Band: Drink Deep
From: Berlin, Germany
Their formation story:
(Philippe Arama, vocals): "Drink Deep officially formed in the spring of 2022, although the idea for the project, and even some riffs, had been in our brains for over a year. Ever since I moved to Berlin at the end of 2020, Lucas and I had been conspiring to start a new project. We knew we loved the stripped-down and honest sounds of early DC hardcore and wanted to write music that honored that but circumstance prevailed and for months collaboration meant sending dozens of voice notes humming riffs to each other and eventually duo jam-sessions featuring a Spanish guitar and table-drumming.
"We were lucky to meet Andrew through mutual friends and knew within the first minutes of playing music that we would be great friends. We still needed a bassist and finally met Marcel just a few weeks before we recorded our demo and likewise, we immediately clicked on many levels: taste, ethics, humor, etc."
[Drink Deep features ex-members of Praise, Remission, and No Longer at Ease]
Their sound in their own words:
"The discerning listener will notice that we’re very influenced by early and mid-'80s Dischord releases like Out of Step and Subject to Change but also by the fast, rhythm-laden hardcore of Bad Brains and melodies of Embrace. But we don’t just want to reproduce a style of music that is frozen in time. We want to find the essence of that sound and play it our own way: raw but melodic, fast (most of our songs barely make the one-minute mark) but also starting and stopping and breaking.
"Another major influence for the band is DIY: this informs our sound as well as the kinds of shows we like to play and how we build relationships with people involved in hardcore, like people who book shows, play in other bands, screenprint shirts, design flyers, operate labels, etc."
Latest release info:
"We recently released a 4-song demo cassette on SFR Hardcore, a Berlin-based label run by some friends of ours. The songs were recorded live on a September evening at Castalian Spring, which is a great, independent practice space in Berlin run by some very friendly people. Because of the limited time, we only had a couple of takes to try and record each song.
"The result is definitely imperfect but it’s honest and raw: we got to the room, set up our gear and played the songs like we were practicing for a show. Lyrically, the songs deal with topics that are important to us today, like environmental decay or male privilege, but in a way that we hope will be relevant to us forever. Essentially, we want to be able to listen to the songs a decade from now and still feel like they can guide us."
Future plans:
"We're excited to have the opportunity to play a lot around Europe this year. For instance, later this month, we’ll be in Spain joining several local and international acts for Can’t Keep Us Down Fest in Barcelona and later visiting Valencia and Madrid. Then in March we'll be playing Edge Fest in the German city of Dresden and Paris’s annual Break Down The Walls Fest in mid April.
"Getting to be a part of all kinds of shows, past and future, makes us feel very welcome and appreciated, especially given our short existence. Our short-term goal is to record an 8 song 7” this winter, which is set to come out on Refuse Records. The plan is to stay active and creative, always grateful too. Big thanks to NoEcho and anyone who cares. As we say here in Germany, Prost!"
What other bands from their region should we check out?
"Berlin is weird because it's a big city and doesn’t have an individual, well-defined hardcore scene but rather a massive alternative one where different styles coexist and sometimes overlap, whether it’s post-punk, crust or heavy hardcore. There's currently a lot more hardcore activity in west Germany, with newer bands like Echo Chamber, Suspect, and Force of Denial and more established bands like Spirit Crusher, Spark, and I Recover who have been going at it for several years now.
"Here in the east we're excited about Fragment, Lethal Hate, and two bands Marcel drums for: Mercy and The Fog. We'd also recommend checking out the Berlin bands Sputa and Cagekicker, with whom we hope to eventually play."
Drink Deep on socal media: Instagram | Bandcamp
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Tagged: drink deep, remission
