Indecent Behavior

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This past month, I was able able to schedule a Zoom call with Henrik, the lead vocalist/guitarist of a German pop-punk band called Indecent Behavior. In this interview, we chatted about the band’s forthcoming new LP, Sick, that will be released on September 26th via Long Branch Records. Henrik shared the meaning behind the album title and artwork, plus key lessons the band have learned from touring with punk veterans Zebrahead and Neck Deep.

Thank you so much for your time today, Henrik. Your new record, called Sick, is out on September 26th. Are the singles that you’ve released so far a good indication of the direction your band took on your latest album?

Yeah, I think it is, actually. It’s a lot of pop punk, but there are also a few heavier tones. But, I think it’s a good wrap up of what we put on the new record and what we would like to play on tour.

Great, and I understand that the album art has kind of a maze going into the word “sick.” Is there any reasoning behind the artwork for that? And who designed it?

Our bassist, Dennis, designed it.And we talked a lot about how the record should look like and how the record should be called. And “sick” is a very negative word, but it can also be very positive, because something can be “sick”, or you can feel sick at the same time.That is how we feel right now. There’s so much going on in this world that just makes us sick, and there are so many things coming down on us, raining down on us, that you don’t know where to go or what to do next. So that’s why we thought of a maze where you don’t know which way to go, but actually a few ways can lead towards the target, or to where you’d want to go. And on the other hand, when we go on tour, when we meet new people, when we see our fans, there’s always this kind of hope that everything is going to be okay. And if we look at the scene where we live and where we like to play our music, there are so many people that are just very good people. And I think when we look at the scene, we can’t have hope that everything will be better in the future. And so this is why, on the one hand, it makes us sick, but on the other hand, we have all the hope that something is going to be better. And if you do good, then good comes back to you. And that’s why we wanted to call it Sick, and that’s why we chose the maze to represent the word.

That’s awesome, and it makes a lot of sense not only thematically, but also artistically. That’s cool, how it all came together. So how’d you all meet, and what made you guys want to play music together?

Actually, we first were in school, so we were a typical school band, and for over 10 years now, we just wanted to make music, and play our instruments on tour. And over time, it got to be a vehicle to express our feelings, to express what we are going through. And I think you can also see it in the development of our band over the years. What is a typical development of a human being that just doesn’t want to grow up and want to to stay childish, and it’s always all the topics that come to our minds we put into songs, and what started as like a band of friends in school, ended up on night stages in front of thousands of people.

That’s very cool to hear! So what are some other bands that you’ve kind of connected with over in Germany, or possibly beyond?

We actually toured with some of our favorite bands last year. We played a show with the Do Nots, and we toured with Zebrahead. We toured with Neck Deep last year, and it’s just awesome to visit all the bands that we grew up with and play shows with them. But I think also bands like Blink-182 are on our list. I think you can hear <in our sound> who we want to visit and who we want to connect with.

Absolutely, yeah, and the boys in Zebrahead are a lot of fun. I’ve connected with them in the past too. They don’t get back to the states as much as I would like, but I know they’re doing well overseas…

Yeah, it seems like they are more in Germany or in Europe, even though they’re from California!

Right? So what are some of the bands that you’re influenced by for creating your pop-punk/alternative sound that you guys put together in Indecent Behavior?

I think as we grew up with bands like Sum 41, Simple Plan, All Time Low, and Blink-182, those are the clear bands that influenced us a lot. All those Californian, high school bands. But also Green Day. I love bands that are a little bit faster, like NoFX, and Lagwagon. But also our drummer here listens to a lot of hardcore music, like Agnostic Front. And our guitarist has listened to a lot of metal, so really hard stuff, like Lorna Shore, stuff like that. And I think that’s what makes our sound so unique. We have all the space of Californian power punk bands that we grew up with, but we also like these metal influences and these hardcore influences. But I think it’s also great because the scenes are similar so they don’t differ from each other. I think they are very close, and that’s what we like.

That’s cool, and you “name dropped” so many great artists. And I think you guys are well on your way for yourselves as well. How would you describe a typical Indecent Behavior concert?

It feels more like a family meeting, I would say. So we’re not that band that you see the first time when they go on stage, you’ll see us hanging out with all the fans before the show and after the show. And we’re not like dudes that go on stage, and don’t talk and just play their songs. It’s always fun to be around and meet all the new people. It’s not that we want to make music because we want to make a lot of money with it. We just want to go out, connect with the people and get to know each other, because we think that the scene is so beautiful and everyone in that scene is such good people, so that there’s less hate and a lot of love in that scene. It’s always great fun to hang out with all the great people, but also it’s very energetic. So we have a lot of fancy parts. We have a lot of mosh pits. So it’s always fun. You should come!

Yeah, I would love to the next time I’m in Germany, or hopefully you guys come to the US at some point too. Are there any plans for that?

I think we’re working on it. As you know, it’s quite expensive to go to the US, and I think that the main fanbase is still in Germany. But we hope that with a new record and maybe the next record, we can come around and play some shows in the US.

And what is the overall feeling overseas now towards the US. It’s a very strange political climate, as you can imagine. There’s a whole can of worms here. But what is the vibe towards Americans?

Hard to say. So I don’t think that it’s the best time right now, it could be better, and I hope that it will be better in the future. The scene that we have, there’s so much going on and there’s so much bad happening in the US right now that we just need to stand together and hope that it gets better. Or work on everything that gets better. Yeah, it’s not the best vibe, I would say, as it was two to three years ago, or even 10 years ago.

Yeah, that’s a nice way of framing that answer. You didn’t bash us too bad, which is good!

A lot of people in the US are against what happens right now in the US, and actually our scene, or the scene where we come from our bubble. I don’t like what’s going on in the US right now. So I could never blame those people. I can blame the other people…

Exactly. How do you guys measure success?

Actually, we can see that a lot of messages come around from all over the world. So when, four to five years ago, when we started with a YouTube premiere of a song, or a music video, we had a few people watching, and everyone was German. And right now, we just did a premiere, and the first message was like, “hey, greetings from Japan!” And I was like, “Japan listening to our music??” And it’s not actually a huge city where we live right here, we live in Zalan. It’s Southwest Germany. It’s always awesome to see how many people all over the world listen to the music, and it’s still growing. We can see our Spotify numbers rising. We can see it on YouTube, and we can feel it at a concert. We just came back from a great German music festival called Open Flair. It has about 20 to 30,000 visitors. I Prevail was playing it, and Yungblud too, a lot of great artists. And we just went out on stage, and there were a lot of people singing our songs. And I think that’s how you can measure success, even though there’s always room to grow, but as long as I can go on stage and I see one person standing in the audience, singing our songs, dancing to our songs, and starting to smile, that’s absolutely worth it.

Absolutely! And you definitely have your head screwed on the right way, thinking about it that way for the music industry, for sure. Any last words for your fans?

You should definitely check out Sick, because it is sick!

There you go! It was so nice meeting you, and I hope you have a nice rest of your day!

Thanks, Adam!

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