Photo: UNDERDOSE
We caught up with the brilliant band UNDERDOSE following the stunning release, ‘TILT’. Read the full interview below!
Hi UNDERDOSE, tell us about yourselves.
Hey there, FVMusicBlog. We’re UNDERDOSE, an underground band hailing from Slovakia, (unfortunately) Eastern Europe, and we’re really just a bunch of fleshy viruses who work day jobs. Some of us secretly worship Satan, some ride motorbikes, but all 5 of us like to get together and play music, which, from a genre personalization perspective, would be an old-school stoner dude wandering aimlessly at the crossroads between grunge, sludge, groove and nu-metal. We released our latest album, TILT, on Dec 26, 2024, and currently, we’re doing our best to promote the hell out of it and play live as much as our mortal coils allow us to.
Who influenced your stunning latest album, ‘TILT’?
Our everyday lives and the stuff we go through, together with the people that we hold dear. As I said earlier, our music is a bit eclectic, and actually, to a point, we have given up on trying to find a proper genre label. Of course, on ‘TILT’, you can hear many influences from different genres of heavy music, from grungy riffs and sludgy rhythms to harmonic and disharmonic melodic approaches, and it surely reflects the many bands we listen to, but we don’t let that overshadow who we really are. I always ask other people to tell me what they think our “genre” is. And they never say the same thing. Which is cool.
‘TILT’ is a magnetic metal release; what made you decide to release an album over singles?
A magnetic metal release? Thanks, man, we appreciate that. We are old school, borderline Gen X guys who are still sometimes stuck in the old-fashioned ways, like when it comes to the method of releasing music. When a band puts out an album, and you pop it on and start listening, it leaves you longing for more with every single song. It’s an exciting feeling that makes you pay much more attention to the music afterwards because you want to find out what’s coming next. At least we feel that way, and we feel this is the right way for ‘TILT’.
Synths and electronic elements can be found in ‘TILT’, which is an addition to your previous releases, how did the changes come about?
In 2023, we started jamming with this Italian guy Marco, who used to play the guitar in an old-school stoner rock band and just happened to have a synth / 80’s retro / vaporwave alter ego (AKA Phozon, check him out). We were just messing around, but we immediately felt we clicked. It added a brand new layer to our music, and we were suddenly able to realize our ideas and musically express ourselves in ways that were not possible before. It was a no-brainer that this new dimension was here to stay, and we have just gone with the flow since then.
What message lies at the heart of ‘TILT’?
TILT is not a concept album, and there was no real governing thought chosen in advance, but I guess that if life gives us different challenges and we feel like dark times will never end, there is always some kind of a guiding light leading you through the void. The darkness and the negative things should be embraced and accepted into our lives, blending together with all the good stuff about it. Surrendering to this truth and reconciliation with it can be bliss. But at the end of the day, the listener can – and most likely will – always find their own takeaway message in ‘TILT’. You can lean towards the darkness or bask in the brightness. Or just hang around in the limbo.
You are based in Bratislava; what’s the live music scene like there?
You can find big venues, small underground gigs, and everything in between. One of the places worth highlighting from the local underground scene is ‘Garáže ‘(“Garages”), which is exactly that – a garage under a bridge that has, over the years, attained something of a local DIY cult status and where you can see bands literally from all over the world. The atmosphere there is pretty unique and super precious in this time and age we are living in. It all goes back to the roots, when you would go to your favourite local band’s practice room because you went to the same high school with half of them, brought your own beer and enjoyed the show. But in this case, you also have the added privilege of the Sun setting behind your back.
As a band, how long have you been in the industry, and what changes have you seen during that time?
Can you define “being in the industry”? Honestly, we’re just a bunch of more or less regular guys with more or less regular lives who love playing music and would like to do that as much and as professionally as possible. And we’ve been doing that for a little over 10 years in a stable line-up (besides the addition of synths). Our super-beginnings would probably date back somewhere as far as 2006, but that has nothing to do with who we are now (and thankfully so). All this time, we’ve been a DIY band. That’s why we see the rise of A.I. as a little scary from the perspective of music-making. It is most likely going to have major implications in the upcoming decades for how we create and perceive music. Will musicians like us become obsolete and irrelevant? Hopefully not, but there will be a lot of effort needed from artists to establish proper treatment and the right setup of legislation in this matter.
What’s your dream venue to play?
I never thought about it. I guess I don’t have one. I always enjoy playing at venues where you can feel the energy and enjoyment of people who came just to lose themselves in the music and forget about the world outside. It’s always better and downright more enjoyable to play at a sweaty, packed, shitty little pub brimming and buzzing with energy than at a cold, half-empty large hall. And it, down the line, makes even more sense.
What changes would you like to see in the music business?
A step back from what you just called it by its true name – the business – and focus more on the art and the artist, their appreciation. Bands have become faceless entrepreneurs, judged by coldly logical algorithms based on the number of clicks in virtual spaces. It’s sad, really. And I’m not hating the players; I’m hating the game.
What would it be if you could choose one thing for fans to take away from your music?
The courage to reflect honestly on what might have been silently killing them and the energy to start anew afterwards. Hope that doesn’t count as two things.
Have you started working on your next release?
Not really. Don’t get me wrong; we do have new material and a substantial backlog of countless hours of recorded jam sessions, which we revisit every now and then. We’re also playing a new live song at our shows to support ‘TILT’, but that’s it for now. Our focus now is to promote this release and let’s see what the near future will bring, whether we concentrate more on playing live or fleshing out some ideas for our next record. But releasing another EP / LP is definitely on our roadmap; we’ll just wait for the right moment to come.
https://www.facebook.com/UnderdoseSK
https://underdosesk.bandcamp.com/album/tilt
https://www.instagram.com/underdosesk/
FVMusicBlog February 2025
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