www.facebook.com/verdoemd
From: Belgium
Sounds like: Death/Thrash Metal
1. How did you get started with music and how did you develop your sound? Who thought of the name “Verdoemd" and is there any meaning behind it?
I started with music when I was around 15 years old, in high school. My best friends in that period started to play guitar, drums and bass, so I couldn’t fall behind. I’ve started to play guitar and it didn't take long for us to start a band. With that band, we played mostly acdc covers. Fairly quickly I realized that I wanted to play more extreme music. I left the band and ended up with other people.’. I played with them for about 10 years, they became good friends and contributed a lot to my development as a musician. In 2018, I made the decision to quit, because I felt I wanted to go in a different direction. I decided to start a 1 man project and that's where ' Verdoemd' came from. I developed my sound by listening a lot to music that was in the same ' genre ' and at the same time testing a lot of amps (also amp simulators). I also created my sound by writing a lot of music and playing a lot. ‘Verdoemd’ means very simply 'doomed' in Dutch. I wanted a powerful, short name but at the same time a name that nobody had used yet. Personally, I thought 'Verdoemd' sounded better than 'doomed'. That is why it became 'Verdoemd’.
2. What do you want people to take away from your music?
I always try to make music with a lot of energy. Both with my vocals and with my guitar riffs, because I think that's also what fits me best. With every song I write, I try to achieve a high level, so that people can say when they listen to my music: ' This song really blew me away'.
3. How would you describe your sound to the average listener?
When people ask me which genre I play I always answer ‘ a mix of thrash , death and black metal’. The first album ' The black heresy will prevail ' is more blackened death metal, while the 2nd album ‘Howling Mountain’ has much more thrash metal influences. I try to take advantage of the freedom I have as much as possible because I do everything by myself. At the same time, I don't want an album to become a cacophony of genres that don't fit together. It could just as well be that the 3rd album will be more blackened death metal again. It depends on what I feel like doing at that moment.
4. Who are three bands you’d like to tour with?
Aura noir, Possessed and Sodom.
5. How has Covid affected what you do as a band?
Covid does not affected me a lot with my music, because Verdoemd is only a studio project. Since I couldn't do much because everything was closed, a lot of my free time went to writing music. So this is the reason why the 2nd album followed the first one very quickly.
6. What’s your take on the current state of Metal?
Metal is an alternative genre and it will always be. There will always be more people who don't like the genre at all than those who do (especially the more extreme genres). At the same time, it is a world that is constantly growing. New festivals are constantly being added, new bands are constantly being created. Metal has always had a lot of potential from the day the genre existed.
7. What’s the current music scene like there in Belgium?
The Belgian music scene has a lot to offer. There is a big festival for every genre of music at some point. Belgium also has a lot of good venues for gigs. In almost every city, there is a bar where you can watch a concert. In 2020, there were a lot of Belgian releases to be proud of. I'm thinking of ' Bütcher - 666 Goats Carry My Chariot’, Carnation - where death lies and the ' voices ep of schizophrenia... So, the Belgian music scene is doing very well in my opinion.
8. What’s your take on the royalties that streaming services pay out to artists?
The royalties are very low. I think 0,006 USD/ Stream. But I don’t think that’s the point. When people stream your music a lot, it means they like your music. If people like your music, they can easily see your live shows on their streaming account and if you play in their neighborhood, those people come to your show and pay for you to see you live. Maybe when you play a great show, they buy a cd or lp afterwards. So even when streaming services pay nothing at all, they still give you a great and very easy way to reach out your music to a lot of people and I think that’s their greatest royalty.
9. What’s next for Verdoemd?
Verdoemd is in a break. I am busy with another project (I don’t want to talk about that much). Besides that, I will contact some metal magazines and will ask them to write a review of the ‘Howling mountain’ album. Maybe I will do some other interviews too.
10. Any shoutouts?
I want to thank my wife and daughter very much, because they always give me the strength to give the best of myself in everything I do. I want to thank my family and friends for their support and I want to thank everyone who has taken the time to listen to my music.
