Hailing from Copenhagen, Denmark Before Fire have just released their debut EP, which comes after a bunch of impressive singles. In my opinion it is the start of big things for ‘Before Fire’ as they move to London to further pursue their dreams, and based on what I hear here in these five songs the band has every chance of breaking through. We caught up with the band that very probably have released the best Hard Rock EP of the year.
Mark: Hi guys how’s London treating you?
Before Fire: Pretty good, its super rainy but other than that great.
Mark: I guess that’s something you’ll get used to now you’ve moved!
Before Fire: The first few weeks we were here it was sunny and maybe twenty degrees but the last few weeks have just been pouring down with rain.
Mark: I remember! One of the things we love most at The Rockpit is discovering new bands that we want to tell the whole world about and one of those new bands is you – Before Fire, we loved the EP but for those readers who don’t know anything about Before Fire before we start can you give us a quick history about the band?
Before Fire: Three of us have been friends for a decade and we’ve all played music for a long time but a couple of years ago we decided we wanted to play music together and we decided to forma rock band and just bang it out. We started out with a friend we had and we had another singer and when that didn’t work out or feel quite right we split with him and we got in contact with Mathias.
Mathias: The way I came into the picture was I saw a Facebook ad from these guys just playing a small tune and saying “We need a new singer is that you” and the place I was in in my life I’d played a lot of music before but wasn’t doing anything at the moment and I thought “Heck yeah, I want to be the lead singer of a rock band” because I’d always played drums but I loved to sing and at the time I was studying acting. So I auditioned and it felt good for both sides. And pretty soon after that we recorded ‘There She Goes’ our first single, and then we were a band.
Mark: So how long was it before you recorded the EP?
Before Fire: Pretty quickly, we recorded the EP over the course of a couple of months and we released it as you may know as singles. I think we recorded the first one in January or February and ‘There She Goes’ was out in October so three months after we started to record the EP. The band in this form has been together for about a year now.
Mark: It’s a wonderful EP I think I said at the end of the review ‘It’s the best EP you’ll hear all year’ and as its October now I think I’ll stand by that.
Before Fire: Thank you.
Mark: There’s a great resurgence especially in Europe in Classic Rock and Bluesy 70’s style bands but you guys just have something different here, it’s not thoroughly modern but you manage to sound like you’ve been together for years and had all of those influences seeping in then decided to play the your way. How do the songs come together?
Before Fire: I think the key is that we all listen to very, very, very, very different kinds of music but all have quite a solid rock background. And I think that is what makes our music 5% more unique than a lot of other rock bands coming out at the moment. It’s that common passion for rock and roll. It’s a very collective way of writing and I know that Mathias is a very detail loving guy and that is something that became more of a thing for us (laughs).
Mathias: I just wanted a bit more time finishing the songs off before we went into the studio and I think because of that our cooperation in the studio became a lot better because we’d done it before. When we recorded the EP we had recorded stuff together and so we were more prepared.
Mark: I think there’s a lot to be said for preparation, a lot of demos you ear of classic albums, they almost completely have the sound down. The thing I loved about you is that as well as having sounds of Zeppelin, and more recent bands like Greta Van Fleet and Rival Sons you don’t necessarily sound just like them, and some of my favourite tracks are the ones where you sound quite sparse sonically and I think ’Dead Eyes’ is a really great example of that where you have this fantastic riff and then that great voice in there. How did that song come about?
Konrad: That was one of the songs where the riff for once came from Mathias, not from me, and I think he had quite a strong foundation before we wrote together. He came in with a more vocal focused structure, so we made room for the vocal in a different way that I as a guitar player would normally do, as I want to hear myself (laughs).
Tobias: And I think we had this song quite a while before we went into the studio so we had time to play it a few times and change things up and so we had plenty of time to figure out every little detail and we ended up with a day in the studio to record each instrument.
Mark: The EP also showcases all sides of the band and the other lighter moment is ‘Who’s to Blame’ It’s not often I talk to rock bands and pick out their lighter numbers but I think that in part shows the versatility of the band,
Before Fire: That’s quite a different thing we wanted to write a lighter, ballad almost, but try to stay away from the more obvious approach that most people have where it’s very fluid, it’s more rhythmic in a way the way the structure repeats. That’s also a song that’s been with us for three years. We actually wrote it with our old singer and the song was like 6 minutes long when we first went into the studio so there were a lot of changes made to it. We had a very good producer who really took the reins and said you have to make it a bit more accessible. The song originally came about as I’d just been recently listening to Tom Waits ‘Rain Dogs’ and I was channelling that vibe in some sort of way. Now that’s sort of a long jammy album in many ways and so it maybe became a bit too jammy and our producer helped us rein it in.
Mark: The heavier moments of course are great as well, I love ‘Risk It’ that opens the EP it sounded to me like a new band remembering Zeppelin after a couple of decades had passed, and letting those years seep in?
Before Fire: I think I like the way you sum it up! As Tobias said, we’re all very much into rock and roll and rock and roll history, but I think our advantage and the way we can do it differently is, let’s say all the greatest rock was made between ’65 and ’75 and then we have 40 years of other great, different rock music, a whole lot of movements that also influenced us and it’s those extra years of music history that let us mix it up.
Mark: That’s a great way of describing it, and sort of the way I view the EP, I also firmly agree with your statement about when all the best music was made and technology aside you could argue that everything since has been a variation on a theme really, but I guess even older school rockers would argue that you can go even further back to The Blues. For me it’s all about young guys like you adding their take to the mix. You talked a little bit before about the varied influences you have if you could throw one band into the mix, one influence that you bring to the band what would it be for you each individually?
Mathias: Talking of ‘Who’s to Blame’ and my influence for that, before I entered the band Before Fire I actually wrote a lot of Folk Music. So for me I think it would be something like that actually because I didn’t write rock songs when I drummed before Before Fire, I listened to bands like Simon and Garfunkel and wrote acoustic songs. So what I think I do is think about melody lines and words differently maybe to the way a Rock musician would. So for me it’s kind of the Folky vibes.
Mark: So what else shall we throw into the mix?
Tobias: I really listen to two kinds of music, I listen to rock music and I listen to hip hop, that’s what I bring. I think there’s an energy and a mood to rap and that’s something that means a lot to me in music, the way it makes you feel and the energy you want to give to people. When you write a song I have to feel it – if you’re writing a happy song I have to feel it, and if you’re writing a feel song you have to feel it, and that’s something I think both rock music and rap music do really, really well. It give me a different perspective but I think there are more similarities than most people see. A lot of the new Rap stars are acting like the Rock stars of the ‘60’s and ‘70’s too.
Mark: Josh Todd from Buckcherry always tells me that too, he loves his Hip Hop, he’s yet to convince me, but now there’s two of you on the case.
Tobias: Rap has had a lot of time now to evolve and I think today there’s so much talent going into Rap music these days, but like every genre there’s a lot of artists that don’t have too much talent too, but Rap now has had a huge influence on the world we live in and the music is just beautiful at times, I do spend quite a lot of time listening and exploring it.
Mark: So we have Rap and we have Folk, what else have we got?
Konrad: mmm… Just Rock! (laughs) I actually sold this band idea to Tobias by saying “Listen to the Rival Sons, they’re a band right now who are doing great stuff, so it can be done.” But I listen to a lot of the original Punk Rock and Garage Rock, I’m a huge Stooges and Iggy Pop fan.
Before Fire: And it’s the way it all comes together that makes it work. It’s all about the energy.
Mark: So what’s the fourth part then of the musical equation?
Before Fire: The fourth part I think is all three together. We all really believe in this band and we decided to move to London, and that’s kind of a big deal even though it’s only an hour and a half from Denmark by plane. So we parted ways with our old bassist as he wasn’t ready for that, it was a bit too big of a step for him, but he’d been with us since day one and he was a huge influence on the first two and a half years.
Mark: It is hard to make a move like that and I know it’s kind of forced on a number of musicians if they want to get more opportunities, bands I guess have to decide wat’s right for them and plenty make the move from Australia to Europe. It’s a huge commitment.
Before Fire: It is.
Mark: We’ve just got a few final questions for you now, and you can all give different answers if you like. If you could have been a ‘fly on the wall’ for the creation of any great album just to see how the magic happened in the studio, what album would you choose?
Konrad: For me any part of The Stooges ‘Raw Power’ I think that would have been a fun one. I’d take that over anything else.
Mark: You’re getting cooler and cooler by the minute.
Tobias: I really only have some super clichéd one off the top of my head.
Mathias: Me too, but I guess to have been in the studio with the Beatles at some point I couldn’t imagine anything cooler.
Mark: And while most chose Sergeant Pepper I think you’re right, I would take any especially of the later albums.
Tobias: For me if I was to choose a Rock album and I know it’s super-clichéd, it would have had to have been Nirvana’s ‘Nevermind.’ Just seeing them making what became such a legendary album, working with great people like Butch Vig that must have been crazy.
Mark: And the final album is?
Before Fire: Let’s take only three! (laughs)
Mark: The last question is, and you can get into a group huddle on this one as it’s the last question we ask absolutely everybody is ‘what is the meaning of life?’
Before Fire: Wow, we don’t agree on that I can tell you!
Mathias: Love and having a good time.
Before Fire: And wine as well!
Konrad: Love and harmony and having meaningful relationships with those you love. It doesn’t really matter where I am as long as I am doing what I love. That’s the most important thing for me.
Tobias: I think I would say “Give yourself to the world in the way you best can, through whatever you have to contribute.” I think that’s a fine way to live.
Mark: All great answers, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to The Rockpit today and thank you for what I still think is going to be my EP of the year.
Before Fire: Thank you.