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ND: Well, for starters, we all knew each other from the past from several other orchestras. Many of us actually played together for a longer period of time before New Discolour. Lasse (drums) and Jesper (lead guitar) played together in Abandon All (a metalcore band), and besides that, Lasse used to play together with Søren (rhythm guitar) in a band called Ghost of Gabriel (dirty southern metal). After that, Lasse, Søren, Mayu (bass) and Artem (vocals) played in a band together – Knife of Liberty – just before She is Malignant / New Discolour. After we got introduced to each other – in other words, after we partied too much together, all five of us – we decided to form She is Malignant.

ND: Our philosophy was no compromises, no clean vocals, and no confusion about how we wanted our music to sound. She is Malignant was the band we wanted to focus and spend our energy – and passion. No one in this band goes a day or two without any ideas popping into their heads; we couldn’t get those ideas out both as music and as a feeling – not with any of the previous bands at least. So we decided that we weren’t going to stick to that anymore, and started She is Malignant.

ND: She is Malignant was a name that we came up with in panic, when we finished our MySpace, Facebook, etc. profiles and needed a name. But we didn’t really combine She is Malignant with the definition of who we were. The songs from “Silent Scream” (ed. the band’s debut EP) didn’t sound the way we wanted – they are some awesome, well-written songs (at least they earned us a nomination for best metal act at the Underground Music Awards), but they did not satisfy us. We wanted a different sound; some darker and gloomier tunes; and most importantly, we wanted to create something of our own. As we began the production of “Short of Ink”, we started digging into the earlier records in the metal genre that we grew up with, took that sound, and sort of re-wrote it into our music. “Short of Ink” is a much more personal album, more grown up, and more defining than anything we did prior.

ND: We actually just thought about how we could fit the songs personally, and of course the fact that we’ve worked so much together with Christian Bonde (CB-Studios, Holsted) before is a bonus. He knows and understands us. He knows the touch we want in our music. We were in the studio every single day during production to achieve the sound on the album. And it is probably also because we didn’t follow any genre to the maximum. Some of our songs are metalcore, others progressive and thrash, and maybe even fusion metal as well. In other words, it could be the fact that we wrote songs that fitted our personality as a band, and in our interpretation we re-wrote the many different genres’ sounds that went into shaping the album.

ND: Our interpretation of metal music was the biggest inspiration; our lives. There are so many things that inspired us while we were writing “Short of Ink”, the boring everyday life, and so on. But lyrically it was the blinding bureaucracy for some people and nations, cultural diversity, and critical response to corruption.

ND: Well, one thing after another, right? We are – as we speak – building a large following in Denmark, and we are going to tour Denmark later this year. After that, we sure hope to play for some foreign audiences as well. On the other hand, since our album is out in the entire Europe, we are sure we’ll get to play in most of Europe at some point, actually.

ND: The advantages must be that Denmark has a large number of metal bands around – some big, some small – so there is plenty of venues and bars for us to play. Take Volbeat for example; thanks to them – and of course a lot of other Danish metal bands – Denmark is now on the map again, and the citizens of Denmark have grown a larger knowledge about all these metal bands in the country.

The disadvantages must be that every six out of ten concerts being held here in Denmark by Danish bands, always have this audience standing ten meters from the stage, with their arms crossed and the obligatory beer in hand. That’s a bit of a shame, but then they decide themselves whether they’ll pay money to stand and have a beer at a distance, or get into the concert – whatever works best for them. We love our fans, and anyone else who comes to our concerts, so personally we do a lot to draw attention to the stage. But earlier we suffered from the problem we just mentioned as well. Let’s just say that if you don’t have energy, drive and contact with your audience, you will discover how tough a Danish audience can be.

The challenges must definitely be, for instance, to calculate the audience in the beginning of your career. What mood are they in? How well do they know us, and how eager are they to start a party with us? And for starters, just to get past that empty grey zone where you’re too unknown for anybody to even talk to you, let alone book you for a concert, is definitely a challenge, too.

ND: Well, we thought of that, and our answer to that is another question: How is it to be a musician without some kind of struggle?

No really, it only depends on how you choose to look at success. We’re not thinking about quitting music or stopping as musicians if one of our albums doesn’t become as successful as we want it to. We will keep on doing what we love: making music. We don’t have a specific finish line that we have to cross, like for example 2 EPs and 3 albums later.

I guess that the music industry nowadays just doesn’t allow musicians like us to have success at first. There is always a struggle, whether it’s a small struggle or a big one, and therefore it is very natural for us just to keep going. Eventually we are hoping for more success than with “Short of Ink” – which by the way is kind of a success in our eyes. The reviews we are getting on behalf of it are extraordinary! It’s only our debut album, so things are looking pretty fine. The fact that many people are still buying it somewhere is a good sign, right?

ND: The signing with Mighty Music has definitely opened some new doors for us that were closed before. Suddenly we have a name, our debut album is distributed across Europe, and we now have a booker working for us. We’ve been playing as the headlining act the last couple of times. We’ve had many new offers, such as a half page article in a major Danish magazine; 70% (-ish) more concerts; lots of interviews; and many people, venues and companies – both in Denmark and the rest of Europe – have shown general interest for and in New Discolour.

ND: Yeah, we have stuff cooking in the oven! We are writing new material – some already tested on a live audience. Our focus has been on promoting our debut album for a while, so of course playing the songs from it has been the natural thing to do. But right now we are writing new material. It’s heavier, simpler, gloomier, and more evil shit! Be excited; it is even more brutal – not like death metal, but the raw kind of brutal – than “Short of Ink”, and the response to the new songs we’ve played live has been surprisingly good!

ND: Playing at Emergenza Festival on the 9th of March at 19:30 at VoxHall in Århus – we’ll see how far that’s going to get us. We’ll also record a second music video for a song from “Short of Ink”, tour Denmark in the autumn this year, tour Europe, make another album, be more out in the scene, and hopefully play some festival gigs!

ND: Shout-outs to VIRA and The Revolt of Darwin! They are awesome musicians, and it’s too bad that they stopped as bands. Keep up the good fine support and follow us on Facebook and YouTube. Stay tuned!