Depression doesn't know the meaning of short

The band was started back in 1989. Kai wrote a couple of songs on his own and DEPRESSION was born as a one-man-”band”. He released these songs on the first demo ”Tal der Tränen ” (1990). This was more Noisecore than Grind, but he was on the right path.

In the year of 1992 it was time for the second demo ”Vergessene Welten”. It was a lot better than ”Tal der Tränen”, specially the sound and the layout. The music-style shifted more to Grindcore with some Death Metal influences. In 1993 the perfect shouter in Marc Miekeley joined Kai. They released a lot of demos, 7’ on color vinyl, LP and CD. In 2001 Ron Sanders joins on guturral grunts on the latest CD, the split with Haemorrage!! His vocal-style fits perfectly to Marc’s erruptions!

As long as the flame of the underground-spirit and the life-philosophy of true metal-music burns in my heart and soul we will always carry on like this!

DEPRESSION are dedicated to the world-wide metal underground. Keep the spirit alive, and the underground will never die!!

interview with Kai on 10-4-2002

Please give us a short introduction of yourself?
Hello, I'm Kai from the German old-school groovy Death Grind Band DEPRESSION! I'm 28 years old and I play drums, guitars and bass for DEPRESSION and I also do the high screams. I've dedicated my life to extreme underground metal music since 1988.

Why did you wanted to play music in 1989?
I wanted to play music in 1989 because I played music in 1988 and wanna continuing playing music, haha! Well, music is and was the main part of my life, and so it was a normal solution to play instruments by myself. I started at the age of four with flute and with seven years I've learned piano. As I started listening to Death Metal and Grindcore I wanted to play instruments that are useful for this kind of music. With flute and piano I only can perform intros and stuff like that, ha! So I've learned drums and a bit guitar and bass and started DEPRESSION.

Which band did influenced you to start listening metal?
The very first band I listened to in that direction was AC/DC. ’Back in Black’ is until today one of my favorite music albums. Motörhead's ’Ironfist’ and W.A.S.P.’s debut, as well as Judas Priest ’live’ was the basic of my Metal-life. Very fast it changes to Sodom, Kreator and Sepultura. Then to Death, Master, Impaled Nazarene, Bathory, Possessed and so on and so on...

Why did you choose the name Depression?
I want a band name that is only one single but strong and meanfull word. And it should be timeless, so that I am not limited to Grindcore and that I don't like the name anymore in ten years more, you know?! So I suppose DEPRESSION is a very nice choice! A lot people say that it fits more to a Doom or Gothic band than to a Death/Grind band. But hey, who cares?! I am very satisfied with the name Depression! Of course I am not depressive in any way, but when I chose this band name back ten years ago, I was a bit. Everything around me I didn't like and I had a lot of problems with my parents, in school and with the society. So I forced my anger and hate in DEPRESSION. But the main reason why I choose this name was because I really like it and I always loved these single words with a strong meaning. Names as Blood, Grave, Death, and Autopsy are nice. I want to have such a name for my band, too but it should not sound that gory. It should be more open-minded, so that I could use it as long as I am active with the band, if you know what I mean?! I suppose if I call my band Decomposed Vulgar Puss OF Infected Gore Rotted Blood Cadaver or something like that I won't be satisfied with this name in twenty years or so. But DEPRESSION is timeless, so it is perfect. In the beginning, my lyrics are depressive, too, so it wasn't a big deal to choose this name.

Why will Depression always stay a two piece band?
Well, actually DEPRESSION is a three-piece-band since Ron joined on guttural grunts, haha! But that is no different situation, so I can tell you what I wanted to explain with this sentence. DEPRESSION plays extreme music, and I did not want to have any compromises in my music and in the whole aim and attitude. If you have a complete band, you have different opinions and you have to compromise some things to have everybody satisfied. But so you cannot reach the edge, the extreme. And I want to have DEPRESSION 100% the way I have it in mind. It sounds a lot egoistic, I know, but that is the way Depression will carry on. Marc is absolutely in my direction, we are like brothers in music. And with Ron it is the same, we know him for a long time now, and we played with him in our old Death Metal band Dismal, so we know that he fits to Depression and that his voice will only make us stronger!

Never want to have a real band and jump on stage?
Well, we don't play concerts, because we are only two persons and I can't play all instruments at the same time. Of course we've tried to find session musicians, but we give up after a long and difficult search. In the beginning of DEPRESSION I tried to find session musicians for live-gigs, but in my area, there are no people who wanna play such brutal music! All skilled musicians wanna play technical stuff, and all freaks who wanna join Depression aren't able to play the stuff, haha. So it was hard, and as I moved an a town an hour away from Marc, it was even more difficult to rehearse and we both haven't the time for it, so a couple of years ago we decided to stop searching .But I would call DEPRESSION definitely a band and no project! Because I give my heart and soul and all my time for it and it is an important part of my life. To me a project sounds less important and only for fun because you have nothing else to do. But that isn't correct for DEPRESSION, you know!?

Give a short description of the music evolution in the 12 years?
Oh well, the ancient times... I got a bit melancholic when I am thinking of them! I was 14 years old when I started with DEPRESSION. All my time and enthusiasm I spent with Death Metal and the underground scene. I was really a freak!! At this time I was active with Gods of Grind. Well, a friend of mine destroyed his bass when he was drunk. He bought a new one and I asked if it would be possible to get the old one. Nearly the whole corpus was splattered and you only could use the deep E-string! All other functions were damaged. So I began to jam around on this single string through my gettoblaster, because I didn't have an amplifier!! I had a few ideas and started to create some songs, so I traded a guitar (a red Washburn-guitar, I still use it today!!) against a six-pack of beer! Of course I wanted to use these songs, but it was different stuff than the music for Gods of Grind, so I started with my own project DEPRESSION. The first two demos I recorded with my Gettoblaster! I played the drums without anything else, just with the song-structure in my imagination. Then I played the bass through the drums and then the guitar through drums and bass and also with the vocals. Well, I just record all DEPRESSION until nowadays this way. The only difference is that I didn't use my Gettoblaster (it was destroyed after the second demo! The loudspeaker was killed...) but a professional studio. After the second demo I was searching for a vocalist for DEPRESSION, because I didn't like my growling. Since the third demo ’...in Verzweiflung.’ Marc is the second member of DEPRESSION. The music in the beginning was Noisecore. But it developed more and more into Grindcore and of course with more and more Death Metal influences. In my view our style did not change since our debut-EP ’Ein Hauch von Moder’. That is the music we wanna play. Groovy, old-school Death/Grind, with Crust and Punk influences. Of course there are minor differences from release to release. The one is more grinding, the next is very heavy, our latest output is the grooviest one, you know?! But it is all DEPRESSION and the fans know what the get if they buy a record from us. It is no stagnation!! (is this short Kai? Twan)

Think you play some different styles in the future? Trying to mix other styles in the songs?
DEPRESSION will never change their music-style! DEPRESSION stands for old-school groovy Death/Grind, and that will be for ever. People should know what the will get when they will buy an album from us. When we change our music, we will change the band name. There are a lot of bands that change their style from album to album, that is ok, but it is nothing for DEPRESSION. To me our mixture is perfect: The speed and song-structure from Grindcore and the heaviness and brutality from Death Metal. In some songs there is Crust or even Punk/HC influences. That's it.

Do you have to drink beer to make you happy? Your fav beer?
No, I don't have to drink beer to make me happy. Well, I don't drink at all. I stopped it years ago because of several reasons. I prefer to smoke some weed...

Why is Dutch beer better than yours?
Because you brew it with piss? :-)

What are your fav bands? Other music styles you like?
My all-time favorite band is Bathory! The fuckin’ RULE!!!!! In the Death/grind genre I love Impetigo, Mortician, Impaled Nazarene, Disrupt, Necrony and all the other cool and true underground bands. Beside Metal I listen to Punkrock and Stonerrock music like Gluecifer, Aerobitch, Loudpipes, Zeke, 7Zuma7, Solace and stuff like that. I try to be tolerant for other music styles, but it seems that I mostly like it fast, simple, straight and brutal, haha!!

Why do you have to put cover versions on your releases?
We do this to pay tribute to these bands! The bands that we cover with DEPRESSION are the most influential bands for DEPRESSION and we wanna show the people out there that there would be no DEPRESSION without these bands. The other reason is that I like to play these songs and I wanted to hear how they sound in the typical DEPRESSION-way.

Do you pay royalties to these bands?
Not really. Of course I always ask the bands and labels if it is ok that we cover the song. And only if they agree, we do the coversong. The band gets a couple of copies from our release for their own. You know, we do not earn any money with our recordings, so we are not able to pay money to other bands and labels.

Ever thought about covering non metal songs? Maybe when you rehearse?
No, not really. Of course there are a few songs that would be funny to cover as Grindcore band, but we never had serious thoughts about that. Never say never, but I suppose that is nothing that DEPRESSION should do, haha. Maybe...

Still loved by your family now you're in this metal scene?
Haha, yes, I hope so! To be honest, when I've started listen to Metal as a teenager my parents were shocked. A million discussions and fights later they accepted my decision and today they know that it is my way of life and that it makes me happy. So at the end they want my best, and if it is a Heavy Metal dominated life, so should it be, yeah!!

Why are the album titles in German and the song titles in English?
Well, back in 1989 I thought this is a bit original and more rememberable, because everybody uses English titles, so it was different. A second reason was that I like the sounding of our German titles more than the English translation. Today a lot of bands (mostly Black Metal) use German titles and it isn't original anymore, but DEPRESSION will always use it in the future because it is tradition for us. I suppose it is catchier and easier to remember such a title, and I like a lot the sound of these titles. To me ’Ein Hauch von Moder’ sounds greater than ’A breath of mould’.

What is your definition of the underground feeling? Why is it important?
The underground-feeling for me is, when you listen to the music because your heart and soul is devoted to it!! It is love from the bottom of your soul. You like Metal music, because it gives you something special, because you feel the power of the music, and it helps you in your normal life to force all the bullshit. You don't give a fuck about trends or what most of the people say. You listen to that kind of music that is kinda live-philosophy for you. If you are a musician you play the music because you have to. It makes you happy and lucky and satisfied. Not because you wanna become famous and rich, you just wanna do it because the feeling is like an orgasm. Underground to me means idealism to the bone. You can't live without it. And it is so important to keep this feeling alive, because if not, the whole scene won't be ’in-depth’ anymore and then Metal music is like all other music-styles. Nothing special anymore. The Heavy Metal-Fans are something different from other fans, it is more a family. And the roots are strong in the underground.

Can you stay true when a big record label like Sony or EMI signs you up?
Hey, we both know that this will NEVER happen, right?! Why should a big major label sign an unpromising underground band like DEPRESSION? We do not play live; we do not change our musical style in a commercial direction, so we will not sell more from a new release. We have our fans since years, and we will not get bigger and bigger, because our music stays extreme and we will not reach a bigger audience. It would make no scene for a Major label to sign us. BUT, if this really would happened, I would do it as long as I have 100% control about music, sound, artwork and packaging!! I wanna do exactly want is in my mind, without any compromises from a marketing department or whatever.

Where do you spit on and with what?
I spit with everything possible on Nazi scum and rip-off-assholes!!!!!!! Nothing more to say...

Last rites?
Thanks so much for your support with this interview! Good luck to your future and greetings to every freak out there who loves extreme Metal music. Check out DEPRESSION if you like it old-school. Keep the underground spirit alive and stay fast, heavy and brutal!!!!!!!!!

Stay fast, heavy and brutal and keep the underground spirit alive!!!