Since 2014 the HORROR DANCE SQUAD have been playing hard and even writing and recording harder than before. They are in fact having an all new album underway! Lots of plans are in the works, aside from the album, along with some music videos and much more. The band goes into discussion some more about this album, and just what else they have in-store.
1. Please tell us about the history of your band and its members.
Horror Dance Squad hails from Estonia’s capital, Tallinn. The squad began taking formation when guitarists Indrek Ulp and Mikk Peetrimägi put their eagerness to keep the metalcore genre alive in Estonia together and began writing songs. They took on drummer Henri Kuusk and after about a year of practicing and trying out vocalists (including Ian Karell who is originally from Pittsburgh, PA) the first line-up was established. We played our first show at the beginning of 2014. After a couple of years, we made a small line-up change adding vocalist Karl Mesipuu and synth and sample wizard Margus Tammela to our squad. This new line-up took us on a path that has definitively shaped and evolved our music into our own signature style. Throughout our years together we have had the enormous pleasure of sharing the stage with international heavy hitters such as Siamese, Comeback Kid, Dead By April, Adept, Eskimo Callboy, We Butter The Bread With Butter, Deez Nuts, August Burns Red, One Morning Left and may others. We also represented Estonia at the 2016 Wacken Open Air Metal Battle.
2. What’s the origin of the band’s name?
When we formed the band, we knew we wanted to make heavy music, but we wanted to go in a different direction than the “doom and gloom” most people think of when they think about this genre. And, of course, with any good band name, we wanted something that really represented the core of the band and us as individuals: Horror for the heavy influence, Dance to highlight the more fun and positive angle we wanted to approach our music with, and Squad to represent the unity we feel as a band, including the unity we feel with our fans and the many awesome people we’ve had the pleasure to work with while creating and sharing our music.
\3. Where is the band based out of and what is your music scene like there? Are there any local bands you could recommend?
Estonia is a country with a metal influence for sure, especially with our cousins to the north, but which is maybe more known for its folk roots. Examples such as folk-rock group Trad.Attack! and folk-metal group Metsatöll have enjoyed major successes here. But the modern-metal scene is definitely on the rise here as well. People come to the shows, there are a lot of new bands and many who have been rocking it for over ten years. The audience has also seemed to warm up a bit here--the kids mosh, stage-dive and crowd-surf like never before! Before the pandemic, there was a steady stream of great concerts. And once the restrictions were lifted, the shows picked right back up. As for local bands, we recommend checking out ÆØNS and LOWFUTURE from the heavier side and there’s also a cool 90s-vibe, hardcore band called Pinkwave.
4. How would you describe your style?
A mixture of metalcore, electrocore, nu-metal and punk. Nucore doused with electronics. Catchy melodies and brutal breakdowns.
5. What have you released so far and what can someone expect from your works?
We released a couple of singles before putting out the Gamechanger EP in 2016 and the album LEAP in 2017. Since then, we have been working energetically on our upcoming album and have begun releasing our newest singles since February. We have evolved over the years, as any band does, but our fans expect our music to be heavy, bouncy and energetic with catchy choruses and in-your-face vocals all round.
6. Do you have any new music in the works?Yes! In fact, we have a whole new album on the way! We have already released four singles to date and are preparing the release of our new LP "No Flag Will Fly Forever", which comes out on the 25th of September. You can pre-order it already from here: https://www.hooandja.ee/en/projekt/horror-dance-squad.
7. How about playing shows and touring, have anything planned out?
Due to COVID 19 we had to postpone a bunch of great shows. We made up for it by hosting our first web-concert in March which was an exciting experience for us (you can check it from YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bo08f2oy_40). As restrictions lifted here in Estonia, we have also had the chance to play at two Estonian summer festivals (Punk and Rock, Tartu; Käbliku Beer Camp and Rock’n’Roll, Käbliku Talu) which was an absolute blast. We are also working hard to make sure our album release show is our most intense and inspired one yet, so that’s keeping us all busy. In the long term, we, like most artists these days, simply hope we can get out on the road in 2021 to tour our new album.
8. What plans do you have for the future as a band?
The major plan, of course, is our album release in September. We’ve got a couple of music videos in the works as well and more to plan before the end of the year. Overall, we plan to be doing this as long as we can and we believe our first LP is just one step in what will hopefully be a long journey together.
9. Where can we listen to your band and where can we buy your stuff?
You can hear us on all major streaming platforms and we’ve got plenty of videos on YouTube. We also have an online store on our website www.horrordancesquad.com. And! We are currently running a crowdfunding campaign on Hooandja where you can support us in printing our upcoming album on vinyl and get some very sweet merch as a reward. And, of course, make sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram to get the latest news.
10. What is it you’d like a listener to remember the most when hearing your music for the first time?
We hope that it makes people as pumped-up and energized as it does us. We also put a lot of time into the meanings of our songs, so we also hope you become familiar enough with the lyrics to sing along with us the second time around!
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