Unexploded

Our latest music feature, and also our first ever Danish feature, is with the eerie electro noisemeisters Unexploded!

Yep, we were that impressed with them when we reviewed them last month (check out the review here) that we followed it up with a full blown feature this month. To track down Unexploded for yourselves you can visit the official site here.

VOLTCASE UNEXPLODED INTERVIEW:

Welcome to Voltcase, Unexploded, how are things?

Thanks, VM! Things are great. I’m very busy with recording, mixing and promotion, besides also helping in the planning of gigs in Europe (DE and UK, first of all).

So, how would you describe your sound to a stranger in three words?

Triprock.
Triprock is what we call our music style/genre; it’s sort of a mix of progressive and alternative rock, electronica and triphop put together in the special mix and in the alternative arrangements that are Triprock.

I think you guys are the first Danish band to appear in Voltcase. What’s the music scene like there at the moment?

Well, the Danish music scene has finally awakened after being in almost constant hibernation for as long as music has existed. In this century the situation is almost upside down compared to the last. The Danish music scene is one of the most interesting and progressive on the planet these days. I can only recommend taking a closer look at the new Danish music scene and bands like Mew and Spleen United, besides Unexploded, obviously.
Is it a good country for experimenting with new music, or do you get a better response from other countries?
No, the audience is generally quite conservative, and the radio stations don’t really help out that situation. Then again, it’s getting better compared to how it was in the 90’s – that was terrible. A good portion of the teens are into more experimental stuff. But Denmark is also a place of puritans; where you may play electronic music or rock music, but can’t combine the two – then it’s kind of “false”. Personally I don’t care what other people think anyway, I always do my own thing.

And, being a UK based 'zine, I have to ask - do you have any plans to pop over to the UK, and have you been here before?

Definitely! We will be playing at least a couple of gigs either in the fall this year or in the spring of 2009. I’ve been to London many times, although last time was in 2003. Even though Paris is my favourite city, I very much love London. Oh yeah, in 1981 and 1982 I went to a boarding school in Surrey south of London, so I’m not exactly unfamiliar with London. I would however, like to see more of England like Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield, Cambridge, Leeds, Exeter, and Oxford etc. A former drummer in the band comes from Bristol.

Can you let us know what your main influences are?

Iron Butterfly, Pink Floyd, Supertramp, The Doors, Peter Gabriel, U2, David Bowie, Depeche Mode, Skinny Puppy, Massive Attack, Porcupine Tree, Nine Inch Nails, Air, Tears For Fears, Underworld, John Barry, Ennio Morricone, Leonard Cohen, The Cure.
And are there any smaller acts out there that we might not have heard of that you think we should check out?
There’s dark ambient from Finland called Building the Cathedral, that’s cool like a scary version of Steve Roach or the ambient Coil stuff. Also a rock band from Germany called Ortega, which sounds like a mix of Duran Duran and Editors. Quite nice. Anekdoten from Sweden is also good, reminiscent of Porcupine Tree. Puscifer, Maynard Keenan from Tool’s new solo project is also very cool and a Mexican project called Murcof is also quite intriguing.

European bands have often been accused of 'taking themselves too seriously'. In your experience, is this generally the case? Or are they able to laugh at themselves every once in a while?

Good question. European bands take the music more seriously, as an art form. To American bands it’s more about showbiz, generally speaking. The best music comes from Europe for the same reason. However, you have to hand it to the Americans that they know how to create a show… Personally I do take myself quite seriously, but I have no problem laughing at myself either. I remember a concert in 2006 where I had a huge beer glass with me on stage filled with ice cubes and Irish whisky. In the first song of the set, I somehow manage to empty the entire glass out on the stage which then becomes quite slippery. Not the best of beginnings to a concert, but I stopped the song and laughed to the audience and said something like “worse things happen at sea”, haha… The stage was quite slippery until the break, I must admit though…

Any rock-star style stories that you can tell us about? Ever thrown a TV out of a hotel window, for example?

Oh yeah, I do that all the time… No, Seriously I’d say that destructive behaviour doesn’t suit creative people. But then again, if you’re on drugs and believe that the tv is trying to eat you alive, I’d understand why you’d throw it out the window, haha…
But, there is a long history of drug abuse, massive alcohol abuse, injuries and drama in the band which also explains why the album has been delayed and why a lot of gigs got cancelled in 2006 and 2007; To name a few; A former bass player had to stop playing for good after rehearsing “Supermassive Black Holes” (written and titled in 2001, it’s not the Muse song). His hands got so bad, that he’s not playing an instrument anymore. I remember he used to smoke a huge amount of weed, and before one rehearsal in 2003, he swallowed a space cake that made him pass out before we even got started. Haha, those were the days…
Another bass player had a huge alcohol problem; he ended up on Antabuse medication and got a shrink that later gave up on him. A former drummer in the band got a severe degree of tinnitus from a rehearsal. 10 seconds of extremely loud clicks in one ear did it for him. It got so bad that he got severe problems with his balance nerve centre and eventually had to quit his day job. Sad, really. Last time I saw him he was going travelling…
And yes, the present backing singer has been on the injury list since the fall. While being enlightened from alcohol and whatever else she walked straight into a metal post giving her a severe brain concussion. Since then she haven’t been allowed/able to basically do anything requiring brain usage other than listening to audio books, because “overstimulation” like normal life actions can cause rebound, until she’s fully recovered. No internet, tv, phone, not even reading. Go figure. Hopefully she’ll be back soon with the rest of the gang, but still very difficult to say when…
I’ve certainly had my share, but I’ll here focus on the drugs; having quit smoking cigarettes in 2002, I had since the 90’s been smoking a lot of weed and couldn’t stop, I was too addicted and it was out of control. I was constantly looking forward to the next high. But after performing as Unexploded at Roskilde Festival in 2005, I realised I was at a crossroad and had to make a choice. The weed was consuming too much of my time, or life if you will, and having too big an influence. If I wanted Unexploded to become big, I’d have to stop smoking the weed and focus all my attention on the music. Not being attracted to the thought of becoming a couch potato, I then made up my mind. A couple of days later the decision to stop smoking weed was final when I smoked my last (and indeed very strong) joint with a couple of hiphoppers at the Autechre concert, also at Roskilde Festival. Basically it was Unexploded or weed. Since that night I’ve only smoked weed a couple of times on holiday. But hey, drinking a lot of alcohol comes with the job, haha, no reason to quit that... I could go on and on about these incidents…


If you were interviewing yourself, what question would you ask yourself? And what would the answer be?

The question:
What could we do without?
The answer:
Well, I’m sick of religion being misused to control, hurt and kill other people, that’s number one. It has been going on for thousands of years and needs to stop. Religion has in many ways become the tool or excuse to manipulate people, especially the uneducated and ignorant. To support either plain stupidity, increase of power or ego-wealth, everything seems righteous in religion. The ups of religion do generally not up weigh the downs. Religion has many beautiful thoughts and words, but if the meaning is misread or misused it becomes false and what is the point then? Faith rather than religion with its mind numbing rules seems to be the better option.
Pollution and resource ripping is number two; the planet is crying out in pain while we are destroying it. It may sound somewhat mainstream and like stating the obvious, but it is true nonetheless and can’t be said enough times. But going into detail here will be far too extensive, so that will have to wait until another interview.
Third; killing and hurting in general - Killing of humans, killing of animals. Generally speaking there is no respect for life at all. People only care about them selves. There’s way too much deception, violence, hurting, torture, suffering and war on end. On top of that there’s still the death penalty in many countries. The killing of people can only be an extreme last option and never for a governing body to decide. Killing is killing, period. The quite mid evil death penalty has a lot of severe and irreversible consequences for those involved that needs to be considered and addressed in those countries where the death penalty still exists. And in for instance Iran people are hung for being drunk or having sex – it’s unbelievable!
As a vegetarian and human/animal rights activist I disapprove of the killing of animals for fun, for clothing or for eating. Leonardo da Vinci was right approx 500 years ago, when he said it was unhealthy physically as well as mentally to hurt and kill animals, but also that it wouldn’t stop until humans have respect for each other. It’s 2 sides of the same problem; it’s a matter of empathy or not, of carelessness or not. Hurting animals usually entails hurting people. People need to grow up.
Rounding up my points, human society is slowly becoming more and more civilised, yet it remains a parasite society; humans are parasites on Earth.
By the way, the misguided perception that leather is quality and strong is false compared to microfiber products. Microfiber products look a lot like leather, but microfiber is a much stronger and longer lasting material. Artificial fur has been around for ages, but customers seem to ignore it just as with microfiber. Is suffering really that attractive?

So, what have the Unexploded got planned for the rest of the year?

Playing a few gigs at venues and at a couple of festivals. Time will be focused on delivering a fantastic debut album; less won’t cut it for me. So until the album is finished, we’ll lay a little low. But we definitely want to tour after the release of the album. As a minimum the tour should include some of Europe. However, nothing is certain, and we’ll have to see when we get to the release which should be at the end of this year. We’re considering doing a release party in London, by the way, but let’s see...

And finally, the question that we ask everyone that appears in Voltcase - what does the word 'Voltcase' mean?

A suitcase/box full of pylon tools or spare parts is what comes to mind. A pylon like the one that is our logo. Could also be a figure of speech, like a case of voltage or in case of voltage, if you know what I mean…