I saw them once. Twice! Three times and liked them in the same way that I like strawberry milkshakes gently sculpted over my fat, beef layered body!! In November, Cold in Berlin released their début single -
- before playing one last show before Christmas and then... silence.
However, now the four-piece have returned from the cold (see what I did there? If this were Pun City, I'd be a fucking skyscraper) and are only too happy to this rambling chumbler about names, drummers, bassists, songs, the future and York.
First things first I suppose, how did you originally get, started way back when.
Adam: We met in York. We became friends and went to gigs and clubs together. Pigs in Leeds was a hot bed of creativity, the NME ran a few features on the scene and bands and coined I♥NY as in North Yorkshire. But after every fun night we had to return to sleepy old York where nothing was happening. So we started making music together and putting on our own club nights.
You are a female-fronted four-piece rock band based in East London - has that led to prior judgements from people about your musical stylings and what genre you may or may not represent or do you find audiences more open and receptive to what you have to offer?
Maya: Yeah, we tend to get pigeon holed before people have heard us or seen us live, but people always have expectations don’t they? I hope that live, we offer an experience that will alter any prejudices.
Adam: We give everything to our live shows and I think audiences can’t help but be receptive to the exhaustive effort we put into entertaining regardless of the sex of the performer.
Regarding both your music and lyrics, do you have a specific set of musical influences or are you driven by personal ideologies that form what is now your “style”? Could you describe your songwriting process and how it has evolved over time?
Adam: We always write together, when we started Maya and I were both inspired by the DIY lo-fi attitude of anti-folk. We had no full band and no where to record but at home.
Maya: Sometimes we have something in mind and sometimes things come more organically. Songs can evolve out of a beat, a guitar line or a set of vocals.
Adam: We pride ourselves on not sounding like our influences. Personally I spent 5 years learning how to play the guitar and the next 5 unlearning it. I wanted to find my own sound.
Maya: I am not sure we have a conscious style. We all have very different influences and actually, I think, we try to bring as few musical influences as possible into what I do in the band- we are trying for something that is our own really.
When Cold in Berlin started, what was it that connected you as a group and what is it that holds you together now?
Maya: That is a tricky question because when you start out you don’t really know where it might take you or who you will meet to help you make that final sound. Adam and I have always written songs together, ever since we became friends so noise definitely connects us and probably always will do.
Originally you were called Death Cigarettes, but changed to the current moniker last summer - what prompted the name change and why 'Cold in Berlin’?
Maya: We had been writing as Death Cigarettes for a while we needed a change, we were writing much more interesting, darker songs, we dropped the poppy keyboards and our live shows had evolved. It felt like a change was needed.
Adam: We spent a joyous but freezing October in Berlin.
Many artists have stated that changing their name can be just like starting a new band - did you come across this feeling when you became Cold in Berlin or was it simply a case of carrying on as you left off?
Adam: To revise history a bit here, our old rhythm section departing and the name change happened relatively close together. A name change seems totally appropriate now and it has been very liberating.
Maya: The change marks the birth of a mature perspective on ourselves and our place in the industry.
As just stated, another big alteration for the band has been the change in your rhythm section – how has that affected how you go about things in terms of songwriting? Has the renewed line-up altered the chemistry / dynamic of the band and if yes, how so?
Maya: Adam and I often brought the basis of the songs to rehearsals, so that chemistry remains. But I have always enjoyed an organic song writing process.
Adam: Our new rhythm section, Milts (drums), Bozley (bass), were writers in past projects and eager to create in Cold in Berlin. I cannot wait to début the new sound emerging from us, it’s darker, heavier… more assured.
Are the old songs still fresh and relevant to the band now or has even their sound and meaning been changed irrevocably?
Maya: Everything feels fresher actually, we had to work hard to find two people who were great musicians and also had a strong idea of what it is we wanted to record and continue to make. I feel very lucky to have found them.
Adam: The songs feel even more relevant thanks to the players bringing their own personality and ability to the parts. They have been given a new lease of life, I didn’t think it was possible but, it’s more fun to play most of them now, with a tight powerful rhythm section behind them. We couldn’t have recorded them all for our album in the space of a week if it weren’t for the talent of the new members.
Your 2009 EP, “Destruction / What Went Wrong?” was an excellent piece of work that garnered much praise. When your one your releases gathers good press, how do you follow that up?
Adam: An improvement… something that doesn’t sound the same.
Maya: Yeah, just keep our evolving our sound in the right direction.
Are there any more planned releases for Cold in Berlin and if so, when can we expect to hear/see them available?
Adam: Our next single ‘White Horse/Your Noise’ should be out around the end of May. It will be followed by the album Give Me Walls in July.
Your first show since just before Christmas is at the Macbeth in Hoxton Street on March 31st for an Adults Vs Club.The.Mammoth show - how are you approaching this show after a relatively long period of inactivity and do you have any other gigs lined up thereafter?
Maya: We recorded our album in February so it doesn’t feel like we were inactive. We were rebuilding and planning the year ahead with our label 2076records. There’ll be more shows announced very soon.
Adam: Having to wait for our first gig, both of the year and with the new rhythm section, has just made me more hungry for it . We are all really looking forward to headlining the massive rave in Peckham on 1st May London is Dead IV. It’s going to be well pagan!
Lastly, your thoughts on what Cold in Berlin mean to you now and where you wish to be in March 2011.
Adam: Cold in Berlin means the world to me because it is the creative expression of the friendship of my life.
Cold in Berlin will be headlining London is Dead 4 with Ultra Bohemian Death Cult on May 1st in Peckham. I was at LiD 3 and it was a fucking great - this should surely be the same.
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March 2010 will end in a rather suitably ferocious fashion tomorrow evening as clubs Adults go head-to-head with the kings of shellshock, Club.the.Mammoth.
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