http://www.myspace.com/waterdown
http://www.waterdown.de
First off i would like to thank Christian and Waterdown for taking the time out to do this interview with Worldwidetakeoverzine
How did the band come to be named Waterdown and is there any special meaning behind the band being named this
no special meaning, it's a classical hardcore-band-name with a sociopolitical
background.
what are your views on fighting at shows
i hate it. if people need to fight they should do it outside.
who brews the best beer Germany Belgium England and what types would you recommend to the readers
well, i am straight edge and i never drank beer in my whole life. but my
bandmates love beck's.
who are some of the bands main musical influences
all metal, hardcore and punkrock. we listen to this stuff since we were 12 years
old, and we are all around 30 now. so there's too much to mention only a few.
are any members in side projects other than Waterdown
not really. we don't have the time to have waterdown, our dayjobs AND another
band.
how long has the band been together
we started in winter 1999. so it's almost been 9 years now. fuck. :)
how many cds eps 7 inches split cds and demos has the band currently released
we have a brandnew EP called "powersnake" out on blacktop records, a german
hardcore label. some of the songs are on our myspace. other than that, we have
three full length records out ("never kill the boy on the first date", 2001 /
"the files you have on me" 2003 / "all riot" 2006, all on victory records), a
split EP with the canadian band by a thread (twofriends recordings, 2002) and
our first release, the "drawasmilingface EP" (also on twofriends, 2000). no
demos, our first EP was supposed to be a demo but we immediatly got a record
deal offered so it came out as an EP.
how has victory records treated you and are you still signed with them as well as blacktop records
we are not signed to victory records right now. we had a three record deal with
them. i think they treated us like every other band that they have.
what do you base your lyrics on when writing new material
personal demons and things that matter to us.
is there a large and thriving scene in the Ibbtown/Osna area as well as throughout Germany
oh yeah, there's a huge scene at the moment in germany with a lot of great
punkrock, hardcore and metal bands. you guys should check out heaven shall burn,
final prayer, zero mentality, black friday 29, ritual and narziss. as far as our
area is concerned, i would say there are some really cool bands that sound
totally different but are all great. check out www.myspace.com/donots for
quality punk rock, www.myspace.com/stormandstresshardcore for great modern
melodic hardcore, and www.myspace.com/secretsofthemoon if you like progressive
black metal.
is this the original lineup and if not what is the current lineup
right now we have zacken doing all the vocals, holger and axel playing guitars,
phil playing drums and me playing bass. this is not the original line up though. holger, axel and me are founding members.
if you could have anyone do guest vocals on your next recording who would it be and why
we would try to get someone that we are friends with. lou koller from sick of it
all or civ from gorilla biscuits for example. we toured with both bands in
europe and we had a great time with them.
does the band have any plans to tour the USA in either 2009 or 2010
man, we tried coming to the USA every fucking year since our first and only tour
in 2001, but it never worked out for different reasons. now it will be even
harder without a us-deal. but we will keep trying, we'd love to tour your
country again.
How can the readers from around the world contact you about ordering merchandise
you can try http://www.waterdown.de/html/shop_neu.html or www.trashmark.com for
different shirts, hoodies, zippers and stuff... there's brandnew merch coming
within the next days.
in only one sentence describe your sound to someone who has never heard you before
we play aggressive music.
when the band is on tour in the van what is usually playing in the cd player
we tend to listen to classics. it's more fun to rock out to songs everyone in
the band loves. we'd listen to some slayer, old metallica, pantera, snapcase,
refused, battery, gorilla biscuits, sick of it all or rancid.
how were you first exposed to the scene and what made you say i want to be in an band
i got a tape from a classmate when i was 12. it was a copy of the
scorpions-album "savage amusement". i kind of liked it, but the next thing i
heard was metallicas "ride the lightning" and slayers "raining blood", and since
then i need hard music. i wanted to be in a band since i went to my first show,
which was black sabbath in my hometown. i was 14 and scared and excited at the
same time. it took me one more year though to pick up my first bass and start
practicing.
when on tour and driving from city to city what is some of the weirdest shit you have seen happen or pass by
our guitar player holger is the weirdest piece of shit that i've ever seen.
where do you see the band in 3 years from now
i don't think we will quit. we love what we do. so we should be touring,
recording and having a good time.
who are some of the up and coming bands from the Ibbtown/Osna area as well as throughout Germany that we should be on the lookout for
check out the bands i mentioned before. and you can't go wrong with some classic
german metal. try kreator, sodom, destruction and accept.
the term hardcore has become so overused that any band putting a breakdown into a song is considered hardcore but explain to the readers what hardcore means to you
hardcore in my opinion has nothing to do with breakdowns. hardcore to me means
living my life with passion. i love what i do, i don't care if it feeds me or
not. i cannot stop. i try to be honest and respectful. i don't drink, i don't do
drugs, i have been vegetarian for more than 15 years now. i try to be diy as
much as i can. i support touring bands by going to their shows, i set up shows
in my area for some years and i try to keep the scene in my area vital.
What is your most memorable show and why
that's really hard to tell as we played over 700 shows so far and there have
been many great shows among them. i will never forget that my band got the
opportunity to play cbgb's in new york. that club was legendary and there are
only a very few german bands that had the chance to play there. another great
one was playing in front of 9000 people as a support for blink 182. we didn't
fit to the bill, we're way harder than the other bands, but the kids loved it and
we had 5 huge pits going at the same time. amazing. but i also love playing
really small clubs, where the sweat runs down the walls and people are
everywhere.
where else besides myspace can the readers go to to findout about upcoming shows and other band related information
we have a website www.waterdown.de and i just starting writing a blog with
tour diary stuff. http://downwithwaterdown.blogspot.com. you should also visit
our label www.blacktoprecords.de for other great bands.
what is your favorite city and coutnry to play shows in and also your least favorite and why
i want to play every country in the world. i know it won't happen but i WANT to.
i wanna experience as many different cultures and people as possible. we have
toured in 14 countries so far, and i loved it everywhere. i think this is the
best thing about being in a band. you get to see so many places it's amazing.
Who are some of the bands that you enjoy touring with
we toured with a lot of great bands, such as snapcase, boysetsfire, avail,
grade, as friends rust, anthrax, sick of it all, gorilla biscuits, rise against,
thursday, skycamefalling, stretch arm strong, pennywise and from autumn to
ashes. we enjoyed touring with all of them. there have only been two or three
bands in our time that we didn't get along with.
What advice can you give to some of the newer bands starting out that maybe having a tough time and thinking about giving up
if you do it for the right reasons you won't give up. this is not about being
successful, it's about creating music and having fun. as long as you're having
fun, go on! other than that: don't wait for good things to happen. make them
happen. be as diy as possible, work hard, practice, play every show that you can
and do not care too much about shit talkers. it's your life, your band. if some
other people don't like what you do, fuck them!
what is the most embarrassing thing that has happened to the band when playing a set
our singer ingo (who is not in the band anymore) felt sick when we played our
2006 record release show in our hometown. the club was sold out with 400 kids,
and he ran offstage midset and puked backstage for about 10 minutes straight. we
stopped playing and the whole crowd kept yelling his name "ingo!!! ingo!!!"
while he puked his guts out. not really embarrassing, but VERY funny.
where do you think you would be right now had you not been exposed to the hxc metal scene
i really can't imagine that. my love for music has such a great impact on my
life that i really can't think of anything else i'd rather do. i tour, record,
work as a music and bass teacher in my hometown and i write for the german metal
hammer magazine. it's all about music.
why do you think that people always associate violence with hardcore shows and it always gives hxc scenes and shows a bad reputation
i don't know, i never associated violence with hardcore shows, and i've only
witnessed very few real fights during a show. i think assholes are everywhere.
it does not come down to scenes, they are all around. there might be more fights
at hardcore shows than at a britney spears show, but i really don't know that
because i never went to a britney spears show and i never will, haha.
Do you have any upcoming shows that you would like to tell the readers about
sure, we have a couple of german shows coming up, some festivals as well (one
with a very cool line up including have heart, shipwreck ad and the casualties).
and we will be on tour in europe starting october 10th. we will most likely be
in germany, england, greece, czech republic, slowakia, austria, switzerland,
italy, france, spain and portugal then. we will post the shows as soon as we
have everything confirmed. you should check out our myspace for updates.
Is there anything else that you would like to add that i may have forgotten to ask that the readers should know about
no, nothing. thank you for supporting our band, thanks for the interview and
thank you to your readers for paying attention to what i have to say. i
appreciate it a lot.
