Die erste Show, die erste Platte und seine größten Einflüsse! Wir sprachen mit Eisberg über seine Hardcore-Punk Roots und wie er zur Musik und Szene gekommen ist.
1Do you remember the first hardcore / punk show you went to? Is the club still open today?
Damien: My first punk show was in 2001 in Kayl, Luxembourg. I just turned 14 at the time, it was Beans and Antidote, two dutch streetpunk bands. The bar, which was your typical luxembourgish drink in the front bowling alley in the back bar, was called “Kayler Stuff”. They relocated shortly after I think they are still open today but stopped doing punk shows back in 2005 I think.
Sandro: I don’t really remember which my first one was, but it would’ve been one of the local mixed bill shows at either Arena or Movimento in Vienna around 05/06. One show I do remember vividly was Boysetsfire with Tribute To Nothing and Estate at Arena in early 06. The Arena ist still alive and well, Movimento got shut down in 07 by local authorities.
Dan: I’m not quite sure which was my first hardcore show, but one that comes to mind was Your Demise, Last Witness and Bun Dem Out (I think) at the Camden underworld, London in 06/07. The club is still open today!
Yannick: That must have been around 2002/03. It was at a friend’s birthday party in a small barn of a bar called “Café beim Nico” in my hometown. The band was called M.D.E. which was a Deutsch-Punk-Band from Luxembourg. The bar closed a couple of years ago.
Patrick: I started going to the Pioneer Club in St Albans from when I was 12 back in 2001 where shows were organised on a weekly basis. If you skated you could go out back to the skate park or just watch the bands. 250+ kids every week! The line ups were so mixed which I loved but I’d say the first bands I remember playing which were involved a lot with the hardcore scene were xThe Break Inx and Cry For Silence. It’s still open today but they don’t hold many gigs there now and its mainly for the council to use as a youth centre.
2What is your all-time favorite club or location?
Damien: Tough call but I’d say Lientfabriek in Kontich, Netherlands.
Sandro: Hands down – the Arena in Vienna.
Dan: Easily The Underworld in Camden. I have seen a lot of my favourite hardcore and metal bands there over the last 12 or so years and met a lot of my closest friends there!
Yannick: Uh, hard to say. But I think some of the coolest shows I’ve been to took place at Exhaus in Trier, Germany.
Patrick: When the Underworld in Camden is packed with a decent line up its got to be there. I’ve seen all the top bands play there!
3Do you remember the first hardcore / punk record you got?
Damien: My dad and my uncle had quite a few vinyls from when they were young so when I was little I used to listen to all of that late 70s punk – Sex Pistols, Ramones and Angelic Upstarts – and thought it was badass music.
Sandro: My cousin from the States sent me copies of The Story of The Clash and Licensed to Ill by the Beastie Boys (musically not punk, but I’d consider them punk) at a very young age. Former is still my favorite band of all time. The first punk/hc record I’ve gotten myself would’ve either been the Ramones self-titled, Dead Kennedy’s Fresh Fruits or the Bad Brains Roir album. Not quite sure.
Dan: I honestly can’t remember to be fair, I was brought up listening to thrash metal and grunge, but I think the first every hardcore cd I owned was a victory records compilation album, probably in about 05.
Yannick: Hard one. I think it was Americana by Offspring in 1999. The first time I heard that record I was blown away. It was at my cousin’s place. Then I found out that a friend’s brother also had this record at home so that I was eventually able to copy the CD onto a cassette.
Patrick: My Mum allowed me to go to the local Our Price music shop every week and buy 1-2 cassettes or CD’s with my pocket money since I was young. It’s got to be something like the Fat Lip single by Sum 41.
4In your opinion what is the perfect hardcore show?
Damien: Good vibes, a packed room, stage dives and high fives.
Sandro: A packed 150 cap venue, friends all around, stage dives, sing-a-longs.
Dan: a small intimate show packed out with people going insane! Or one where there is a bar you can see the stage from… getting too fragile for it these days.
Yannick: I think it’s all been mentioned before. Even though it might have been too big for some people, I think the last Have Heart show sums it up pretty much perfectly.
Patrick: Small venues where you can’t get away from the chaos and have to get involved. I’d say a show we played last year in Leipzig organised by Hannes at Power Trip was a great example.
5What is your all-time favorite show you’ve played?
Damien: Kinda hard to put my finger on one show but playing Venice HC Fest is always a treat.
Sandro: Venezia Hardcore Fest 2015 with my previous band Demonwomb. Or the last Gone To Waste show, being a part of that was sick.
Dan: there are quite a few to name! Outbreak fest in 2014(?) was crazy, I loved that. And like Damien said, Venezia HC fest is always a great show!
Yannick: New Year’s Eve house show in 2010/11, Euro Outbreak Fest in 2012, Outbreak Fest 2014.
Patrick: When Eisberg supported Kraft Klub in a field in Luxembourg over 1000 kids going insane. That was the bollocks I’d say!
6Is there a show you missed in the past that still makes you angry that you could not be there?
Damien: Yes. Every Iron Age show.
Sandro: I never got to see Vienna locals Anchors Up, although I had the chance to on multiple occasions. Hands down the best hc band to ever come out of Vienna (or Austria for that matter), unfortunately they disbanded in 2007.
Dan: Any bitter end / bad seed show.
Yannick: The moment I got into punk I was excessively listening to a Luxembourgish hc/punk band called “the Poshblokes”. When I was finally allowed to go to shows – I was around 13 years old – they broke up.
Patrick: For those of you who know me I have to frequently miss decent shows due to my full time racing career. There would be too many shows to name but I’d say I seem to miss a lot of Terror shows because I am away racing.
7What band would you like to see again?
Damien: I think I would have to say Have Heart. They were one of the first proper hardcore bands I’ve ever heard and they are the reason why Eisberg is a band today. But at the same time I think it is kind of cool knowing they will never play a reunion show and that they will forever be a fond memory.
Sandro: Rage Against The Machine. Chances of that ever happening again are close to none though.
Dan: Fury, I never bothered to check them out before seeing them and they have probably been my ‘most listened to’ hardcore band for the past 18 months or so… never got to catch them at outbreak this year!
Yannick: I think Damien’s answer is spot on.
Patrick: Have Heart all day every day.
8Is there a person who has influenced you especially in hardcore / punk?
Damien: A few: A guy called Gilles Müller, he was my neighbour and introduced me to Streetpunk. He always had the sickest new records and made me mixtapes and stuff. He kinda shaped my musical taste for years to come. Another guy called Jerome Reiland, we played in a few punk bands together, he was a polarizing figure but was what Punk Rock meant to me. I’d say Yannick is also one of the most influential persons to me. We grew up together, played in many different bands together and kinda shaped each other musically and ideologically since day one.
Sandro: My mate Simon. We met before getting into hardcore and coincidentally got into the local scene around the same time, discovering bands and ideals together. I’m sure everyone I regularly went to shows with or played in bands with did somehow though.
Dan: My cousin rob, not necessarily into hardcore / punk, but when I was a kid he got me into thrash metal / crossover, which kinda led to me getting into the sub genres like hardcore! My dad also used to play Sex Pistols – Never Mind The Bollocks… whilst I was growing up to, so it all came from there really.
Yannick: To me it was rather an entire movement than a particular person that influenced me, it’s even beyond music. The punk scene in Luxembourg was incredibly big in the 2000s even though it’s a small country. Over years a few hundred people went to almost every show that took place (I played shows almost every weekend). At this point, I will have to steal Damien’s words again, sorry. We played our first shows together in the early 2000s and eventually played in the same bands a couple of years later. We more and more got into metalcore and hardcore. Around that time Eisberg was founded and here again I became part of a scene that was and still is a big influence to me.
Patrick: I’d have to thank my parents for this as they allowed me to listen to basically whatever music I wanted to (within reason) and allowed me to go to local shows when many other parents didn’t allow their kids to go to shows or even buy music between the ages of 10-15. My Mum also bought me my first bass at 12. Cheers Mum.
9What are you top 3 hardcore-punk front men (women)?
Damien: Hard to say, in no particular order: Dan Yemin from Paint it Black, Brendan from Incendiary and Gregor from Risk It!
Sandro: Off the top of my head: Chaka Malik from Burn, Rob Fusco from Most Precious Blood/One King Down and Jogges from Empowerment.
Dan: I never really focus on front men I focus on the whole bands energy… but I’d say Jeffery Eaton from Modern Life Is War, Scott Vogel from Terror and Lee Spielman from Trash Talk is always very entertaining.
Yannick: Intuitively I’d say Pat Flynn from Have Heart, Martijn from No Turning Back and Winston McCall from Parkway Drive.
Patrick: Any front man/woman that can motivate a crowd and mean what they say always inspires me and gets my support. The first one that comes to mind is Lukas from Gone To Waste. Their last show was amazing and loved what he had to say on their bow out. I like Gregor from Risk It’s energy too. The last guy nobody will know or ever know but was a guy called Harry Conway from North London. When we were between 16-18 he was ahead of his time as far as a front man was concerned. If we were to have more blokes like that singing the scene would be a lot more legit.
10What is in your opinion the most underrated hardcore-punk band?
Damien: Either Violation, Mother of Mercy or Iron Age.
Sandro: Burn. World Collapse.
Dan: I’m with Damien on mother of mercy and born low.
Yannick: From Ashes Rise.
Patrick: I have not seen them recently but when we were playing Europe frequently and they played a tight set then the band that comes to mind first is Cornered.
11Are there some newer bands you could mention?
Damien: Not new but fuckin Coldburn, they are such an incredibly good band, especially their last EP called Skulls. A few newer bands that come to mind: Easy Money, Culture Abuse, Hawser, Discrepancy, Line of Sight, Trail of Lies, Demolition, Belief, Spirit Crusher and lastly a new band I play in, called Ill Blood, with some OG straight edge and HC entities from Vienna (Demonwomb, Anchors Up, Nothing Gold Can Stay).
Sandro: Piece from Berlin are overlooked, one of the best bands out there currently. Some other ‘newer’ bands I’ve recently appreciated include: Vein, Trail of Lies, xServitudex, Sect, Year Of The Knife, Fiddlehead, Mortality Rate, New Native.
Dan: Splitknuckle, been around a while but I highly rate them! Inhuman nature, Jesus Piece, Bind, judiciary.
Yannick: I got stuck with older bands the last couple of years and was sloppy in regards to newer bands. There’s many new bands I know by their name but not by their music, so that I need to catch up on this. Egotistically I will have to mention my new project with Damien called Ill Blood and another metal project with my mate Patrick from Demonwomb – gotta be patient with this one though.
Patrick: I’ve not seen them but I listened to a band called Pressure from Norwich in the UK last night. It was great and reminded me of Warzone.
[…] Den inzwischen dritten Song haben Eisberg vorab aus ihrer neuen EP Few Will Remain veröffentlicht. Die sieben neuen Songs erscheinen am 7. September über Beatdown Hardwear Records und ist die erste Veröffentlichung der 2010 gegründeten Hardcore-Band aus Wien, England und Luxemburg seit mehr als vier Jahren. Uns liegt die neue EP bereits vor und ihr könnt hier unsere Review dazu lesen. Zudem leistete Eisberg einen Beitrag zu unserer HC History. […]
[…] Den inzwischen dritten Song haben Eisberg vorab aus ihrer neuen EP Few Will Remain veröffentlicht. Die sieben neuen Songs erscheinen am 7. September über Beatdown Hardwear Records und ist die erste Veröffentlichung der 2010 gegründeten Hardcore-Band aus Wien, England und Luxemburg seit mehr als vier Jahren. Uns liegt die neue EP bereits vor und ihr könnt hier unsere Review dazu lesen. Zudem leistete Eisberg einen Beitrag zu unserer HC History. […]