Robex Lundgren virkblogg.

What are your names? Who plays what? Where are you from?  I am the sole member of the German Funeral Doom project The Cold View, my pseudonym is A.A.S. To be more exact, these are my initials. As The Cold View is a one man project I am doing everything by my own, from playing guitars and synths, programming, effects to writing lyrics and doing the artwork for my releases.

Have any of you played in other bands? Ten years ago I had a short time Death Doom Metal project with a friend of mine. The project was called Bestial. We did record a professional demo but never played live. My mate now is doing the mixing and mastering for my records at his recording studio Blockstudio in Berlin, Germany.

How is it that you started playing music? I have started creating music with Bestial, the project I mentioned before.

Have you had other previous members? The Cold View is intended to be a one man project. But I will have some session musicians on bass guitar and drums for a release that will come at the end of the year.

What year did the band form? I started The Cold View in November 2011 when I was experimenting on new sounds and thought about to record a debut album.

What's your style of genre? I am playing a kind of Funeral Doom which is very slow - even slower for what the genre is famous for. My sound is influenced by Drone and uses field recordings and many layers of guitars as well as unique synths and effects.

What made you decide to make this music?  What inspires you?

My first project was just for fun, even though it was undertaken quite professional. Before I started with The Cold View I was experimenting with the sound server and audio tools of my Linux system. This experimenting lead to some time of enthusiasm and creative pressure and the first song of the debut got created. I got hooked by the creative satisfaction. As a matter of course I went on.

The first album was mostly inspired by the winter season, the nature and weather of these months and my personal feelings connected with it. Coldness is a central theme in the concept of my music project. I think Funeral Doom is fitting these themes very well at it is also one of my favourite music styles. I love the intensity in the slow, crawling guitar sounds.

So, the debut album was focussed on the coldness experienced by the self. For the second album I went on to focus on the coldness in the world and society viewed from a neutral perspective. It all takes place in the concept of “the cold view”, a not very well-known philosophical approach to examine the world. This approach was originally developed by Friedrich Nietzsche and popular under some kind of small intellectual elite in 19th century in Europe. I was impressed by Nietzsche’s concept. “The Cold View” was intended to get the name of a second Bestial demo. Instead it got a very fitting name for my Funeral Doom project, at least in my opinion.

Is it easier to find inspiration from older bands, or bands that are more active today? In general I don’t think that makes any difference. There are good and not so good older bands as well as there are good and not so good newer bands. 

How have you developed since you started with the music? I am confident that I have developed. The songs got longer, more experimental and of course my knowledge in composing, creating, recording and producing has broadened. But to be honest one has to state that I am not already making music for years. So maybe this question comes too early in my case.

What are your songs about? My songs are in the typical vein of Funeral Doom. They deal with darkness, despair, but also nature and human society. The first album was about my experiences of nature in the winter months of the time I created the songs. They are named with the central feeling of it, for example “Freezing February”. The second album was about the decline of our civilised existence, the dependence on technology and the unstoppable way into the abyss this must lead to. Thus the album is called “Wires of Woe, Ways of Waste” with the songs named accordingly.

Do you start with the music or the lyrics? At first there is always a theme or concept where everything is aligned to. But I always start the essential creation process with the music. I usually have some melodies or sounds in my mind which are building the fundament of the song. There could by some lyrical ideas around, too. But the full lyrics always get written at last.

What language do you sing in? I am always “singing” in English. I think that German sounds awkward in harsh vocals or growls. And English is more widespread, too.

How often and where do you rehearse? I do not rehearse in the sense of practicing for gigs, because The Cold View is not intended for live performance. But of course I am practicing regularly.

Where can people buy your merchandise? I am selling my records at Bandcamp http://thecoldview.bandcamp.com/ but they are also available at the label shops of Endless Winter and GS Production as well as at some other shops.

What do you think about people downloading music instead of buying records now a days? I don’t mind if someone downloads a record to check if he or she likes it. But it is condemnable if someone listens to the record often and does not buy it. I think it is fair to support the people that create the music or art or whatever media you like. In the times of music streaming there also is no real need to download music. You can go to Bandcamp for example and check out lots of music without paying and without doing illegal actions. I am for free art, but art is not free in the sense of expenses of the artists.

How do you think the music industry have changed because of this? The changes are obvious. Physical sales are declining, lawyers make a load of money with dissuasions, major labels and streaming platforms like Spotify rip up the artists. Mainstream bands still have it comfortable to make a lot of money, but small bands need constant touring and selling merch to have a solid income. Much smaller bands regularly have to go to work to earn a living besides the music. But the internet is also a great way to get to know such small “underground” projects like The Cold View. Without the online promotion possibilities of the internet I would not have made it to my physical record releases.

What have been your biggest obstacles? After I have finished the first album it was quite impossible to get a label that was willing to release it. No one knew The Cold View, I was not playing gigs, and it was just a too high risk to put money in a release. So I decided to make a digital release. After I gained some attention, a lot of downloads and some great reviews I had the luck to find two labels for the release of the second album and a re-release of the debut.

What advice would you give other bands or artists? Just do what you want to do and learn out of your fails. And in the end: don’t listen to advices!

Do you have any new material?

Very soon there will be the release of the split album “Songs of Deepest Skies” with the Funeral Doom project Abysmal Growls of Despair. This French one man project already has released some albums and split releases and has contributed three interesting Doom monoliths for the split. For my part I have recorded my longest song up to date. “Sky of Sorrow” has a running time of over 32 minutes and will be quite surprising, but it is definitely still a The Cold View song. The split will get released as a nice A5 CD digipak by Frozen Light and as a digital release by the bands on Bandcamp, too.

I also have already recorded two songs for another split release with a German Doom Metal band that eventually will get released end of 2015.

What are your web sites? The official website is http://www.thecoldview.com/ - all the information about The Cold View is available here. I am also listing all reviews and interviews there. Regarding free music streaming and buying CDs it is important to mention the Bandcamp page http://thecoldview.bandcamp.com/. And then there a several other pages like the Facebook band page https://www.facebook.com/thecoldview that gets updated regularly.

How can people reach you? People can best reach me by a personal message on the Facebook band page. 

What are your plans for the future? At the end of the year I want to release the split I already done the songs for. I also want to record my third album in winter 2015 / 2016.

Do you have something to add? Thank you very much for the interview and the support. It is great that you give bands a platform where they can get some attention. Thank you also to the readers for their interest. Doom on!