EMQ’s With Cold in Berlin
EMQ’s With Cold in Berlin
Hi everyone! Welcome to another EMQs interview, this time with UK Gothic Doom/ Sludge/ Post-Rock band, Cold In Berlin. Huge thanks to Adam and Maya for taking part.
What is your name, what do you play and can you tell us a little bit about the history of the band?
Adam: I’m Adam, the guitarist in the Cold in Berlin. We formed in London in 2010 and have released 4 albums and a few EPs. We’re releasing our 5th album, “Wounds”, on 7th November. We’ve changed a lot over the last 15 years. Our albums sound quite different from one another, but they are held together by Maya’s voice and lyrical themes.
How did you come up with your band name?
Maya: In October 2007, Adam and I were unsure about our recent decision to move to London. We knew people who had moved to Berlin and were enjoying hedonism unknown in London. So we went to see for ourselves. We had a good time in Berlin, but not good enough to move there. Our overriding memory of the trip was that Berlin was fucking freezing.
As tourists do, we wandered the streets all day and night, and there’s just something about the continental location, architecture, and psycho-geography of the city that chills your bones. When our punk band (Death Cigarettes) broke up, we needed a new name under which to continue our creative expressions. It needed to have personal and universal resonance. It needed to reflect the melancholy in our music. It needed to say something about the state of our lives under too-late-capitalism. We chose Cold in Berlin. Which, after all, describes a state within a state.
What Country / Region are you from and what is the Metal / Rock scene like there?
Adam: I’m from the north east of England. No big rock or metal bands have come from that region, but we have a good history of live music shows. London might have the best scene in the country right now. Bands have grown up around great venues like The Black Heart in Camden and Helgi’s in East London.
What is your latest release? (Album, EP, Single, Video)
Maya: Our new album is called “Wounds.” It’s out on 7th November on London-based record label New Heavy Sounds. https://lnk.to/YjvSIa We can’t wait for people to hear it. It’s a little different from our last doomy album, “Rituals of Surender”. It has heavy moments and haunting ones, too. It blends doom, post-punk, and driving krautrock in a dynamic, hypnotic maelstrom.
Who have been your greatest influences?
Adam: Nirvana, The Smashing Pumpkins, and Nine Inch Nails. The stuff you love as a teenager tends to stick with you all your life.
What first got you into music?
Adam: My father’s Blues collection. He had a few guitars in the house that I picked up when I was young.
Maya: Both my parents love live music and have really eclectic tastes. Our house was always full of vinyl, tapes, and CDs. Music was on all the time. From a very early age, I was drawn to lyrics and singing- remembering whole songs very quickly.
If you could collaborate with a current band or musician who would it be?
Adam: Someone impossible, like Aphex Twin or Burial.
If you could play any festival in the world, which would you choose and why?
Maya: We played it this summer on the solstice. House of the Holy Festival, in the mountains outside Salzburg, Austria. The festival is billed as an okkult music gathering, and it’s like entering a parallel reality of pagan ritual. Every detail was created with such passion, right down to the hand-smelted metal backstage passes.
What’s the weirdest gift you have ever received from a fan?
Adam: Nothing too weird. An engraved sheep skull.
If you had one message for your fans, what would it be?
Maya: Thank you for your support. We love playing live to you.
If you could bring one rock star back from the dead, who would it be?
Adam: I miss a lot of the legends, but I think most of them managed to produce their best work. Except perhaps Jeff Buckley. He was taken from us too soon.
What do you enjoy the most about being a musician? And what do you hate?
Maya: Creating something out of nothing. Starting out in a silent practice room, ending up with an album. Not sure I hate anything about it.
If you could change one thing about the music industry, what would it be?
Adam: Close down Spotify. It is the single most catastrophic thing that has happened to bands and artists. It’s been good to see some big bands withdraw their music this year due to the parent company’s disgusting investments.
Name one of your all-time favourite albums?
Maya: I absolutely love “Home” by Casper Brötzman- I could listen to it every day and not get tired of it. “Paranoid” by Black Sabbath is a band favourite – it always gets us through the miles on the road. That and “Silent Shout” by The Knife.
What’s best? Vinyl, Cassettes, CDs or Downloads?
Adam: Depends what you do with the format. Downloads don’t have to feel so impersonal and intangible. We try and offer something extra with our bandcamp downloads. We’re psyched New Heavy Sounds are releasing “Wounds” on vinyl though.
What’s the best gig that you have played to date?
Adam: Castleparty Festival in Poland was a great gig. A massive storm hit just before our show time. So the tent was packed with people. Most of them didn’t know us. But they did by the time we finished.
If you weren’t a musician, what else would you be doing?
Adam: Film and video editing.
Which five people would you invite to a dinner party?
Maya: Mary Shelley, HP Lovecraft, Bram Stoker, Doris Lessing and William Gibson.
What’s next for the band?
Adam: After the album comes out, we are playing two shows with NFD in Sheffield and London on the 22nd and 23rd of November. Then we’ll do a post-album launch show at The Lexington on Saturday 31st of January.
What Social Media / Website links do you use to get your music out to people?
https://www.facebook.com/coldinberlinband
https://www.instagram.com/coldinberlin/?hl=en
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVCgFJ07aFdCsSvWXIWPs7g
https://coldinberlin.bandcamp.com
https://open.spotify.com/artist/6fZeTehXr4jeY71w0eNuLq
There’s a long-standing food-based debate here in the UK. And we’d like your help. So… A Jaffa cake – is it a cake or a biscuit? Discuss!
Adam: I believe it’s a biscuit-cake. Like French Madeleines.
Thank you for your time. Is there anything else that you would like to add?
Adam: We’re playing the Necroscope club night in Coventry on Friday 7th November, and Carpe Noctum club night in Leeds on Saturday 8th November. Support your local club night!
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