”What is DAMPF?” you may ask. ”Who, and what, is behind these huge riffs, brutal metal and catchy choruses?” DAMPF is a supergroup of heavy metal royalties, leaded by almighty A-tron who you may know from his career as Martin ”E-Type” Erikson. Years ago Martin had an idea to combine power of dark metal and pop melodies, but it wasn’t until recently, when he was tasked by Eye to write songs for 3 albums in this spirit that he realised that the time for this dream has arrived. We talk to Martin to find out more on DAMPF and what the future holds for the band.
On starting Dampf and the intial concept behind it:
Martin: I’ve been longing to do this for such a long time and I tried to do it in different directions because I had this record in my brain and I couldn’t get it out and suddenly everything came together when I met my producer Jona and we started to talk and I sent some songs and he sent them back. He’s a great guitar player and I’m not, I know how I want it to sound but I’m not a guitar player, he is. So the dream came from just a dream to reality
On bridging the gap between his love of rock and metal and dance/electronic music:
Martin: I’ve been flirting with rock all my life. I’ve been touring for so many years and some of these tours I always have rock musicians on drums or I have Pontus Norgren from Hammerfall is there and he’s playing on the record, I’ve been touring with him for almost 15 years. We also made quite a big Nordic tour where I did all my E-Type songs in a metal way and that was more than 15 years ago and then we had Mikkey Dee who is now playing with Scorpions and he was on drums and we did two tours with him. I think the crown of it is when Lemmy of Motorhead asked me to do a duet with him years ago. So I’ve been there all the time but I never took the step to do the record all the way.
On adding a theatrical and visual side to the band:
Martin: I studied law in the beginning but that was so boring so I had to stop and then I started to study film and the dream is to make my own so now when I make electronic music the record company always put me in the hands of some director so he wrote the script and I just come in and do my part and they became worthless videos to be frank. But suddenly I now want to do everything here myself, I want to produce it and have all my weird ideas. Lets do them before someone starts to think of them.
Check out the full interview
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/U127XzCIcT0
Listen to Podcast version on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3KiSax1
Get The Arrival here: www.recordshopx.com
