Totenwald is Punk for a New Cold World
This interview from our archives is a great introduction to the dark punk band Totenwald, one of the artists we interviewed for our Spring 2020 Issue Emerging band lineup. For our Emerging feature, we checked in with a few bands we think have a unique voice in the musical landscape to inspire a new generation of concert-goers and record-buyers alike.
Photo by Victor Puigcerver
Forming in 2014, Berlin-based Totenwald play dark punk with a shot of saturated color and an onstage presence that harkens back to a different era of the underground scene. At the time of this interview, Totenwald released an EP Forward to the Past with four new tracks.
Roll Call
Trish: Lead Vocals
Ruby: Saxophone, Backing Vocals
Rob: Guitars
Sergej: Bass
Photo by Victor Puigcerver
An Introduction to Totenwald
A great introduction to Totenwald is their official video for "Shadows in Paradise" from Dirty Squats & Disco Lights which was directed by fellow Berliner musician/audiovisual artist Sally Dige Jorgensen in 2017.
Going back a bit further in their catalogue, the track "Sex Sells" from the 2016 EP Wrong Place Wrong Time is a great example of the band's approach to topics encompassing media, sex-positive ideology, and feminism.
Continuing from Rubella Ballet
It's easy to make visual connections between performers but they tend to be fraught with dissonance between how two performers look versus what they actually sound like. In one case, a fair comparison can be made between this band and Rubella Ballet for both being female-fronted and channeling upbeat, even joyful energy into their sound with peace punk at the heart of the anarchist punk genre they are understandably placed into. It's bands like Rubella Ballet and Crass among many others that helped break the barrier of women in punk having a voice and being respected as equally powerful to the male voices in the scene. For their part, vocalist Trish and saxophonist Ruby do a great job representing this energy today in Totenwald.
Trish of Totenwald, photo by Lindsay Arth
Ruby of Totenwald, photo by Lindsay Arth
Totenwald Live, Power and Energy Onstage
Lastly, it is important to check out live footage of Totenwald to see the power and energy they have onstage. This live video shows the band performing “Terror Age”. The song "Terror Age" contains lyrics that speak to our modern geopolitical conflicts and the impact that has for each of us individually. The lyrics parallel a different era and certainly point back to Berlin during the Cold War.
“It’s not as far away as it was before, You’re not safe here anymore, Jihad’s knocking on your door, In global world there’s global war
Ten minutes to midnight, another day passed, But the fuse is on fire and soon it will blow, There’s war in Syria, there’s war in Ukraine, Looks like the whole world is going insane!”
Our Interview with Totenwald
When did the band get started and what was the original intention of the band?
Totenwald: The band was founded in the beginning of 2014 by Sergej, Trish, and our former guitarist, so in the beginning it was just guitar, bass, and vocals. The intention was to play a mix between punk rock, post-punk, and goth, but to make it dancey and giving it the little extra, we decided to use a drum machine. In 2016, Ruby joined and added saxophone notes and backing vocals to the songs and in 2018 Robert became our new guitarist.
Tell us more about your name. How does it communicate the sound or vibe of the band?
T: “Totenwald” is German but it does not exist as a real word. It is a made-up word that means something between “dead forest” or “forest of the dead”. As it is really difficult to find a name in English which is not in use already we just translated two words from the chorus of a song in Russian language that Sergej had in mind into German and it sounded cool. Totenwald… we also thought it would fit to have “tot”, so “dead”, in the name because it’s dark. Another inspiration was that Sergej at that moment was interested in the Tunguska meteorite explosion in 1908 which left behind hundreds of kilometers of dead trees. As morbid and goth as it sounds, it does not really reflect the “vibe” of the band; we don’t play gothic rock nor death metal and our sound and aesthetics have something glamorous and sometimes even joyful, so the name doesn’t have to be taken too seriously.
How would you describe your music to someone who has not yet checked you out?
T: We all hang around the punk scene as well as in the gothic scene and our music is a mix between both, but in an unconventional way. We’re often told it’s difficult to put a label on it but here’s some examples of how other people were describing us: Joy Division on speed, children of Nina Hagen and Bérurier Noir or a mix between Neue Deutsche Welle, X-Ray Spex, and Crass. We describe our style as punk inspired by 80s new wave with drum machine and saxophone.
What inspires you to create this style of music?
T: Each member in the band likes something else but what we have in common is our love for 80s music, anarcho punk, goth, and new wave so we’re creating something out of those inspirations.
Photo by Victor Puigcerver
What influences in fashion, literature and culture impact your creativity?
Sergej: It can be anything from the news on TV to the boring ride on the train to work; everyday life basically with its ups and downs.
Rob: A lot of my creative and lyrical themes center around dystopian fiction and film.
What other bands are inspiring you right now?
Rob: Lately on the turntable: New Model Army, And Also the Trees, Kino, The Gun Club, Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, The Sound, Blitz. I’m also really into movie soundtracks, Hans Zimmer, Morricone, etc.
Ruby: Apart from goth and punk I also listen to and play a lot of other genres, from jazz or latin to classical music and choral, so for me for sure that has an impact as well.
Sergej: Not much from the modern bands because too often they all sound the same or they are trying to copy one particular band. We like to get inspired by many bands/styles and mix it all up to something “new”.
How would you describe the current alternative music scene where you live?
T: We all come from different countries, Italy, Lithuania, the USA, and Germany, but we all live in Berlin. Berlin has always had a great, diverse alternative scene since punk and goth was born and the scenes there are still big and vivid, from crust punk gigs at squats to 80s dance parties at the same squats… There are millions of bands and millions of parties 24/7, sometimes there are nights with 6 different punk shows and other good parties at the same night. Sadly, also in Berlin gentrification is a big topic and makes it more and more difficult for subcultures to keep their place in the city, but overall, we still can’t complain, I guess.
Totenwald in Los Angeles, 2019
Photo by Lindsay Arth
What are your favorite tour or stage stories? Share ‘em here.
T: When we once arrived at the venue we were supposed to play at and realized that we were one day too early… we had accidentally confirmed the show a day later which we could not play because it was a Sunday and we had to work on Monday. So we just hung out with the promoter, went to his place, drank some beers, and watched YouTube videos. Since that time we played there some other times and one of our next shows will be the birthday party of that same promoter.
Tell us about your release, Forward to the Past.
Rob: Forward to the Past is a four-song EP we recorded to help promote our recent US West Coast tour in September 2019, and was released as a limited cassette tape for the tour. It is now currently at the vinyl pressing plant, and will be released by us in conjunction with Plastic Bomb Records in Germany this coming April [2020]. It represents the first of the Totenwald songs recorded since I joined in 2018. The title of the EP is a sarcastic reference to the current 80s revival, which comes not only with fashion and music styles, but also with the return of Cold War-era politics. We’ve also recently recorded a live in-studio session for the Part Time Punks radio series on KXLU FM while we were in Los Angeles.
What’s next for your band?
T: That vinyl release, playing, playing, playing…
To find out more about Totenwald visit their website and Bandcamp and their social media, Facebook and Instagram.
by Liz Rhodes
Liz Rhodes is a long time contributor and force behind the magazine and a copywriter, music journalist, and makeup artist based in Los Angeles, California. Her work with clients ranges from commercial advertising to independent artists who are redefining the edges of what we consider subculture. FOLLOW
This article was originally published in the Spring 2020 Issue of Auxiliary Magazine
For further reading… get the latest issue of Auxiliary and read more of our online music articles.