Robex Lundgren virkblogg.

What are your names? / Who plays what? We're a three piece consisting of Henry (Guitar), Dave (Bass/Vocals), and Pat (Drums).

Have any of you played in other bands? Yes, Henry also does bass and vocals in a grind band called Sewer Rat, both he and Dave did time in Sable Beldam. Pat and Dave were part of Narcotic for its duration, and Pat is the drummer for the band Nucleus.

Have you had other previous members? Everybody in the band is a founding member.

Where are you from? We all live and practice in Chicago, Il.

What year did the band form? The band has been around since 2016 as a concept, about the time Narcotic was winding down, but there were always challenges completing the lineup until recently. We first jammed as a full band in November of 2018, and released the first demo last spring.

What's your style of genre? We play Death/Doom, leaning a little heavier to the OSDM side of the spectrum.

What inspires you? Music, Weed, Books, Life.

Are you looking for a booking agency, and what are your thoughts around that? Not actively, we've been focusing on playing local shows and getting the album written.

Are you looking for a label, and what are your thoughts around that? We are actively searching for a new label to release the upcoming full length on.

What are your songs about? Our lyrics are centered around humanity's insignificant place in the universe, our failures as a species, and the bleak realites of existence.

Who does the composing and writes the lyrics? We all compose the parts for our particular instruments. The rest of the songwriting is a collaborative effort as far as ideas, songs structure, etc.

Do you compose in a certain enviroment? We all go off on our own to come up with ideas and improve on in-progress songs, come together over the weekend to share ideas and follow them as far as they go, then repeat the process.

Have you done any covers live? Not yet, but we've definitely got a few in mind if the situation presents itself.

What are the least and most people to attend one of your gigs? We've only played two shows as a band so far, one was definitely more attended than the other.

What ages are most of your concert attendants? Chicago has a great scene. Not just in numbers, but most metal shows here draw everybody from young kids to people who have been coming to gigs forever.

Do you always play the same songs live, or do you vary? We mix it up as much as we can being a newer band. We're definitely looking forward to mixing it up and playing the full length material live.

Do you have a regular place you play live often? Haven't been around long enough to be regulars anywhere besides our practice spot, but Livewire and Cobra Lounge in the city have a pretty consistent stream of locals and bigger acts coming through. Our first show was in the small room at Reggie's, and we'll be playing Reggie's again with Possessed and Pestilence in March. So far, that's our most frequented venue, which we're not complaining about.

What was your first gig like? Intense, and a lot of fun. It was really rewarding to finally get Voimaton to go live after the difficulty of getting this band started. We were lucky enough to share the stage with some cool bands in a great sounding room!

What was your latest gig? Last gig was a local showcase at Livewire, it was definitely fun to play there again since our other bands have been in that room so many times through the years.

Where have you played live this year? Just those two. We'll be announcing another show soon. Can't name the specifics yet, but it's a venue none of us have played before, and the lineup insane. We're all pretty stoked for it.

When did you start to sell merchandise, and what do you have for sale? We're looking to do shirts at some point, but we don't have any merch at the moment. We did have some physical cassettes of the aptly named Demo 2019, which are now sold out.

Where can people buy your merchandise? Copies of the cassette can be found through Blood Harvest records.

What do you think about people downloading music instead of buying records now a days? It's kind of a double edged sword. On one hand, the availability of music through streams and torrents allows music fans to find and digest a larger and more diverse array of music than ever before. However, it severely restricts record sales as a way to fund a band. Overall, it's great for music, not so much for musicians.

How do you think the music industry have changed because of this? I think it's decentralized the industry. Big labels and huge record sales aren't as important anymore, it seems. You have cassettes and wax for the diehard fans to pick up, other than that, a piece of recorded music doesn't have the same weight that it used to just on the volume and quality of music being released. It's put the emphasis on the live show, which is where this genre sounds best anyway.

What do you think of my work? Haven't personally had a chance to sit down and read it, but judging by the number of bands you've interviewed you're probably doing something right!

How do you think and know that this interview will help you in the music business? Getting a chance to ramble about your band can never hurt!

Do you have any role models or idols? Too many to name. There's so many ridiculous musicians both living and dead it's hard to narrow it down and not have this answer turn into a book. Grabber Hansen comes to mind, between his ability to drive a band forward and all the perfectly fitting fills he'd throw in.

Why do you think that they exist? For no reason in particular. But they do and that's really cool.

Is it easier to find inspiration from older bands, or bands that are more active today? We like to pull most of the direct inspiration for our music from a variety of mostly older music, from OSDM to rock, jazz, blues, soul, country, whatever catches our ears. Then we distort it into whatever nonsense we think will make some kind of sense. The bands that are active today inspire us with the quality of music they're putting out and the huge live sets they're putting on.

What have been your biggest obstacles? Definitely completing the lineup. We had a very difficult time finding a guitarist. It was a two year and one month search since the conception of the band before Henry filled the slot.

What advice would you give other bands or artists? We're not in a position to give anybody advice.

Do you have any new material? We just released a two song rehearsal demo with a couple of tracks off of the upcoming full length, which we expect to release some time in 2020.

What are your web sites?

Bandcamp https://voimatonddm.bandcamp.com/

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/voimatonDDM/

Do you have something to add? Thanks for your time!