Dead End Tragedy

Stagnation is death

Dead End Tragedy is the one of my favourite hardcore/metal bands. They represent a new wave of this music - beatdown, and they are often setting near to the bands like Nasty or Words Of Concrete. If you like the brutality of metal and felling of hardcore music, you have to check it.

AM: Some time ago your vocalist left Dead End Tragedy. Could you tell me something about the reasons why?

Dead End Tragedy: First of all, it has had very personal reasons, why he left the band. Finally we can just say, that there have been much more important things in his life, that he had to take care of than Dead End Tragedy.

AM: What do you think, what Dead End Tragedy lost because of this personal change? Have you any replacer? What type of features must have a vocalist of your band?

Dead End Tragedy: In the End, we lost one of our best friends. It is not only a matter of talent, commitment or other stuff. What was really sad is that we lost Raphael as a person, who was always a close friend.

After a few months without a vocalist and a bit too much beer, we came up with the idea, that Tim, our former rhythm guitar player could try to do the vocals, because he also always did some lines in older songs before. Tim also did most of the lyrics for 'Unpreventable' already, so it all started pretty well when he started with the vocals a few months ago. Well, so now Dead End Tragedy has only four members left, but we're definitely fine with it.

AM: I heard a medley preview of your new album on myspace and it sounds huge! What could we expect from this album? Did you toy around with the sound and did you get the result you were looking for?

Dead End Tragedy: To be earnest, we recorded the songs you have heard in the medley in a period where a lot changed for us. The Songs were finished a long time before some of them were published. So for us some of them had lost their energy before people ever had the chance to hear them. Some of the songs, we can still identify with, were recorded with Tim again and will be offered as a free download, when our brand new full length album, called 'Stagnation Is Death', will be released in a few months. We had a lot of time to focus on making new songs during the time without a new vocalist and 'Stagnation Is Death' will be a really huge result, we think.

AM: 'Unpreventable' is a great piece of beatdown, in my opinion, one of the best CDs in this genre. How has it been received by the fans and media?

Dead End Tragedy: Thank you very much, we really appreciate that! We see 'Unpreventable' today as our debut, that helped us getting a great base of fans and listeners around the world. The release itself was kind of unexpected and didn't have the intention to reach a certain genre or crowd. But maybe that's what so many people like about the record. We don't care too much about the new media. Sometimes we just google our band name to see what's the result. Somewhere between Beatdown Hardwear and some Download-offers we once found a little review about the record.

AM: Your music is full of death metal influences. Do you listen this genre a lot? Your all time favorite death metal album?

Dead End Tragedy: This question can be answered pretty fast. We don't really listen to death metal, so we also don't have a favourite album in this genre. We listen to a lot of different genres and if we are creating a new song and a riff sounds good to us, we use it. As simple as that.

AM: You're in Beatdown Hardwear. How did you end up with them? What about the cooperation with them? Are you satisfied of that?

Dead End Tragedy: Well, Toni, the owner of BDHW wrote us a message on myspace one day and said that he wanted to cooperate with us. He invited us to his home in Münster and we had a lot of beer and some good food. Being drunk, we signed a contract, where we had to play 200 Shows a year and pay Toni 500 Euros a month to finance his party lifestyle. NO JUST KIDDING! We became really good friends over the years and we really appreciate the freedom Toni gave us as a band and the trust he always had in us. He also definitely helped us become more popular because of the release of 'Unpreventable' back then.

AM: What do you think, from which countries you've got the most of fans (besides Germany)? What country gives you the best support?

Dead End Tragedy: We think, that the support of a scene can mostly be seen in doing DIY shows. So far, we definitely had the most shows, besides Germany, in Belgium.

AM: How is the process of creating songs? Do you write in the practice room or at home?

Dead End Tragedy: When we have some money in our pockets, we hire professional musicians and see what's the result, while we are sitting on a couch drinking beer. But this doesn't happen really often and that's why we usually just start with some guitar riffs for a new song in the practice room. If everyone likes it, we work on it till the song is done, otherwise we skip the ideas. But we definitely have to like the song 100% before it is getting recorded and published.

AM : You've written on Myspace that you play death metal / hardcore / punk. What do you think how much role in your music plays punk influences? Do you fell as a part of this scene? And why?

Dead End Tragedy: Punk music still plays a fundamental role for us. We all have our musical roots in this genre and still listen a lot of bands coming from there. We sure can identify with some of the attitude, like criticism on society, hating fascism and intolerance or the DIY attitude. You will also hear some more punk riffs in our latest songs, because we use it as valve for everything we see in this world.

AM: You lyrics are full of angriness, brutality and fury. What is your inspiration? What is the target of this uncompromising words?

Dead End Tragedy: To be earnest, we were pretty young back then and didn't think too much about the message while we were writing these lyrics. We also never expected to reach so many people around the world with it. But this isn't meant as an excuse. Back then, we wanted to be as brutal and tough as possible. Today we all grew up and want to write lyrics that make people think about different things in life and have more substance and better messages.

AM: In 'F.C.P.' you attack some kind of hardcore wannabes. Could you spread this shortcut? How often do you meet a people who are at this scene for fashion?

Dead End Tragedy: The actual meaning of 'F.C.P.' is Fashion Core Pussy and was headed against people who wanted to be part of a scene, no matter if hardcore, hip hop or metal by wearing the "typical" clothes and who, in the end, were harming those scenes with their appearance. Those people fortunately come and go and just make idiots of themselves. By getting older and making more experience, you are able to look at this behavior with a huge smile.

AM: 'Cherish Being Alive' is about the problem of drugs. What do you think, is this a big problem of today youth? Have you any personal experiences with this things?

Dead End Tragedy: If you believe the German statistics for 2013, the number of drug users is going down, but the number of internet addicts is rising fast. So today we would probably have to sing "another post you make, another click you take." Drugs are not only a problem of today youth. In your youth you lay some steppingstones for your future life and it's a tragedy to see this all go to waste because of drugs. We all lost some people around us to drugs, but fortunately never lost our own trail.

AM: What about your opinion about the straight edge? Any sXe in band?

Dead End Tragedy: Straight edge is a great movement and respect to all those who are living their life with this attitude. Never the less, hardliners who are always trying to convince you of their attitude are just annoying. Everyone should live the way he's satisfied with his life, as long as he doesn't harm himself or the people around him. We are not straight edge, but we are sure, that most of us also lived with that attitude a few years in our childhood.

AM: "Protect the ones we love / Nothing can stop us / When you take on them" - How strong meaning have this words for you? How do you try to make this in your private life?

Dead End Tragedy: Like already said: We were young, naive and needed the money. Everyone should stand up for the ones in his life that mean the most and they are always worth fighting for.

AM: What about the lyrical themes for a new album? Any innovations?

Dead End Tragedy: The album will be called 'Stagnation Is Death'. This theme will probably be a line through the whole record. We as persons and our music has just evolved into something better, we think. And this progress should be seen in every situation in life. Many things are going into the wrong direction and that's what had an influence on the whole theme. So we just write about everything we see and experience every day. From society, to environment or even technology. We are now concretising everything for the new album.

AM: Being a part of the German scene how do you see it? Are there any upcoming bands that people should look out for? What about the most fascinating and irritating aspects of your native scene?

Dead End Tragedy: The German scene is pretty huge and strong. It also has been stronger, but that's the past. We are living now and we are proud to ba a part of what bands like Slime, Recharge, Ryker's and so on once began. There are a lot of new and great bands, but the list would be too huge now and we would probably forget some. One band that overwhelmed us lately was Bitterness Exhumed, for example.

We think the German hardcore scene stands for diversity. There are so many sub-genres, young and motivated bands and always a feeling of solidarity no matter where you play shows in Germany.

But in some areas you can also see, that the scene is becoming more and more dead. We also already made the experience to visit DIY shows with an international line-up of great bands and there were like 12 visitors standing in front of the stage. That's a fucking tragedy. People should be more open minded to new bands and not only come to shows for bands they already know for years and "deserve" to be seen in their opinion.

AM: What are your views on the present political climate in Germany?

Dead End Tragedy: If we look at the European situation, we can`t really complain living in Germany. There will always be mistakes made by the government and tries to fix them. We also have elections for our parliament coming up this year. So we will see what happens next.

AM: What is your opinion about the Turkish immigrants in Germany? I heard that differences between Islamic culture and European culture often is a source of many problems. Is it right? Are there visible any several disturbance of assimilation process?

Dead End Tragedy: Turkish and Muslim immigrants belong to the German culture for decades now. A lot of uneducated people try to put all the different Arabian cultures into one scheme and say that they would harm the country. In the end these uneducated, intolerant, media-manipulated people cause the real damage for our society. What is really sad is that immigrants that grow up and finish college in Germany often turn their backs after that and go back to their country to work there. This has probably many reasons like family or returning to his own roots. Our country could benefit so much from these people and it's sad to see that obviously they don't see any reason to stay here, even if there were born and raised in Germany. This definitely should have to change.

Some time ago, there were news from am Islamic movement called salafism, that tried to take influence on younger people and society with their extremist attitude. These are problems we should definitely fight against. Like every other extremist attitude.

AM: What could you tell me about the role of history in German politic? You know, we still have in Poland references to communism, discussions about the times of World War II and so on. What about the your country?

Dead End Tragedy: Our historical past still follows us like a shadow, not only in politics. Even our generation still isn't sure if it is OK to say that we "like" our country and being German. Even putting a German flag on your house during some world championships doesn't seem always right in some eyes. It has definitely been an unthinkable tragedy what happened in World War II. But our generation and those who will follow had nothing to do with this. People who were involved are mostly dead or disdained by the rest of the nation. We should never forget what happened, but also prove that no one still has to judge our generation or those who will follow.

AM: What do you think, this references to history in politic are needed? On the one hand we have to think about the experience from past times to not repeat the old mistakes, but on the other hand does it make sense still sitting in the past when we have to go ahead?

Dead End Tragedy: The question is which mistakes you mean? Taking over other countries with an army, burning down villages, killing countless innocent people? We live in the 21st century in Europe. This will never happen again, thank God. Humanity can only survive, if it learns from mistakes and tries to make it better, because stagnation is death. But we have to look forward and take care of our problems today. Like we should strengthen the worldwide union in all hardcore scenes. Like you being from Poland giving as a hard time answering all of your questions to get to know us a bit better. Thanks for that and respect! We are creating a political and economic unity in Europe. There are no borders anymore. Why shouldn't we create one European Hardcore scene? Too utopian?

AM: Can you say some words about German life and mentality in your eyes? What about the best and worst features of your nation?

Dead End Tragedy: 80% of the Germans are fat and balled, like to eat sausages and drink beer. We think that Germans often like to complain on a very high level and never seem satisfied and happy with what they have. But that's probably a typical First World problem around the world. Also most Germans are pretty narrow-minded. But we are the exception from all these things.

AM: What next do you have planned for the band?

Dead End Tragedy: We will be going to the studio next week to finally record our new full length album.

AM: Thanx a lot for your time! I hope we will meet in Poland soon! Cheers! Last words are yours'!

Dead End Tragedy: We thank you for your huge interest and are deeply sorry for letting you wait so long. We hope that you're alright with our answers. Be curious for our new stuff that will probably be coming out in summer this year! We are too!

Last words: Poland has the most beautiful women, besides Brazil! What the hell are you putting in your drinking water!?

Interviewed by Kwiecio.

03/22/2013 12:07