Interview about the album

Modecenter: In the beginning, it was all about nothing

Noise from the bottom up - but with a love of emotion and detail: the Viennese post-punk forge Modecenter is taking off.

(Bild: ChristianFischer Krone KREATIV,)

Anger and emotions go hand in hand - the Viennese band Modecenter are currently pouring this simple calculation into noisy post-punk songs like no other band. Frontman David Bauer and drummer Hannes Gruber spoke to us about the new album "Altes Glück", the toothlessness of British post-punk legends and why they have matured but remained authentic.

Anger has always been a good catalyst for music. The British know this better than most. The new generation of post-punk bands, from Idles to Fontaines D.C. to the Sprints, all have their own private problems, fears and worries, which come out of the speakers so unfiltered that people flock to them because they are fed up with algorithmized Scheme F hits and plastic productions. On their new album "Tangk", the Idles have put love at the center of their music and turned away from years of aggression to mutate into a kind of "alternative Beatles". David Bauer is not particularly happy about this. "They sing about love, but that doesn't really mean anything. It's actually quite cowardly, because important topics are hidden behind it. Before I sing something like that, I'd rather not sing at all." David Bauer is the frontman of Modecenter, currently Vienna's most uncompromising post-punk band.

Time-consuming fun
With his announcement, he does not scratch his pillar saints; the quartet's main sources of inspiration lie further in the past. The dirty rough-hewnness of "Wild Dog" Iggy Pop and the Stooges can be used as a rough template, as can Nick Cave's bursting project Grinderman. All kinds of metal and hardcore also run through the musicians' veins. Bauer and drummer Hannes Gruber are the remaining original members after a crazy line-up carousel. The two have also been the cornerstones of the atmospherically dark sludge metal band Loather for several years, which is currently on ice despite their album 2023. The reason for this: Modecenter. Although it was never planned that way, there is simply too much going on in the new project. "Our first live gig was at Halloween 2019 in a skate park in St. Marx," Gruber recalls with a laugh, "perhaps because we approached things so casually, a completely different drive developed. We also have more live offerings with Modecenter than we used to with Loather."

A first tape emerged from a jam session in 2019. Then came the pandemic, but also the first live shows and the quiet post in the Viennese underground, where a few young savages were scraping the plaster off the walls of bars and punk clubs because they didn't seem to give a shit. This kind of openly flaunted nihilism was poured into a fantastic debut album in 2021, the mini-album "Peace" in 2022 and now the second album "Altes Glück". This was recorded with a new second guitarist and a new bassist and, for the first time, more professionally. "The studio situation no longer allowed us to record the album live. So it became a bit more professional, but the good thing is that you can't hear the change. We already missed the old approach." Regular rehearsals have not been so easy since band newcomer Arthur Darnhofer-Demàr came on board and regularly commutes from Upper Austria to the capital.

Breaking out of structures
But back to anger - while it is already missing in parts of the UK, it is still present unfiltered in Vienna. Bauer clarifies his lyrics and the basic framework: "It's about anger at the world itself, there is a latent systemic dissatisfaction. I also sing about topics such as fragile masculinity, certain ideas from outside and the demands placed on oneself." Modecenter make noise with brains. The song "I Am Straight" already showed ruthlessly that heteronormativity is not a single solution to the issue. Breaking free from existing and encrusted structures, showing emotions and maturing from them is also a theme that runs through new songs such as "Kalter Rauch", "Dreck" and "Tremor". "Our sound may seem a bit too negative to outsiders," says Bauer, "but it's about letting out what's on your mind. When I'm creative, positive things rarely come out of me."

Modecenter don't want to spread messages or convince others of their ideals. They just want to do what they have to do for themselves. "The coolest thing is when lyrics trigger something in someone. When they are a bit unpleasant and stick in the throat, but never deliberately intended to provoke. Buzzwords are all well and good, but you have to be able to fill them with life." The album title is a metaphorical reference to the hackneyed mind game "everything used to be better", which nobody, not even the Modecenter musicians, can escape. "One is often afraid of change in life and longs for a state that has not yet brought about this change, although it may have been necessary." These descriptions of states between fragile masculinity and criticism of neoliberalism only last eight songs and are less than 30 minutes long. "My favorite albums like 'Raw Power' by the Stooges or 'Reign In Blood' by Slayer weren't any longer and nothing was missing."

Bass instead of straddle
Modecenter are concerned about the concept of Europe, they have a problem with Vienna's cocaine chic and question what it actually means for the environment if you are a musician with heart and soul and have to follow your creative urges. Sometimes, as in the irresistible track "Endurance Eurodance", they almost mix all these themes in one song. But the most important thing is that it bangs. The most elementary premise is an all-pervading, heavy bass sound. To achieve this, Bauer likes to blend his vocals into the background and the guitars don't need the broad straddle that is otherwise common in the rock cosmos. "Apart from that, it's all about playing and developing together. The new members have of course changed the process and the band. We're very happy with the fact that 'Altes Glück' is now a transitional album." Sometimes anger also needs moments of balance.