TRANSCENDECADENCE
TRANSCENDECADENCE dives into Berlin’s nightlife, post-punk energy, and artistic evolution. In this interview, the band discusses “Tiny Stupid Song,” creative freedom, musical influences, and their ambitious upcoming album.
1. “Tiny Stupid Song” captures the emotional chaos of Berlin nightlife and midlife uncertainty so vividly. What personal experiences or observations inspired the story behind the song?
When I first moved to Berlin, I forgot why I came here. Berlin is that kind of place that blows your mind out. With its extremely potent cultural scene, jam sessions and concerts every night of the week and overwhelmingly huge clubbing scene, the nights literally never need to end. But it comes with a price. Berlin can really chew you up with its night life. Before you realize, a couple years have passed, you forgot your life goals and you are not sure who you were before you came here.
Some of us, we eventually grow up and figure out, there is more to life than wasting your nights in bars on a line of whatever and a cheap beer.
But not everyone.
I’ve witnessed a friend of mine having the same regrets over and over for years, and yet never changing the habits. Always saying: “I fucked up”. And I could very much relate to that: the feeling of being lost, the regrets of time wasted partying and distracting yourself from your problems, because it’s easier than to face your fear of potentially failing, the feeling of being fed up with the city, the people, the pretentious fashion, exhaustion of drugs and alcohol infused nights. Seeing it on repeat. Living it over and over. And wanting to escape, to move on, but not knowing how nor having the strength to do it.
That’s how the song came to me, when my partner told me to write a tiny song, that isn’t necessarily just about me.
It’s like a hymn, acknowledging all we went through and knowing, sometimes in that mess we are living in, all we need to do is just to sit down in silence and “shush our souls”.
I dedicate it to my dear friend “Neven from Heaven”.
2. The track balances raw post-punk energy with a dark, almost psychedelic atmosphere. How did you approach blending those different musical influences into TRANSCENDECADENCE’s sound?
To be honest, I never think about genres, I write songs as they come to me. And sometimes that can be messy, because every project needs a little bit of a sound identity.
But I am just not excited by the bands, where every song sounds the same, because it keeps the exact same characteristics of their chosen genre. I like surprises.
I am influenced by a big variety of artists from various genres that I’ve listened to throughout my life, so naturally the different sounds and elements sneak into my writing. I also studied classical music and jazz.
When I was growing up, I grew my roots deeply into art rock. I love psychedelic guitars and droning organ, but I am always fascinated and taken by dark and heavy music. It speaks to my soul.
I compose by following a melody and my own inner rhythm, that is not always regular. Only retrospectively I realize that I have written odd meters or bars. And I guess it’s the same with the music styles. I just hear the sound in my head, and I try to recreate it.
Like with Tiny Stupid Song, the original guitar and bass line with the lyrics happened very fast. It was a spontaneous flow. I just took the guitar and doodled around and I liked the groove. After recording that groove I realized it’s in 7/8. For a long time the song was just a verse and chorus.
The bridge with a weird solo was a mystery until the actual recording of the single. We left it blank at first, I just knew I wanted to break the pattern of the song, I strongly felt I needed some crazy instrumental part. On the live shows I usually just played a guitar solo with a slide.
Somehow, I was missing that sound later in the recording, and so I brought back the idea and that’s what influenced that part. That messy part wasn’t planned; it just happened in the moment of recording with my guitarist Pietro and it felt right.
3. Working with Victor van Vugt is a major milestone. What did he bring to the production and mix of “Tiny Stupid Song” that helped shape its final intensity?
Victor is an amazing person to work with. His talent for crafting the sound to the exact needs of the spirit of the song is a beautiful thing to watch. To me the sound of the song is as important as the song itself. I was sitting in his studio and just watched the song transform within a couple hours. Everytime I thought about something – he was already on it. His mixing skills gave the song the grit that it so much needed. And it was a bit tricky, because the song stands on a heavy guitar and bass groove, but the vocals are sometimes light spirited. To make it all work together, to wrap it in an energetic wheel that keeps rolling while leaving space for easiness, and later extend into a total psychedelic meltdown, while the identity of the song stays intact, that is where I see the mastery and magic he brought into the sound of the song.
Sound is just so important to me. And I am a perfectionist, that always needs at least 10 revisions of mixes. The mixing was always the most feared part of the production for me. Victor completely changed the game for me and made mixing easy and fun.
4. Your music draws inspiration from legendary artists like PJ Harvey, Nick Cave, and Frank Zappa. How have these artists influenced your songwriting and vocal expression over the years?
Every artist that I’ve listened to for a long period of time taught me something different and brought me closer to finding my own style.
When I was little, my dad always listened to music. There was never a quiet moment in the house. So pretty early in my life I got quite some sophisticated music into my ears. I grew up listening to Zappa, ELP, Rush and King Crimson.
Therefore art rock has always been some sort of a basic background for me and my writing.
At 13 years old, I was writing progressive hard rock songs, influenced by the sound of Guano Apes but with the complexity of progressive bands from my childhood. I sang so harshly in that band, I always lost my voice for a week after each show. I had no vocal lessons or experience.
In my early 20’s, I was writing very long and elaborate compositions for my band, influenced by the progmetal band Pain of Salvation. By that time I also started to learn about voice and introduced vocal exercises into my life. But I was still struggling with the identity of my own voice and the right technique. In my late 20’s I had a sort of a breakdown (or breakthrough in perspective…?) and I got into Amy Winehouse, which was a huge contrast to the previous music influences. It was the first time I accepted the possibility of structuring my songs in simpler forms. Also, her very direct and personal lyrics affected me deeply, I started expressing my words in a raw form, without wrapping them in unsolvable metaphors. I stopped fearing to show who I am. But vocally, I still wasn’t feeling like I knew my voice. I was still too much imitating my idols.
Soon after I discovered Nick Cave and PJ Harvey, their melancholy and raw energy really took over me. I think I found that mystery, darkness and sort of a psychedelia I was missing. This was also a very important phase in my vocal expression, because it gave me confidence in not trying to sing perfectly but rather allowing myself to be myself, to be authentic.
5. TRANSCENDECADENCE has evolved since first forming in 2018 and later re-forming in 2024 with a new lineup. How has the band’s chemistry and creative vision changed during this new chapter?
I love my new band! They are all such great musicians and beautiful people, so easy to get along with.
The first version of the band was with my friends, who I asked to try out with me my concept of “punkele” – punky ukulele songs with somewhat satiric lyrics.
We had great energy and fun together, but musically it wasn’t always where I needed. We slowly fell apart during 2020, as we all just started to follow a different personal path. After producing the first album in this time of being sort of on my own, I started to write new songs that were more challenging. And I knew I needed to get people who are on a very high musical level.
Pietro has been playing the bass in the original band since 2019. But he is a genius guitar player, so it was clear I needed to have him on the guitar. His melodic approach is so distinctive from other guitar players, it plays a huge role in the band’s sound.
At the same time I changed from ukulele to guitar as well and got back into playing the piano, which I have ditched for many years after my studies. Already that was a dramatic change.
Soon enough I met Pier, who we really personally clicked with and we talked for so long about playing together, until we did. He also brought Felix on the bass, who is the busiest bass player in Berlin. So I’m lucky to have him.
Getting the current musicians involved in my music has encouraged me to go deeper to what I really want to do. It allows me to focus purely on my vision without worrying about technical limits of the band. I know I can rely on them to learn complicated structures, odd rhythms and weird harmony. They also understand my sense for details, that’s really important to me and my genre. It has definitely transformed the sound of the band. We also have much more freedom for improvisation and spontaneity, which makes our shows more raw and exciting.
Plus, the guys are all tons of fun! The best band I could have asked for.
6. You describe music as “a journey” that should be wild and emotional. What can listeners expect from the upcoming album, and how far do you plan to push the boundaries of your sound this time around?
The upcoming album is definitely gonna be a roller coaster of emotions. Nostalgia and melancholy change with psychedelic outbursts and heavy breakdowns. At least that is what I have in my mind. How it will translate itself in the end I can never surely say.
A lot of songs are in a slower tempo, evolving into faster – raw and wild parts. These tempo changes within the song is something that is gonna be quite specific for the second album.
We also have more piano on this record, with “prelude” moments coming from my classical studies.
There is a bit of a mixture of music influences – some songs are quite bluesy, other ones are closer to PJ Harvey’s dark and emotional style, there are piano preluding songs changing into a raw post-punk vibe with a psychedelic heavy outro, or resulting in almost Zappa like bridge.
I guess I am always pushing the boundaries of a style a bit, even if I don’t generally plan it.
Because the songs just come to me as they are and for now, I don’t worry about pressing them into one label. I think it’s a result of my musical path. If I’d like to look back after the album is done, I would like to hear an evolution in the sound compared to the first album and also in my songwriting, hoping I am advancing and maturing towards better and better songs and more interesting sound. Something new. Something exciting. Something we haven’t heard yet from my band. I would like that.
But I can promise one thing – it will sound amazing, as we plan to further work with Victor van Vugt as our mixing engineer.