I would like to thank you for giving us the opportunity to talk to you.
Describe Konvent in only five words!
Slow. Heavy. Ominous. Simple. Groovy.
Now, let’s talk in detail about your intentions in the metal world. Konvent is all women Death / Doom metal band. How did you all meet and start with Konvent in the first place?
When our first drummer Mette started taking drumming lessons in 2015, her teacher (Nicolai from the band Dirt Forge) told his roommate that he had started teaching a girl. His roommate was our bass player Heidi and she instantly contacted Mette, asking her if she wanted to start a band. It had been a dream of Heidi’s to start a band for a long time but all the musicians she asked didn’t have time in their schedules to start a new project. Given that both Mette and Heidi were more or less on the same level on their instruments, a band also seemed like an ideal opportunity to practise as well as write music.
They looked for a guitar player and asked Mette’s study buddy Alexander (also from Dirt Forge) if he would suggest the idea to his girlfriend Sara, who Mette knew had previously played in a band. They also needed a vocalist and asked Mette’s sister Rikke, who had been taking extreme metal vocal lessons with a metal vocalist for about six months at that time. She was game and we all met up at a rented rehearsal space for an afternoon and tried jamming to The White Stripes’ 7 Nation Army. The vibe was good and we decided to form the band and get our own rehearsal space.
After three years, Mette had to quit the band due to her studies and we were very lucky to find Julie. Julie was only 18 at the time but had played the drums for six years and blew us away with her talent when she auditioned, and it was a no-brainer. Our final formation was established. The fact that we’re all females is completely random. We just wanted to start a band and the people who wanted to join happened to be women.
What or who has driven you to this genre in particular?
Nothing in particular. Sara and Heidi just started bringing the riffs they had written at home to the rehearsal space and that created our sound. We never talked about writing music in a specific genre, it just sort of happened.
What does Konvent stand for?
We try not to force any political agenda into our music. We just want to play.
The reason why we chose the name Konvent was because we liked the idea of naming the band after an institution, especially one that’s very secretive. Hopefully it will catalyse a lot of storytelling with everyone who comes across our band name. We chose to spell it with a K instead of a C simply because we like the K better. It seems heavier somehow.
Your debut album „Puritan Masochism“ will be released in January of 2020. You’ve released the title track which is getting more and more views every day. First of all, where did you film the video and what’s the message you’re trying to give us with this song?
The music video to Puritan Masochism was recorded at the Danish festival Roskilde Festival by Rasmus G. Sejersen (who also plays the drums in LLNN). The song is about how us humans have a tendency to put ourselves in situations where we don’t feel good enough. With this song we’re hoping that people will identify and question their habits of doing that.
Second, and most important of all, what can we expect on your first album?
Prepare to get sucked into a whirlpool of slow, heavy riffs, menacing drums, monstrous growls and desperate screams!
The cover for „Puritan Masochism“ is quite interesting, simple on one hand but, I would say, very powerful on other. What does it represent? Who is the author?
Our designer is illustrator Mads Berg (www.madsberg.dk). We have been working with him for a while now and when it was time to think about the cover art we asked him to come with something representing loss of control and he immediately came up with the vision of fiercely moving waters or oceans.
Merciless and powerful. We only had two meetings with him regarding the cover art because he just hit the nail on the head. We couldn’t be happier with the way it turned it!
You’ve announced a short tour in January and February which includes Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Germany. Is there any show you’re particular excited about? Are there any plans about expanding the tour to some other countries, like Croatia maybe? How about summer metal festivals?
We can’t wait! We are excited for all the shows and we’ll even be playing new places like Oslo, Berlin, Hannover and, of course, legendary Gothenburg. So far there are no plans of expansion but we would love to go to Croatia and all the rest of Europe! We will be playing at Gefle Metal Festival in Sweden on the 9th July 2020. We may have been booked for other festivals but we can’t tell you yet ...
How do you manage between your personal and musical careers?
It’s a challenge sometimes but we’re good at talking about it, if there are any issues, and we respect each others’ obligations like work, studies, exams, families etc. For us, planning is key.
What’s the current situation on danish metal scene?
There are so many amazing bands in Denmark! International bookers should definitely steer their eyes to the North.
Would you recommend us some new interesting metal bands?
Morild, Eyes and Katla will be warming up for us at our Copenhagen show in January and of course we would only pick the best, so definitely check them out! Other bands that we highly recommend are Solbrud, Afsky, Dirtforge, Sunken, Ligæder, Halshug, Bethmoora, Alkymist and LLNN.
Thank you again for this conversation. Good luck on your tour and hope to see you live one day.
