Undergang Interview

  1. Can you give us an update on what is going on with the band these days?

We’re currently writing more new songs for our 3rd album. Wrote two new songs the summer of 2012 and have not written anything new till May 2013, so it feels good to play new songs again.
Other than that, we recently played a show in Copenhagen supporting US legends Repulsion, which was pretty cool. Sick performance from Repulsion, about all I could ask for.

We’ll play our next show in London on June 29th at something called Chimpyfest along with a ton of grind bands. Guess we’ll stand out a bit.
Guess that sums it up pretty good right now.


2. How would you describe the musical sound of the newer material and how it differs from previous efforts?

Without trying to force it, to me the newer songs sound like a blend of primitive heaviness of “Indhentet Af Døden” and the overall darkness of “Til Døden Os Skiller”. We don’t want to reproduce anything we’ve done before, but it feels like the next album will be a bit like a mixture of our previous outlets. Also, we’ll try to mix up the album a bit more and introduce shorter fast songs and longer dragging doom ridden ones thrown into the mix of what you’d already expect from Undergang. I’ve also lowered my voice a bit, so expect an overall more sickening and putrefactive continuation of what you already know from our side.


3. What are some of the lyrical topics and subjects the band explores with the music?

It’s going to sound all cliché, but it’s all about madness, blood obsession, decomposition, child murder, grave desecration, necrophilia, skin eating and everything you imagine as visual aspects if the music of Undergang was the sound track to a horror movie. The same as when we started out, only perhaps a bit more depraved for each written lyric sheet. Personally, I find the most fitting subject to Death Metal to be evolving around …DEATH! I just try to out gross my last lyric for each song we (de)compose. I love horror movies, so to me it’s the natural thing to fit to our music in the form of words hidden in low-end grunts and suffocating shrieks.


4. What is the meaning and inspiration behind the band’s name?

Undergang is a Danish word that means something in the lines of “Demise” or “Downfall”. I usually describe the meaning as “World Downfall” to outlanders who ask into the meaning of the word, as that’s pretty much the feeling we wish to present with our music. Doomy, brutal, world destroying Death Metal putrefaction.


5. What are some of the best shows that the band has played so far and how would you describe your stage performance?

I don’t really know about best shows…It’s hard for me to say if a show really went good, as we usually have an entire different feeling of how things sound and feels on stage compared to what it sounds and looks like out in front. Way too often we get bad sound because the sound engineer either doesn’t understand us and our music or the sound in the monitors on stage just suck. We usually leave the stage feeling like our performance sucked, but luckily it often seems like people attending liked it. Not so much in Denmark, as people don’t really give two shits about us, but when we play outside of Denmark we do get a better reaction from the attendees at the show.

The most memorable gig for me is probably the show we played in Brooklyn, NY, in 2012 with Autopsy, Funebrarum and Unearthly Trance. Autopsy has been my all-time favorite band since I was like 13, so it was a big deal for me to be invited to play with Undergang at that show.

Our stage performance goes something in the lines of us rocking out to the point of nearly passing out from exhaustion while trying to deliver the best possible versions of our songs. No bullshit Death Metal thrashing. I do like it at times when other bands put a lot of work into making a certain atmosphere for their shows, dressing up or whatever, but it’s not for Undergang. Just 3 dudes playing Death Metal extremity like there’s no tomorrow.


6. Do you have any touring or show plans for the future?

Both actually. We’re usually planning a lot of things all the time. As mentioned before, we’ll do our first UK performance in London on Saturday June 29th at Chimpyfest, followed by a show in Copenhagen with Coffins in August. Then in October 2013 we’ll do an 8 show long European tour with our friends in Anatomia. We’ll also have our shared ( long delayed) split 8” out in time  for the tour, thanks to the great Me Saco Un Ojo records.

We’ve already started talking about another US tour in July 2014. We’ll try hitting the East Coast this time and we’ve been talking with Funebrarum about sharing some of the tour with them again, as we did in Europe in 2012, and then end up with possibly recording our 3rd album in California when the tour is done. Might play a show or two around that while we’re there as well, if we can get a promoter interested.
So, there are always things brewing in the Undergang-pot.


7. On a worldwide level how has the feedback been to your music by fans of death metal?

In general I’ll say that the feedback from outside of Denmark has been the best and most supportive ones. But I also know that our music isn’t for everyone, nor is it intended to be. Some people find it too primitive, lacking repetitive choruses, sloppy, or whatever. For those who enjoy it, that’s great, but we’re not aiming to please anyone in any way. We play severely down-tuned and crude Death Metal brutality, so I guess you kind of have to love that for what it is to enjoy Undergang. Join the Neanderthal slaughter or go suck a chode…If you don’t like it, fine by us, but don’t waste your time on badmouthing what we do or feel the need to express it to us. We couldn’t care less about those opinions.


8. Are there any other musical projects going on these days?

A ton, I’m sure. But regarding members of Undergang, Our drummer plays bass in a local punk band called Dårligt Selskab with some of his friends. Our bassist don’t have any other music projects right now, but he used to do some different electronic music some time ago We all listen to a lot of other genres than just Death Metal, that just being the passion we share.
Personally, I have several other bands going on. I have a side project with Takashi Tanaka from Anatomia, called Wormridden, where we play extremely down-tuned Doom Death Metal inspired by the Grave “Anatomia Corporis Humani” demo and Funebre’s second demo. Our second demo will be out this year on tape through my label Extremely Rotten and 7” through Me Saco Un Ojo. It’ll be entitled “Festering Glorification”.
I also play guitar with Kill-Town Death Militia newcomers Mold. It’s heavy and dark Death Metal, in the ancient Scandinavian tradition. Heavily influenced by the early Finnish Death Metal bands.
Lastly I have a fuzzed out stoned doom Death Metal band called Reefer. Started out as me and a friend trying to play some Sabbath like heavy rock, but because of down-tuning and not being able to find a proper singer and instead just having me handling the vocals, it ended up with a more deadly result.
Sooo…I’m keeping well busy, hehe.


9. What direction do you see your music heading into on future releases?

I don’t see much changing; we basically already play what we wanted to from the beginning. But one never knows. Maybe we’ll do the Carcass move?


10. What are some bands or musical styles that have influenced your music and also what are you listening to nowadays?

The influential bands for the music of Undergang is generally mixed metal genres and bands that we’ve listened to growing up. Be it Thrash, Doom or Death Metal…A lot of things have found its way into our heads and given ideas in one way or another. That and horror movies and the music from there at times. I love Goblin, so one might find a riff or two that have been inspired by some of their music as well.
At the moment I listen to a lot of different bands and genres, I guess. Lately the most played bands at home are probably Meat Puppets and Demilich.








11. Outside of music what are some of your interests?

Music does take up a good portion of my time in general. I rehearse with my bands 3 or 4 days a week, run a small Death Metal tape label and distribution, do illustrations for various projects and participate in the organizing of the Kill-Town Death Fest. When I’m not dealing with those matters, I have a full time job so after all I usually just enjoy sitting back with a movie and a Bob Marley cigarette. Horror movies and comics might be something I could describe as an interest to me as well, but other than what is mentioned already I spend my time with my friends hanging out or going to shows (we have a LOT of shows around here at the moment) and spend time with my girlfriend as much as I can. I guess I’m not any deeper than this.



12. Any final words or thoughts before we wrap up this interview?

I think we’ve covered just about everything I can think of, hehe. Thanks for the interest in Undergang, I always appreciate answering a good interview.

Total support to Underground Death Metal!

In decay,
D. Torturdød / Undergang
May 2013.