Meet WHSPRS: Exclusive Interview with VR’s Alt-Rock Star Ahead of Somnium Spotlight

In that weird, glowing space where pixels meet real feelings, where miles disappear and people can finally be who they are, WHSPRS feels like a bright spark of queer digital longing mixed with this stubborn, hopeful energy. Born from the half-Austrian, half-Liverpudlian soul of Lukas Zeiler, this virtual project doesn’t just perform music. It processes breakups, celebrates self-empowerment, and turns the ache of online connection into something fiercely alive. What began as covers in Irish pubs and experimental electronic journeys has evolved into a shimmering soundscape of power-pop punch, theatrical drama, and raw vulnerability. Tracks like “Fox Boy,” “Night In The Woods,” and “When The Opera Ends” echo the influences of Placebo’s edge and Muse’s grandeur, all channeled through a furry avatar who straps VR controllers to real guitar strings and pours queer-coded stories into virtual stages.

Image courtesy of whsprsmusic.com

For WHSPRS, the fox isn’t just a persona, it’s liberation. A safe space to explore identity during a long-term relationship, a vessel to process heartbreak, and now a platform to spread good energy, protest, and the defiant belief in a better future. In VRChat worlds and furry conventions alike, this multimedia engineer turned digital bard has found a community that celebrates creativity, queerness, and the beautiful mess of blending flesh with avatar.

And now WHSPRS prepares to bring his shimmering alt-rock energy to Somnium Space on April 18, 2026. An excellent opportunity to sit down with the virtual fox to explore the heart behind the avatar.

The Interview

Before we dive in, we didn’t stalk the fox through moonlit virtual forests or lure him out with digital bait. In true 2026 fashion, we simply slid into his DMs and started chatting. And as the back and forth messages flew, somewhere between the texts, we didn’t just catch him…we actually got to know him.

We hope you’ll enjoy this interview as much as we did. Dive in, meet the soul behind the whiskers, and get to know WHSPRS a little better. Hopefully it will entice you to join the performance on April 18 in Somnium Space. That’s where the real magic happens.

And if you’re not joining, be prepared to get your RAM fried, but you have to continue reading the interview to understand how

Somnium Times: You’ve shared how your dad’s Liverpool roots and home music gear sparked your early passion, playing covers in Irish pubs as a teen. Looking back, what was that first intimate moment when music felt like more than a hobby for you, like it was truly part of your soul?

Image courtesy of whsprsmusic.com

WHSPRS: Honestly, I never thought about whether music was part of my soul or not; it was just always there. I used music to express my feelings to my first teenage love (a girl I grew up with). I used music to process the breakup that followed after a 7-year relationship with her. I used music to learn to accept myself not being “fully straight.” I used it to feel a connection to my second home (Liverpool) and to spend time with my dad. I used music to create art about things I was interested in back then (lots of cringy anime intro covers that I have thankfully hidden away from the internet for good now). Music has always been a tool for me.

Somnium Times: Growing up half-Austrian, half-English, you released tracks under your own name before WHSPRS took over. What personal experiences or emotions made you pivot to creating as this virtual fox alter-ego, and how did that shift feel like a homecoming for your identity?

WHSPRS: WHSPRS came into existence for two reasons: firstly, the fox was an outlet to express my queer side, which I was hiding while being in that straight relationship. The VR community was a fantastic space to explore that side of myself. Secondly, WHSPRS was a tool for me to process the pain of the aforementioned breakup.

Now, however, WHSPRS’ music has a new, more extroverted purpose: the lyrics contain topics like self-empowerment, queerness, protest, radical optimism, and the desire for a better future. WHSPRS now exists to motivate other people and give them good energy.

I always loved writing stories and drawing as a kid, so bringing my own furry character to life through songwriting and visuals just made so much sense to me

Image courtesy of whsprsmusic.com

Somnium Times: VRChat came into your life during COVID, starting with casual guitar sessions through your Quest mic. When did you first realize VR was the space to pour your heart into originals about queer digital love and heartbreak? What was that “click” moment that changed everything for you?

WHSPRS: Honestly, the “click” moment was my dad telling me to stop only doing cover songs, haha. Covering was fun back then because people sang along and enjoyed listening to songs they know. I always put a WHSPRS twist on the music, and the crowd seemed to enjoy that, but I needed my dad to push me out of my comfort zone for me to create something that was truly authentic. Now, people sing along to my own songs. Feels much better, not gonna lie

Somnium Times: The furry fandom has been such a welcoming force in your journey, from Furality gigs to sessions at cons like Megaplex. What drew you personally to this community?

WHSPRS: What drew me to this fandom was the creativity. I always loved writing stories and drawing as a kid, so bringing my own furry character to life through songwriting and visuals just made so much sense to me. It was also my first time being in a queer space at all, so that probably really resonated with me. I have an education as a multimedia engineer (sound/vision), and I’ve always loved combining different types of media to be creative… so VR avatars and lyrics about digital love just fit together perfectly!

Somnium Times: Your sound mixes shimmering digital vibes with alt-rock edge, echoing Placebo’s rawness and Muse’s drama in tracks like “Fox Boy” or “When The Opera Ends.” How do these influences reflect your own life’s aches of distance and connection. Can you share a personal story behind one of your songs?

WHSPRS: If I had to pick a favourite song out of my roster, it would probably be “Night In The Woods.” In 2024, I booked a 3-day stay in a cottage in the woods in the middle of nowhere in Austria. I wanted some time on my own, completely separated from everything and everyone. The little hut had a fireplace, an old wooden table, a guitar, and a bed with a view directly into the pitch-black forest… that was it. I went there with a list of questions I had written down about what I wanted to do with the next (and final) 60 years of my life. Being confronted with those questions was incredibly difficult, and at the end of the 3 days I definitely didn’t manage to answer them all… but instead, a song was born. “Night In The Woods” is about the pressure of becoming who you want to be in the limited time we have. It’s about the feeling of being stuck… stuck in your hometown with all of your old friends having moved on. Being held back by responsibilities. Not having the time to make your life goals come true… or maybe making the wrong decisions in life. “Night In The Woods” is a very honest and powerful song… so probably my favorite out of all WHSPRS songs.

Somnium Times: From Holoplankton’s experimental folk-to-electronic mix to the power-pop punch of Sad, Drunk and Needy and singles like “How To Get Over Somebody,” your style has evolved so intimately. Can you share what inspires such shifts?

The core emotion of WHSPRS is always apparent, though: longing. WHSPRS longs for the truth, for something real

WHSPRS: The shifts in genre and sound throughout the albums always came with changes in musical interests and personal growth, I think. Funnily enough, I always hated rock. In the years when WHSPRS began, I was very much into ambient and electronic music. My thesis is that after my breakup I needed a more “aggressive” outlet for my pain, which is why I started to write comically direct pop-punk tracks like “WHORE” and “Fox Boy” for the second album (“Sad, Drunk and Needy”).

The first album, “Holoplankton,” was actually part of my master’s thesis project during my studies in Hamburg, Germany. It was a more experimental piece, produced and mixed in 360° surround audio. That album is a journey through a love story in virtual reality… back then I was mostly trying myself out sound-wise.

People around me keep telling me to choose a sound and stick with it, and that is something I really struggle with, to be honest. My taste in music is just as diverse as the songs I make… I like to select the sound according to the lyrics and meaning of the track. The core emotion of WHSPRS is always apparent, though: longing. WHSPRS longs for the truth, for something real. The sound accompanies that feeling.

WHSPRS BIO

WHSPRS is soft where it hurts, and loud where it matters. Blending shimmering digital textures with alt-rock intensity, the queer-coded power-pop project captures the aches of distance and connection in an online age. Somewhere between Placebo’s emotional rawness and Muse’s theatrical pulse, Liverpudlian-Austrian frontman Lukas Zeiler and his virtual fox alter-ego “WHSPRS” collapse the boundary between flesh and pixel – soft where it hurts, loud where it matters.

Somnium Times: We feel that collaborations like “Dancing with a Werewolf” with GOJII or your orchestral versions really show your playful, theatrical side. What’s the most vulnerable or fun part of blending your fox persona with other artists?

WHSPRS: I definitely always had a playful and theatrical side. Embodying the fox can sometimes be like role-play or acting! Something I am working on right now is finding a system to blend the virtual fox with real-life shots. I want to do more collaborations with “flesh-skinned” artists (that sounds so wrong), and I think a mixture of fox and human would be insanely cool moving forward.

Somnium Times: Your VR setup, strapping controllers to your wrists for live guitar, dealing with hand-tracking quirks, feels so raw and dedicated. Can you walk us through a personal “tech nightmare” moment on stage, and how you’ve turned those frustrations into triumphs for authentic performances?

WHSPRS: Oh god, there are a lot of stories to be told there, haha. I think one of the most “iconic” ones must be during my performance at Furality a couple of years back. I used to have the Quest Pro controllers strapped to the back of my hands while playing guitar, and they would lose their positioning quite often. There was also a phase where they would just shut off because of “overheating” after about 5 minutes of use… and that is exactly what happened while performing for a live audience of at least 3,000 people.

My avatar’s right arm just jolted straight downward and stayed there… and that was only after the third song, approximately. Which means I performed one of my biggest VR gigs ever with my right hand completely de-tracked. It looked stupid, but honestly, everybody in this space knows how VR tech is sometimes unreliable… and that the problem is especially hard to fix if you’re holding an actual IRL guitar together with VR gear!

The key: don’t let yourself get frustrated; don’t try to justify it to the audience. Even though you might think something like that shouldn’t happen, the VR crowd can relate and they don’t care. They probably even find it hilarious. So just roll with it in the moment – and fix it after the song. Or don’t. It’s funny.

Somnium Times: Performing for virtual crowds, like having 40 avatars sing “Fox Boy” back at you, must feel electric, yet intimate. How does that energy hit you differently from real-life stages? And what’s the deepest connection you’ve felt with a fan in those digital spaces?

Image courtesy of whsprsmusic.com

WHSPRS: In VR you can be close to people who are far away, you can connect internationally, you can perform on fantastical stages, and create surreal moments that feel intimate and personal. The deepest connection I’ve felt with a fan was probably when “Fox Boy” inspired him to propose to his boyfriend during one of my concerts. Do you need more evidence that VR concerts are the coolest thing ever???

Real-life stages are definitely more “real-time,” though, haha. The streaming-induced delay in VR has gotten better over the years, but there is obviously still a difference compared to reality, especially when it comes to crowd interaction and sing-alongs. Something else that I enjoy in real life is performing with my band, and they don’t have VR gear, so it’s been IRL-only with them.

Somnium Times: With your Somnium Space show on April 18, are there any surprises up your sleeve, or a special message you want to convey to the Somnium community before your performance? Why should they all come and watch you play?

WHSPRS: Tell them that if they don’t come and watch my show in Somnium Space, I will send a virus from Austria to fry their RAM. That’s a genius strategy on my end: they will all come to the concert because nobody wants to buy new RAM at these prices right now…

As WHSPRS prepares to take the virtual stage in Somnium Space on April 18 during the Spotlight Sessions & Open Mic, the invitation is clear: come for the shimmering digital vibes and alt-rock intensity, stay for the moments that feel impossibly intimate across oceans and realities.

Whether it’s singing “Fox Boy” back at the fox in a crowd of avatars, witnessing the theatrical playfulness of collaborations, or simply soaking in that core emotion of longing for something real, expect authenticity, a few tech hiccups turned into laughs perhaps, but most importantly plenty of radical optimism.

In a disconnected world, WHSPRS reminds us that music (and VR) can still bridge the gaps, heal old wounds, and spark new connections. So mark your calendars, fire up Somnium, and join the fox on April 18. Who knows, it might just inspire your own next chapter.

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About Somnium Space

Somnium Space, the company behind the VR1, also runs a blockchain-based virtual reality platform that allows users to create, experience, and monetize content and applications. The platform is committed to building a decentralized and immersive VR world that offers users a unique and engaging experience.

Web: https://somniumspace.com

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