Interview with David from „Dumange“

In the beginning of the Corona pandemic I had way too much time. During the lockdown I started to read several books I had on my to do list. I started jogging, I run 10 kilometers under 1 hour, that’s okay for me ;-). And one evening I listened to many bands on Bandcamp. There was this band „Dumange“ from Asturias, Spain. I remebered that Ictus and Ekkaia were from Spain too and a region next to Asturias. After the first seconds of listening to the album „Entre ratas“ I knew: This ist damn good stuff, it blew me away! I bought the mp3s and listende to that album a lot of times. The mix of Neocrust, D-Beat, Blackmetal was quit intense and I wanted to buy the vinyl. Luckily there was an e-mail adress (dumnagepunx@gmail.com). Short time later David (guitarist) wrote back and we had a very interesting conversation via e-mail from april to july. David had some personal issues and I am so thankful that he found the time to answer my questions. Thank you so much, dude!!! The bands he mentions in the interview below are so good. That’s musical gold!!!

Here we go:

Topic #1 coronavirus. What do you miss most in these times compared
to pre corona virus?
A lot of things actually, practice with my bands, hanging out with friends, going to gigs and playing live. Although I kind of feel good being at home having time to read and trying to keep creative writing music and doing some art for future gig posters. I also miss my dog Faye, she died the second week of the pandemia and it’s been hard after 14 years and a half.

Please introduce yourself. What are your musical influences?
I’m David, I was born in Oviedo, Asturies, a region from the north of spain. I play guitar here in Dumange and another punk rock band called Amplify. My main musical influences when I play guitar or write music are His Hero Is Gone and all that stuff that came afterwards (Asturies is next region on the right from Galiza so we were always listening and seeing live bands as Ekkaia, Ictvs, Madame Germen, Sls3, etc) on one side and melodic death metal on the other side, I love to play At The Gates, a canorous quintet kind of riffs, they come to me naturally so I guess that’s something. Then I’m a huge fan of Per Koro records from Germany, I discovered bands like Aclys, Mörser, Forced To Decay, etc when I was 17/18 and they blew me away, they still do today and I listen to them a lot. Been twice to Bremen and Hamburg to see Mörser, those guys are COOL!!! Once they play with Disfear and they got me in, oh man, how nice is that. I also like a lot of 80s and 90s hardcore stuff in all of its styles and from everywhere american, european, japanese, etc, i grew up listening to so different bands as Bad Religion, Anti-Cimex, Undone or Minor Threat, you know, they’re all different but when I was a kid it was all hardcore to me. I’m glad I didn’t stick to 1 or 2 genres, I also like to listen to black metal, even though I spend time trying to figure out who are right wing bands and who are not. I don’t wanna mess up with that, there’s a lot of anti-fascist and anarchists black metal bands out there. Those are my main influences, I also listen to some folk from almost everywhere (bulgarian folk women voices amaze me, dark as fuck) and love listening to soundtracks as well.

What are the lyrics about you write for Dumange? How have the topics in your lyrics changed from when you started to nowadays?
The whole album is a conceptual and very clear topic (if you speak spanish, of course). It’s a statement against prison. Song is a letter where a prisoner who’s in jail for no reason writes to his loved ones what the suffering of being tortured is. I didn’t write the lyrics, Senén (our singer) did. Even though I helped him a bit reading books and zines about it, some of them got me fucked a lot cause they were really hard to read. Jail memories and the letters that never came (Rosencof), Breaking the silence organization books, Are prisons obsolete? (Angela Davis) are some to name and chapters about it from anarchists biographies (and autobiographies) as Durruti, Garcia Oliver, Emma Goldman, Lucy Parsons, Cipriano Mera, Berkman and many more. We also added a part in honor of a catalonian girl called Patricia Heras, who killed herself because she got in prison falsely accused of violent aggression against the police. There’s a documentary called „Ciutat morta“ that you can watch on internet in any platform for free, about the 4F case where they talk about Patricia and the whole police corruption involved. I also can’t forget a zine called „Punto de mira“ which did a lot for the anti prisons movement and the prisoners.

How du you get gigs? Have you played a tour/Are you planning a tour after the Corona pandemic?
We got in contact with promoters, friends, friends from another friends and schedule gigs basically, we don’t have a manager so we do all the stuff. We played in England right after releasing the album and we planned to play Europe this summer and couldn’t make it so yeah, we’re planning a tour after the corona pandemic but I’m afraid that is not gonna be possible until 2021.

Here in Germany we have a problem with the rise of right wing parties like the „AfD“ since the so called refugee crisis from 2015. They get up to 20% of the votes. So far I can see the whole world seems to turn right. How is the situation in Spain? What is the percentage of the votes?
Well, here in spain the thing is almost like that, what everyone calls far right (VOX) got a 15,1% which means 3 million people voted them. What happens is, it seems they’re an split-off from another right wing party (PP) and to respond properly to the question I gotta go back a few years back. We had a dictatorship for 40 years, and when it „finished“ they kept the same people in the same institutions for another 40 years, which is right now, everything related to politics in spain is so corrupted that it’s almost impossible to see a solution to it. The heirs of those who were in power during the dictatorship are basically the ones running the country. Even one of the supposedly left wing party (PSOE) looks to the right immensely. Fucked up stuff and I didn’t even say a thing, i’d need a 200 fanzine pages to say how fucked up spain is talking about politics and that’d be short.Even though the situation now could be worse, not saying it’s good but at least there’s a left wing parties coalition government and some of them are doing some stuff that hopefully could help some people in need (i think that’s too much expectations from a government)

Can you tell me something about the spanish music underground? What are important spanish punk, hardcore, metal bands? When did that scene start?
I think we’ve got a pretty good underground at the moment, plenty of bands, there’s a lot of fests as well, but don’t think there’s a scene anymore, there’s a lot of stuff going on but i don’t see any connections between them. What we can call „scene“ to talk about the first bands i listened to and were an influence to all of us in spain were (just gonna name a few) „Subterranean kids“ or „HHH“ who started around 1984 or 1985 and „L’odi social“ i guess they’re even from 1981, so i think they started everything in Spain talking about hardcore. I know there’s punk bands from 76/77 too but i started listening to punk with „Eskorbuto“ and they started in 1980. Metal ufff, don’t really like spanish metal bands from the 80s or 90s, too pretentious and not really underground (if there were, i’ve never been into it). Even though now there’s great bands such as „Adrift“ (check this guys out) who are one of my favourite bands since the 00s, their sound is massive. We’ve got a nice grind, crust and doom bands, „Haemorrhage“ „Looking for an answer“ „Ekkaia“ „Ictvs“ „Gruesome stuff relish“ „Moho„. Some of them split ages ago and some of them still play. And now i don’t know, i’ll just name a few that i like and I’m friends with, there’s a lot of styles here and they’re active bands. „Sudestada“ „Laid“ „Tröpical ice land“ „Weak“ „Ulises lima“ „Tony galento“ „Accidente“ „Acid Mess“ „Sound of Silence“ (I also play with them as a replacement now and then) „Mortsubite„….etc haha all those bands play so different styles but they’re great dudes.

What are the future plans for Dumange? Are you working on new songs?
At the moment there’s no plan for Dumange until next year. I write the music and now I’m writing and planning recording with my other band. Even though I have plenty of riffs for an EP that they just need to be connected.

Would you like to tell our readers something personal, political or a rant?
Thanks a lot for having us on your zine and whoever is reading this and listening to our music, that means a lot to us. Also fuck racism, fuck fascism and fuck any other kind of oppression around the world and specially to those who don’t have any privilege and are oppressed the most.