Currently superstars of the underground metal scene, doom quartet Undersmile have been wowing crowds for the last few years with their hypnotic brand of slow down tuned tunes. Having reached a major peak in their success and with the band’s alter ego, Coma Wall, getting some much deserved lime light, Ghost Cult caught up with the four piece to talk about their journey so far.
The popularity of Undersmile has sky rocketed in what seems like a very short space of time. Do you feel this is true, or has it been a long hard slog?
We’ve been working pretty solidly at the band since we formed in 2009, having put out four releases and played a steady stream of gigs in that time. It’s difficult to look at it from an outsider’s point of view, because for us we’ve always had a new project on the horizon, so we haven’t had time to reflect on what we’ve achieved in such a short amount of time. Having said that, if we ever did stop and look back, we’d crumble into dust.
Are Hel & Taz the driving force of the band? They both seem to get a lot more attention than their male counterparts…
Heavy music still has an unfortunate tendency towards the misogynistic, so some people seem to regard Taz and Hel as ‘puppets’, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. They write the overwhelming majority of the songs and we all work on the music together. On the Wood & Wire release and our upcoming split with Bismuth, we’ve worked more collaboratively, all contributing parts and songs. Undersmile is most definitely a four-piece.
You guys have really pushed the envelope in terms of sound. What next? More of the same or do you plan to dash everyone’s expectations?
We’ve never had a fixed idea of what we should sound like, nor any formula to follow, so each release sounds different to its predecessor. None of us would want to churn out a generic ‘Undersmile’ song, but nor would we want to be contrary for the sake of it. For example, the song we’re contributing for the Bismuth split is one long track and we’ve all written sections of it, so the result will hopefully be varied.
Coma Wall is the acoustic half of Undersmile. Tell us a little bit about that – the what, the when, the where and the why, if you will!
In various incarnations, Coma Wall actually predates Undersmile. Hel and Taz had been writing and singing together for around three years before Undersmile really started to take shape, so we all felt that recording something acoustic was a long time coming. Although thematically the Coma Wall material has a similar feel to Undersmile, the instrumentation and vocals were different enough to warrant a separate outlet. Also, we liked the idea of two individual bands featuring the same members.
How has the band’s general attitude changed compared to when you first started out? Any divas in the band?
Tom and Olly have uncontrollable egos, and insist on picking Taz and Hel‘s costumes before each and every gig. Besides that, our attitude hasn’t changed much since starting the band. We’re still delighted when people say nice things about us, share our news and videos or buy merch and we hope that will never change. The main difference is that we have to be more discerning about what gigs we do because we’re quite busy with the band and our personal lives.
What do you think has been Undersmile’s career defining moment so far?
One of the major turning points for us was filling-in for Jucifer at the Seven Churches all-dayer in Kingston in 2010. It was the first time we’d played to a group of London people who understood where we were coming from and we made a lot of good friends that day, including promoters, writers, fans and of course the bands we played with. We’ve played a lot of great gigs since then, including a mini tour with Conan, Serpent Venom and Grimpen Mire, gigs with Weedeater, Zoroaster and Dylan Carlson, but we imagine that was the gig that helped put us on people’s radars. Releasing our album Narwhal was also a pretty good feeling – it was a long time in the making and we’re proud of it.
Any major low points?
In early 2010 we played a gig in Picadilly Circus with a death metal band to an audience of about 4 people. The promoter had left before the gig was over as had most of the dwindling crowd. Due to some road works we’d had to lug all of our equipment through the centre of London which was a major chore. Everyone has those kinds of experiences before they find their audience and peers. We were stopped playing, mid-set at a local Gay Pride event which we helped organise about three years ago, we were informed ‘You’re making everyone leave, you need to stop.’ This was also a highlight as we look back on this occasion with amusement.
You’ve supported a lot of non-British acts – any plans to cross the water yourselves?
We have supported a couple of touring bands from Europe and the US but not that many really. Our doomfolk band Coma Wall has supported Dylan Carlson of Earth on his solo tour in London last year which was a highlight. We’d love to go to the US to tour but the cost is a prohibitive factor for us at the moment. Mainland Europe looks like more of a possibility for us – when we played with Monarch we discussed going to the South of France for a few gigs with those guys so that would be very cool, plus we have friends in Holland (Ortega, Cultura Tres) who we’d love to play with.
Angela Davey