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Artist Interviews
Q&A: Kellermensch
By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 8 January 2010
Formed in 2006, Danish rock band Kellermensch came together out of a common disdain for much of the rock and metal being recorded by other more mainstream bands at the time. Setting out on a mission to perform something looser and more interesting, they brought in a whole range of other instruments to the standard rock band set up, helping them create a dark, melancholic mood that has won wide acclaim. Their debut album, ‘Notes From The Underground’, is out now, and you can catch them live in London at The Garage on Tuesday, 12 Jan. We spoke to the band’s Sebastian Wollf to find out more.
Q1 How did you start out making music?
Well, some of us actually went to school together where we started playing musical instruments. We then played in various punk, rock and metal acts around our hometown for about ten years, before we made the decision to begin recording together. It was in the process of doing that recording that Kellermensch was formed, and we ended up completing our debut album.
Q2 What inspired your latest album?
Wanting to create something different drove us to make the album. We started out pretty much knowing that, whatever music we decided to make, it would come out sounding pretty heavy and quite dark. However, we had ambitions to incorporate certain themes into our music and to avoid certain clichés. The record was created as a reaction to a lot of the musical tendencies that we despise, especially the tendency that many modern rock and metal bands display; which is to sound more mechanically tight and less human than their predecessors. We named the band after a novel, ‘Notes From The Underground’ by Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky, about a man who struggles with an overwhelming sense of disdain towards himself and his surroundings. This book became a major influence on our music.
Q3 What process do you go through in creating a track?
Someone in the band usually shows up with chords and a melody, we then try to arrange the songs in a powerful and interesting way using a variety of instruments such as drums, bass, guitar, vocals, piano, violins, upright bass and pump-organ. We try to keep it pretty organic-sounding.
Q4 Which artists influence your work?
A lot of different artists have influenced our work. We really wanted to create a different sounding album, so we had to pick out certain elements from a variety of artists, not only musical. We were greatly influenced by Tom Waits and Neil Young, who we also covered on the album, but also heavier acts such as Neurosis and Tool. As mentioned earlier, the book ‘Notes From The Underground’, written by Dostoevsky, was a major influence, and also expressionistic painters like Edvard Munch and the German painters of Die Brücke, who gave us confidence that even though we play intense and heavy music, it doesn’t have to sound mechanically tight or controlled.
Q5 What would you say to someone experiencing your music for the first time?
Good luck.
Q6 What are your ambitions for your latest album, and for the future?
We hope that people will embrace the album and that it will put our band out there in the UK, allowing us to play some cool shows here.
MORE>> www.myspace.com/kellermensch
