With his appreciation for European culture and a Roman Catholic faith, Jamie Vitro's life influences his dark romantic sound.

Formerly in the band Form30, Vitro has been playing music in Indianapolis as a guitarist or drummer for 20 years, often involved with the goth or electronic scene. With Danz Poeta, Vitro's solo project, he wanted to craft something entirely electronic, which he does at home, releasing all his albums independently.

This musician joins forces only for live shows, one of which will be at Oranje on Sept. 15.

What do you find appealing with goth music and culture?

When I'm labeling my music, I will label it electronic first, dance-oriented second, I would say European would be the third adjective I'd use, and then gothic would be the fourth. . . .

I've been into dark romantic or gothic music since the '80s. What I find appealing about it is that it's more expressive of the human condition, both in beauty and suffering in life, and I think that it's also been a more intellectualized genre of music and more artistically diverse. I identify with it. I'm Roman Catholic, so goth culture draws on a lot of imagery from gothic Christianity and that also speaks to me as well.

What inspires you when you're working on a new song?

I start with the music, so the first thing that inspires me is having a really good musical idea. And then I will try to draw inspiration from the music, just the feel of the music or how I can shape it to figure out what I want to write about. If the song is aggressive I will write about something that I feel aggressive about or angry about; if it's very slow or moody I'll write something perhaps more reflective, perhaps more about existentialism or suffering. . . .. Just like an author writing a book, I create characters in my mind, and I become that character and then I let that character speak in my song.

How much time are you able to dedicate to creating new music and working on the band?

Probably, I would say, 10 to 15 hours a week at best. There's a misconception about electronic music; it sounds like it's very simple to do, like you just create a beat, a heavy bass line, lay down a beautiful synth line and start singing. It's very complex, very intricate, and all the sounds that are used to create a good dance track, it's very time consuming. People don't realize -- it's a lot of work and it takes a lot of equipment so it's also a big investment to get into this kind of music if you really want to be serious.

Do you have anything else you want to talk about?

Any other questions for me? Anything about how all we gothic people are witches and warlocks? Psycho killers? (Laughing.)

Do you get that a lot?

No, but sometimes the media and sometimes the general public have that impression. I think people don't realize it's not like that. A lot of these people who are nuts have nothing to do with my scene. In the very beginning the gothic movement was a movement of intellectuals and creativity and expressionism, just people exploring the darker side of life just like country music does. . . . They (country musicians) talk about suffering and real life and how things really are to get through life and hard times, and goths do the same thing; they just do it in a different way.