Track By Track: Damen - 'Unemployment, Broken. Bones, Death, Baby EP'
Gothenburg based band Damen have just released their new EP - ‘Unemployment, Broken Bones, Death, Baby’. They took a moment to talk to us about the EP - track by track.
Brightside:
The song speaks about empty promises. Over the six years we´ve been a band we have come across a bunch of colorful people that wanted to work with us and promised big things but it usually faded into nothing. Brightside is about my childish naivety towards people. The track talks about being in a band and trying to make it basically. How you latch onto every promise from people that say they will help you achieve your goal and then realise it wasn't anything that should get your hopes up. Just empty promises that put you on hold.
Malacca:
The song dwells in thoughts of losing your heritage. It’s reflecting on my Malaysian heritage. Feeling that part of you straying further and further from you and the guilt you carry because of it. The feeling that you’re a disappointment for not keeping hold of the religion, culture and language is hard to escape.
It’s all just the same:
It’s about being stuck with someone in a status quo. Lying to someone even though we both know it’s all just a facade. You know when you're just tip-toeing around something to avoid talking about it.
How you lie to make someone else happy and when a relationship is built on accepting the elephant in the room and never talk about it because it would ruin something that kind of works.
It captures a lot how I felt growing up. Hiding parts of you to make someone else happy. Or atleast thinking it was because for that reason.
Would it really change?:
The song came out of the outro of “It’s all just the same '' and evolved to its own thing.
It’s reflecting on pride and if letting go of it would change anything. Realizing your own responsibilities and flaws.
The track follows up where the last one ended and kind of reflects on where I got it wrong. I feel when you're growing up the world is very self centered like everything revolves around you. And now when I’ve had the time to reflect you can maybe see both sides of the coin in a more nuanced way.
Waste of Time:
The song was written during a time when there was a lot going on in my head and in my life. Capturing when you feel like you are getting pulled from every direction and end up with not enough time for anything.
In many ways this song is a culmination of all the tracks leading up to this one. It's about coming to terms with what you want and what you don’t wanna lose in life. The songs on the EP reflect different aspects of identity, like trying to be a musician, a father and looking back on your heritage. I think the reason the EP talks so much about this stuff is because I’ve become a father and it made me think a lot about my own family and heritage but also a lot of what you wanna do in life.