Slaughter Beach is a three-piece band based in Odense whose music instantly transports you back to your fifteen year old self. Specifically, it takes you back to those fond memories of doing things like skipping class to chainsmoke your first cigarettes with your bracefaced crush instead. Their music has that whole ‘youthful enthusiasm’ thing to it – you know, the irresistible one – and is lo-fi, carefree and catchy as hell. It makes sense they’ve already gained critical acclaim from media heavyweights such as NME and Interview Magazine; now, they’re following up on the hype by releasing their debut EP ‘Love/Venice’—ready for you to stream right here, right now before its official release this Friday through Brilliance Records. We also thought this would be a good time to have a chat with one of the guys from the band, Mads Emil Aagaard, to hear a bit more about the EP, the songwriting and what the hell the music scene’s like in Odense.
NOISEY: Hi, Mads. Since you guys are based in Odense, what’s it like making music there and being part of the scene?
Mads Emil Aagaard: We don’t really feel like we’re part of anything in Odense. We live here and have our own rehearsal space and little studio but it’s not like we know what’s going on—we just really enjoy the quiet surroundings. There’s not much to do here so you can really spend your time making music; you can concentrate on the right stuff and you don’t get distracted. We’re doing what we should be doing instead of wasting time on random stuff.
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I guess that works for you—you guys sound like your influences are quite different from a lot of other Danish bands around, especially on this EP. What were you listening to a lot before you made it?
It’s mostly the international bands. We don’t tend to look at Denmark that much. For this EP, we listened to a lot of 90s bands like Built to Spill, Modest Mouse, Grandaddy and Elliott Smith… and then stuff from the 60s and 70s. It’s not like we ever sit down and think about what kind of song we want to make, though. We never set out to do one thing—what comes and what works is what we do.
So how is that reflected in your songwriting?
We all listen to a lot of different stuff but we also try to avoid sounding like any other band. The most important thing for us is that feel the melody is right; the vibe of the song will come after the melody. We try to write songs first rather than make a cool beat or whatever. After all, you get emotions because of the feel of the melody.
Did that kind of natural approach to songwriting result in some sort of theme that runs through the EP?
You could say it’s about the whole process of starting a band and everything that has happened to us since. There’s the first newfound love you feel when you’re just starting out and have this fresh feeling of doing something completely new; a couple of the songs are from that time. Then we wrote about last year, when we couldn’t really find the right inspiration for what we wanted to do. It was a quiet phase. After that came breaking out of that phase and entering something new again. It’s like a cycle. Sometimes you’re really inspired by everything, and sometimes you just play the same chords and they don’t mean shit to you.
Does part of that cycle have to do with how quickly things have gone well for you?
At first when we put out two songs, I guess we were overwhelmed. We just didn’t know what to do with the response because we hadn’t made a lot of other songs. Things were a little bit overwhelming back then, but now I feel like we’ve spent some time figuring out how to be a step ahead. There’s a really good energy in the band right now because we had a very bright start, things changed a bit for the worse last year and now we’ve emerged out on the other side and feel really motivated. We’re all working in the same direction now. It’s a great feeling.
One of your songs recently premiered with Interview Magazine, which is super cool but also not geared towards Denmark. Are you consciously thinking about targeting markets outside of Denmark?
Yeah, we are thinking about that. I mean, we’re writing songs in English and we really wouldn’t be doing that if we just wanted to stick to playing shows in Denmark. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but we play songs for people outside of Denmark. So, we try to be as international as possible. We don’t have any restrictions for what we should be doing.
Do you feel like you’ve been able to secure a sound base outside of Denmark?
Yes. I don’t really know why, but I was speaking with a friend and he said to me that Scandinavian music has a bit of a more polished thing to it—it’s a little softer around the edges. Ours is a bit rougher around the edges.
With you guys, it feels like you’re not worrying about the image too much.
Yeah, I guess you can put it that way. We’re not really trying to be anything. We’re just trying to be the best band we can possibly be. We don’t put on an act and if that doesn’t end up that suited for Denmark, that’s fine with us.
Thanks, Mads.
