Denmark’s rotten maniacs UNDERGANG take some time to crawl out of their sewers to talk about their filthy existence. Without further ado, let’s see what Mr Torturdød has to say.
1. First up, UNDERGANG is a band that has grown rather a respectable following over recent years across 4 (soon to be 5) full lengths among some killer splits, demos and EPs. What is the process for creating this rotten sound, do you jam out ideas or come to the table so to speak with individual parts you write alone (riffs, drums etc)?
Hi Jørgen and thanks for the writing this interview. The writing processes for our songs various and to some degree has changed a bit over the years too. It used to be more a process of me having written an entire song at home and then brought it to the rehearsal room where Anders Pedersen (drums) and I would then work out the final arrangements together. Sometimes I’ve come up with riffs at rehearsal and then we’ve worked on from that which has then become part of or even full songs from time to time, but usually songs are build from a rough idea and formula formed in advance and then finalized at rehearsal together. These past few years with the addition of our “new” members Mads Haarløv (lead guitar and backing vocals since August 2017) and Martin Leth Andersen (bass and backing vocals since March 2018) Mads has written about half of the songs on “Aldrig I livet” and Martin has besides on his small variations in the bass department, also written some of the lyrics. So our line up now has a bit more of everyone involved in all creative parts of the band. Even if a certain person brings the presentation of a song to the band at rehearsal, I feel like we as a unit shapes the song into what it ends up like at the end. I don’t think the band has been more of a unit in the past than it is now and it’s a lot of fun.
2. UNDERGANG among many other Danish bands use the “Kill Town Death Metal” tagline, perhaps derived from the festival or was the festival named after this? What do you feel this tagline represents for the Danish underground?
“Kill-Town” was a suggested name for Copenhagen that Anders came up with when we started the band as we thought it’d be fun to have a nickname to our city of origin when we promoted our band around the country and later internationally. It is an adaption of the punk scene in town that used the name “K-Town” since around the millennium change (as far as I know) and since all 3 original members of the band to some extent had been involved in the punk scene as well, it seemed like a fun play on that to do. I then branded what we did with UNDERGANG as Kill-Town Death Metal / KTDM as a bit of a nod to the NYDM around MORTICIAN etc. and when I was a part of starting up what became the Kill-Town Death Fest in 2009, I suggested that we’d do an all underground death metal festival and that we’d call it KTDF and so it happened. So we started the KTDM thing around 2008 and tried to embrace some of the other newer bands around us to join in with that and some has and others haven’t, it was just a fun little moniker I came up with to make a sort of a little scene around what we did with death metal in Copenhagen around what we started with UNDERGANG.
Today I have a bit of a mixed feeling around it as my ex-partner behind the festival choose to keep using the name after I said I didn’t want to work with him or doing a festival any longer and that I didn’t want him to use the name without my involvement, so we made the agreement (sadly only orally) that there’d be 1 last KTDF in 2019 which I gave permission for with the same name and I came up with the description “The Decompomorphosis” for that edition, as it would then be the transformation into a “new” festival, where all I asked what that the festival would then during that year announce a new name for the festival and use the KTDF channels to promote that and that none of my art was to be used again, which both of those terms he then didn’t follow up on. So even though I strongly believe that it’s a brand I was the biggest part of creating, I feel like it has been somewhat taken over by someone I do not want to be associated with. I guess it’s a bit complex and personal and I’ll just leave it at this here.
3. Aside from UNDERGANG there seems to be a lot of member sharing between bands such as Phrenelith, Deiquisitor, Hyperdontia, Ulcerot, Wormridden and more. Each of these bands is quite different and yet work collectively on a greater scale. How do you feel each bands place is carved out as part of a rather small scene?
All of those bands have various little different stories I guess, where some are merely projects between friends in some of the bands and other are actual bands on their own. DEIQUISITOR is a band from outsider of Copenhagen with its 2 founding members having played various brutal extreme metal since in the early 90’s and then around 2013 returned to playing death metal. As several of us in Copenhagen were fans of what they’d done in the past as well and what DEIQUISITOR was, we build up a friendship which still lasts today and we invite them into shows we set up in Copenhagen and so on. Because of that friendship, when Tim from PISSGRAVE visited in the summer of 2019 we had planned out to start a project band together and invited Thomas and Henrik from DEIQUISITOR to be a part of that too and that turned into ULCEROT.
HYPERDONTIA was originally a studio band which Mustafa and Malik were discussing (who I knew from when they both played in Turkish death metal band BURIAL INVOCIATION back in 2010) and they asked me if I’d do the vocals for some songs Mustafa had written and I suggested we’d have Tuna from PHRENELITH play drums on it instead of it being computer programmed drums, so that took shape and we did the “Abhorrence Veil” single first off and then the “Nexus of Teeth” album to follow and with that thought it be fun to try out playing a show at the resurrected KTDF in 2018, where Mathias from TAPHOS/SULPHUORUS was invited in to play guitar as well live. After that a few gig offers followed and the others got more interested in making it more of a live band as well as a studio band and then the has continued like that.
WORMRIDDEN is a project band too between Takashi of ANATOMIA and me and we’ve done some recording a quite a few years back now and are slowly working on a follow-up album that might finally happen in 2021, we’ve then played a few shows on and off in Japan and Denmark and have had friends help out a live line-up with those shows. Of more independent actual bands here in town I recommend checking out the earlier mentioned PHRENELITH (new album coming early 2021), TAPHOS, CHAOTIAN, ASCENDENCY, SEPTAGE and DEAD VOID. All great “newer” death metal bands based in Copenhagen with various takes and sounds making them stand out between each other. But yeah, as you might imagine too, the “scene” here in town is rather incestuous and several of the bands share the same rehearsal room too.
4. The 5th full length record is on its way, what can you tell us about the sound of the record and its presentation? Is it going to be a shorter and punchier affair like “Misantropologi” or a more slimy, slower crawler like “Døden læger alle sår”? Are you optimistic about unleashing this record during a pandemic where touring is going to be a challenge or perhaps not even possible?
I’m very happy and proud of what we’ve created on “Aldrig I livet”, I feel like UNDERGANG has never sounded better than we do on this album and the addition of our new members has certainly given the band a bit of an extra kick too, while still maintaining the clear, fat, pulsating, suppurating UNDERGANG sounds that’d we’ve been rather steady with since our beginning. As mentioned above it has a bit more of every member involved in having it take the form it has than any of our previous albums, where it has more been a work between Anders and I. Song wise it consist of 9 songs in total (10 on the CD versions as we decided to add a re-recording of the maxi single song “Man binder ikke et dødt menneske” exclusively to the Dark Descent Records CD version) and there’s both the faster songs we introduced on the “Søm til din ligkiste” 7” EP (2013), the doomier songs of perhaps “Døden læger alle sår” ( 2015) and the more general mid-tempo songs with various slightly weird tempo changes, etc., so there should be a bit of everything for any UNDERGANG fan on there.
The recording of the album started out in October 2019 with the drums at Ballade Studio in Copenhagen and then stagnated a bit because we got busy with other commitments and then in January 2020 we started tracking guitars and bass at Mads’ work shed up north on Zealand and we then returned to Lasse in Ballade Studio in February to record the vocals. All the recordings were them compiled by Lasse and send over to Greg Wilkinson in Earhammer Studio in Oakland, California, for the mixing and mastering. Those that have paid a bit attention to our career will know that both “Døden læger alle sår” and “Misantropologi” was recorded at Earhammer Studio too and even if we couldn’t enter the studio physically this time around (as in the past we’d usually done a month long tour leading up to studio sessions in Earhammer) we still agreed that Greg was the one who could make UNDERGANG sound the best on recordings, so we wanted to work with him again, which he thankfully agreed to.
All art is once again handled by me and we came up with the various topics a bit collectively in the band and I’ve then painted up the illustrations for the booklet as well as the colour cover painting.
Due to various situations in life we don’t do the long tours these years anyway, so there would never have been any extensive touring to help promote the album this time around, but we’ve certainly had the album both delayed in release because of the pandemic as well as several shows and festival appearances that were supposed to help promote the album, cancelled or postponed till 2021 (for now). We’re however doing 2 release party concerts here in Copenhagen for the launch of the album in December. One on the day of the official release on Friday December 4th and one later again on Saturday the 19th of December. So there’ll still be a bit of live shows locally to help promote it and we’re trying to get the shows we play live streamed also, so people not able to attend the gigs because of the current restrictions, or because they live in a different country, can still watch along and rock from home.
5. UNDERGANG have still been playing shows in Denmark and also live-streaming, clearly a plague-ridden world cannot hold you back. Will we see shows outside of your homeland soon or do you believe it to be undoable for now? Hopefully your return to the UK (after an excellent last show here) at Sublime Terror Fest 2021 will happen!
As much as I miss travelling and are longing to play outside of Denmark again, I do believe that thinking that travelling playing abroad in 2021 is still being a bit too optimistic. I hope I’m wrong, but I’m just not sure I personally believe it’ll be realistic. We do accept and agree to shows in other countries for 2021 and have agreed to several festivals, Sublime Terror being amongst then, that has been postponed put into our live calendar too. I’m just taking 1 month and the time and am dealing with the different restrictions and possibilities one at the time.
But as you say yourself, thankfully we have been able to play some shows locally here too the last few months. Overall Denmark seem to have been dealing a bit better, if you can say that, with the pandemic and closed things down quit fast back in March when the news of the situation started spreading globally. We spend about a month not rehearsal with UNDERGANGA, which is likely the longest I’ve gone from playing music with friends / bands since we started the band in 2008, so it was really weird. After that we started rehearsing a bit again and I suggested that we could maybe try out doing a live streaming of the rehearsal and see if anyone out there was interested in watching along. Martin is a bit more of a tech guy than me (which I am not at all in any way), so I asked him to look into things and he has been a bit in charge of what we’ve been able to do with live streaming. We then also have Cvlt Nation approach us offering to help with a live stream and we did that, with slightly better came quality, but still extremely gritty sound, haha. Oh well, it’s all underground death metal so I think people shouldn’t be too surprised if it sounds like a cement mixer, haha. I got approached by the venue Pumpehuset in town offering me to set up some shows at the outdoor stage in July, since the restrictions at that time allowed for live events to play place as long as people were seated, so we worked around those conditions. Since then there has been some extra restrictions added too, but we’re still able to pull off a show as good as every month on the Extremely Rotten Death Metal moniker, that UI started using for the shows I do as a part of my Extremely Rotten Productions label/store. We hope to continue having live streams for all the shows to come still till having actually live shows take place again, hopefully sometime in the future again.
6. Of the four current albums, there is quite a difference between each (though retaining the slimy putridity at the heart). Which do you feel best represents UNDERGANG for a first time listener to go and check out?
It’s hard to say what would fit the best for people to check out first, as the albums do have a slight different presentation in song writing on all of them. Personally of the albums that are already available, I find “Misantropologi” to be the best, but I also know that some people swear to our first album “Indhentet af døden” and some even exclusively to that one album. So it’s difficult to say. I guess if you want UNDERGANG at our most boneheaded, “Indhentet af døden” (2010) is the right one, the heaviest is likely “Døden læger alle sår” (2015) and for the most current UNDERGANG sound available “Misantropologi” is the right now. I have a bit of a weird relationship with “Til døden os skiller” (2012) as I feel like we had written some good songs, but the recording of it didn’t go too well and I don’t like my vocals on the recordings as I was still finding my voice for death metal and I was ill at the time. Also, the guy we worked with recording the album parted ways with the guy owning the studio we recorded it in and we lost the recording in layers, so we suddenly only have the latest rough mix of the album which we then “Mastered” ourselves and it isn’t really how we wanted it to sound, it the actual mixing was never finished. It is what it is and it has a bit of a weird story to it like that.
But with “Aldrig I livet” coming now I’ll recommended anyone interested in UNDERGANG to check it out as I wholeheartedly believe it’s our best songs and song writing so far. It should have a bit of everything you’d like about the kind of death metal we play.
7. Those who follow UNDERGANG more closely will notice you have a few deals, Me Saco Un Ojo handle vinyl, Dark Descent handle CD’s and you handle tapes yourself with Extremely Rotten. What advantages and disadvantages does this provide you rather than having one label handle the whole release (let alone across 3 different countries)? Does it help distribution and spreading the filth or hinder you from keeping it more straightforward? Of course all 3 labels are some of the best, so does it become a bit of a struggle or is it a healthy relationship across the board?
Jesus of Me Saco Un Ojo Records and Matt of Dark Descent Records are both personal friends of mine as well as owners and operators of great metal labels, so it is a rather pleasant way of working with labels for us. Jesus has been along with UNDERGANG on our journey since 2009 as he made us the first serious offer we were looking for a label to release our debut album. Since then we have been working with him most of our career (with the exception of the wrong turn when we worked with Xtreem Music between 2010-2012) and Jesus has always been a good friend and supporter of what we do and have given us 100% artistic freedom and is always on board with our ideas and wishes for releases. He was also the one that helped us get on our first US tour back in 2011 when he got us on the Chaos in Tejas festival in Austin, Texas, where Timmy Hefner that organized it also booked us a 3 weeks West Coast tour alongside ACEPHALIX. For that tour he offered to release a song we’d recorded for a compilation cassette the year before, “Hævntørst”, as a flexi 7” to help promote the tour a bit with a new release, as well as getting Dark Descent involved with that release too and that’s where our relationship with DDR then started. Matt came out to our show in Denver on that tour (where we also played with ANHEDONIST and ROSKOPP with members of those bands we still have a relationship with now a good 10 years later) and I met him for the first time there and had a good time. I remember that he had a friend driving for him, so we could share some drinks that night and did so too, haha. He offered that DDR could help release the CD versions of our albums coming and since we at the time were already looking to change from Xtreem Music again and Matt was a nice guy and DDR a label starting out around the same time as UNDERGANG and MSUO too, it’d be cool to have the band grow alongside both of those labels too and I think it has been a fun and healthy relationship between our band and both MSUO and DDR that has benefited all three parties well to this day and I see no reason to change that, even if we’ve had some various offers from other prolific labels over the years. I like and respect both Jesus and Matt as people as well as “businessmen” so working with them is great and we get along great on a personal level too.
Extremely Rotten stared out as a means to release and support UNDERGANG and get a promotional tape for our second album spread out, which I did back in the spring on 2011 with the first release being the “T.D.O.S.” demo. I home dubbed that tape release and we must have sold/traded about 8-900 copies of that one. Since then I’ve on and off being releasing cassettes from my own bands, local bands, friends bands abroad I liked and wanted to support and a few re-issues of albums on tape that I personally really liked and wanted a copy with good lay-out and sound of on cassette and therefore worked out licensing deal for with the bands. After the “Misantropologi” US promotional tour in July 2017 I gave the label a bit of a kick in the butt after it having a bit on a hiatus for a few years and it has then grown a bit fast up with more steady cassette releases, opening a physical store in June 2018 to have a place for all of the distro stock and then now in 2020 we’re releases vinyl releases as well as cassette releases and carry a good selection of international death metal on all physical formats, magazines and band merch. Releasing the cassette version of UNDERGANG albums and promos has always been a way to make sure we have the albums available at shows on at least 1 guaranteed format to sell and we’ll continue doing so. But make no mistake, UNDERGANG is a Me Saco Un Ojo and Dark Descent recording band.
8. Lastly before you return to your sewer, David Mikkelsen handles art and a label aside from quite a few bands. How do you handle so many projects so efficiently and do you still find time for them all? If there is anything you would recommend we check out such as getting you on board for artwork or contacting ERP for a release, please feel free to add your info!
I love death metal and I just want to do a bit of everything, I guess, haha. That and I have come to learn that I am to some degree a bit of a control freak and I like being able to present everything the way I’m intending in and have total control of it. As much as I can get away with without coming across as a jerk at least. Running a record label, international distribution service, a record store, organizing and promoting local shows, working on the fanzine PutriZine (with Søren from CHAOTIAN), creating art and playing in several bands certainly does keep me quite busy and I’m sadly confident is saying that all of it also does suffer a bit from me being involved in so many things at the same time, but I’m doing my best at keeping up with everything as good as I can. I do get help from my girlfriend Jenny with various label activities, she handles most of the social media promotion that I’m not too keen on doing, and Søren from CHAOTIAN comes by and helps me out in the store sometimes too. If you like death metal presented from an extremely conservative nerd then check out what Extremely Rotten have to offer both with our releases and what we carry in the store. If you like art inspired by an unhealthy dosis of growing up with gruesome art from the likes of the old EC horror comics then check out what I do under the art moniker Ink Lesions on social media. I’m not going to give any recommendations as to send requests for ERP releasing anything for your band, as I’m a bit of a weirdo and very picky with what I release and who I work with, or even carry in the store, so if I don’t come knocking on your door and want to work with you, chances are that I’m not that interested in investing time or money in your projects, sorry. As for artwork, I’m always open to the idea of doing commissions so there I can be contacted though the Ink Lesion contact forms or through ERP.
Alright, I’ll wrap it up here! Thanks a lot for writing the interview for me, I hope both you Jørgen and the readers find it worthy of their time to read.
Keep your eyes gouged for the new UNDERGANG album “Aldrig I livet” coming out on December 4th 2020 on Me Saco Un Ojo, Dark Descent Records and Extremely Rotten Productions. It’ll be a slimy stinker and there’s a lot more to come still. All of our releases and merch are available from us through the ERP webstore.
Support underground death metal; buy the releases and merch of the bands you like and attend their shows (when that is possible again) and buy and read zines!
Sneezing pus,
- DM / UG
October 2020
http://www.undergang.bandcamp.com
http://www.facebook.com/undergangktmdm
http://www.instagram.com/undergangofficial
http://www.darkdescentrecords.com
http://www.extremelyrottenprod.com
http://www.facebook.com/inkleasions
http://www.instagram.com/inklesions
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