something different artistically came up.  I mentioned we were looking for someone to grow with us from a visual media place.  I love that we can all throw our ideas into the cauldron and feel free to agree or disagree without losing sight of his initial artistic vision. The work he did with Ria on her solo outing (AURSJOEN) is visually stunning, by the way! David is a wonderful addition to our team and also a phenomenal person, super easy to work with.

Your lyrics warn against ideological toxicity and personal cruelty. Do you see Octavian Winters as engaging in social commentary, or is it more internal?
RIA AURSJOEN: I think one engenders the other and they can’t be separated, in reality. How someone receives it can happen at either level, or both. I like to lay out my lyrics with a lot of symbols and symmetries, in a sense like tarot, where there are different ways it can be understood depending on the person and their experiences and situation. Having said that, sometimes I feel writing lyrics is like casting my own tarot, because their meaning for me is often partly hidden from myself and unfolds over time.  It’s a very strange thing.

Formed in 2022, you’ve moved quickly but deliberately. What key moment cemented your identity as a band?
RANDY GZEBB: In the summer of 2022 Stephan unexpectedly had to step away for a few weeks for a personal situation and during that time Ria, Jay and I started jamming on the initial progression for “Ondine”. When Stephan came back, he took the beginning recordings home and came up with these incredible guitar parts… and the song was truly born. At that point it was clear something special was happening. We sat down and had a meeting about next steps and decided since the clubs/venues were just starting to reopen, we would concentrate on finishing the record before starting to play shows. This strategy worked out for the band as we could really focus on the record instead of putting the live show together.

Is there a particular song from the upcoming album that challenged or surprised you the most during the writing process?
JAY DENTON: I was surprised by how perfectly “Saints of Absolution” came together – it’s a great  example of the group being able to listen and develop a sound and a mood together in a real dynamic and natural way. The song gives me clear visions of craggy mountains sprouting from a rolling desert, lit by the setting sun in the distance. Then when we filmed the video with David it added another layer to the visualization of the song and it was so much more than I’d ever have imagined. One of the more challenging songs for me was “Elements of Air”, because I didn’t know what I wanted to do with the song to make it special. Once I heard Ria’s vocals I was totally inspired and knew what I wanted to do right away.

Your music often feels like storytelling from a blurred, half-remembered world. Where do those narratives come from?
RIA AURSJOEN: They feel half-remembered to me as well, like I’m rediscovering a story I once knew. I never know what’s going to come up as a subject matter or lyrically for a song. It is almost always the last thing that happens. And it can take weeks, or months sometimes. I feel like the song already has something embedded within it and I have to wait for it to reveal itself. Any time I have set out to bend a song to a particular narrative it has never worked. So… where do these narratives come from? I wish I knew!

How do you balance individual artistic vision with collective decision-making in the studio?
JAY DENTON: I think we all bring something cool to the project and genuinely appreciate what the others can do, so we don’t really step on each other’s toes. With four members we each contribute our own part in pursuit of the collected vision and generally stay in our own lanes and trust each other. We’re working to create something none of us could do on our own, so that takes a lot of the ego out of it. When we start to jam it’s like, here’s an idea, does it make you feel like playing something? We’re all listening and reacting to each other and as the song starts to evolve, the result is something special.

What role does visual art play in your overall aesthetic, especially with Henry Austin Lannan’s artwork and Eric Olson’s wordmark?
RANDY GZEBB: Both Henry Austin Lannan logo design and Eric Olson’s wordmark feel mythic and stripped down — the same qualities that run through the music. We wanted to have something that was symbolic enough to feel timeless but still stick in the mind of the listeners or viewers, something instantly recognizable and evocative. And Ria created all the art for the "Line Or Curve" record and singles. She created the pieces to match the flow and colour of the music as she saw it.

Your live performances have been praised for their atmosphere. How do your songs evolve when you bring them onstage?
RIA AURSJOEN: The best way I can describe it is that they feel like they come alive. Even though it’s the same song, each time we perform it onstage it has a different character like it’s a unique living thing  comes into being just that once, and will not be ever the same again. I do a lot of pointing and reaching and motions as I’m delivering the vocals –  I want to bring the crowd inside the song with me, so we are both
discovering it together

What do you hope listeners take away from “Saints of Absolution” once the final notes fade?
STEPHAN SALIT: I hope those caught in the high beams know they’ve been seen, seen — not for who they pretend to be, but for who they are when no one’s watching.  I hope is seeps through the emotional cracks and resonates.  Rattles some bones…

With the full album on the horizon, what excites you most about the next stage of Octavian Winters?
RANDY GZEBB: So many exciting things are coming up in 2026. I think more touring is definitely a highlight. The new record has been recorded and will be released early this spring.  We are working on the details of a US West Coast tour in April and in May we will be performing at Wave Gotik Treffen in Leipzig, Germany.

If you could collaborate with a famous artist in an Octavian Winters song, whom would you select and why?
STEPHAN SALIT: I’d love to hear Ria duet with Robert Smith or David Sylvian because again, the textures tonalities.  With things the way they go, I see surprises on the horizon.

What do you think of the use of AI in art and music?
RIA AURSJOEN: Well, it’s like fast food, isn’t it?  There’s not much about it that nourishes you. I like to hope it might (rightfully) increase the value placed on traditional art and music.  But either way I believe art carries a bit of the artist’s soul, or spirit, within it. That is unreplaceable. Right now we already can see a turning away from perfection, a turning away from the perfectly filtered photos and curated lives of social media. And it is in these real, imperfect, liminal spaces that human art will thrive and never be eclipsed.

Send your message to our readers.
RIA AURSJOEN: Thank you for listening, for watching, for sharing… and thank you to all who have let us know what our music and performances have meant to you. These are the connections we treasure as artists. We hope to see you at one of our shows in 2026!