What do you do when your band falls aside however you continue to need to make music collectively? For those who had been members of middling German alt-metallers Hyrax, you gown up as zombies and make energy steel. Clearly.
“It was at all times clear that once we did one thing new, we needed to do it collectively,” affirms frontman Felix Heldt, now fronting the lads’ bloody new undertaking Dominum below the alias of ‘Dr Useless’. “Dominum will get again to the core of what we actually are, and right here I’m once more with my mates!”
Fashioned in 2022 after Hyrax bit the mud, Dominum, accomplished by ex-Hyrax males Korbinian Benedict (AKA ‘Affected person Zero’, bass), and Jochen Windisch (AKA ‘Tommy Kemp’, guitar), plus drummer Marcos Feminella (‘Victor Hiltop’), have already contaminated massive swathes of Europe with their mash-up of Powerwolf-styled heavy steel histrionics and ugly, zombie fiction-inspired lyrics.
“Tommy and I mix effectively collectively,” explains Felix. “Musically, we communicate one language, so when he performs one thing on guitar he instantly will get me. Victor, we met alongside the highway; we requested him if he needed to put on a zombie masks and sweat onstage and he was like, ‘Certain, let’s do it!’”
For those who suppose the undead schtick simply got here from one of many band’s members watching a zombie movie or TV present then…welll…really, you would be be appropriate. That is precisely what occurred. Albeit through a barely roundabout method courtesy of Felix’s different job as a producer, engaged on an album by Austrian pirate metallers Visions Of Atlantis (sure, there’s pirate steel too. The place have you ever been?!)
“Day by day, I drove to the studio feeling like a pirate, and went dwelling with the mindset of a pirate!” Felix laughs. “Then I used to be watching The Strolling Useless and considering, ‘There are pirate bands and Viking bands, there’s a werewolf band… why is there no zombie band?!”
After all, technically there are already zombie bands (bear in mind Ship Extra Paramedics? And that dude actually known as Rob Zombie?), however that did not cease Felix and Tommy falling down a gory rabbit gap to start planning their new undertaking.
“We watched zombie films, day and night time…it was lots!” he laughs. Quickly, a extra crystallised (albeit much more ludicrous) thought shaped: they’d write songs “from the mindset of a mad scientist who desires to make the world a greater place along with his zombies.”
Thus, Dr Useless was born – and Felix all of the sudden discovered himself with a distinct form of problem to make his barmy protagonist click on.
“It was troublesome to actually get into the function as a result of I’m not an actor, so it took fairly a bit to develop,” he admits. “Once I was attempting to behave an excessive amount of, individuals would take a look at me like, ‘What the fuck is that this, kindergarten?’ However once you stability the fader again on the pure aspect, individuals had been like, ‘Yeah that is fucking nice!’ You need to follow your individual factor, belief your intestine and be genuine.”
Being genuine whereas wearing Halloween costumes singing bangers about zombies is a hell of a mission assertion, however steel has wealthy historical past for this type of factor. From Gwar to Lordi, Powerwolf to Evil Scarecrow, many a band has made its identify from embracing the ridiculous and operating with it, creating riotously entertaining music alongside the way in which.
Sadly, that did not cease Dominum from freewheeling into an existential disaster nearly instantly.
”On the primary document [2023’s Hey Living People] we didn’t know who we had been, really,” Felix says. “We had an thought: ‘OK, we’re gonna be a zombie band’. However what even is a zombie band? What can we do? What number of music will individuals settle for, how broad can we be?”
Felix needn’t have panicked: by the point 2024 follow-up The Useless Do not Die landed, Dominum had nurtured their sound past the trimmings of enjoyable however flimsy comedy steel and into one thing far more bombastic. It is peak Euro-metal with lashings of gore. And most significantly, the songs are good. What’s to not love?
“My career is melodies,” Felix says. “That’s what retains me awake at night time, considering, ‘Is that this the very best I can do?’ This has been my entire profession, actually: ‘Can this be higher? Does it actually contact me?’”
Dominum’s peeling, blood-splattered anthems are actually touching metalheads. As their plague continues to brush throughout Europe, the one query left is whether or not you are gonna dash in the wrong way like Robert Carlisle in 28 Weeks Later or simply let the an infection take you.
The Useless Don’t Die is out now through Napalm. Dominum’s UK tour begins in Birmingham on October 21
