Interview with Dame Tu Alma

«Wine, the blood of Christ, and scary stories for the crowd»

The band members themselves describe their work as “Atmospheric horror and melancholic vocal melodies that meet apocalyptic guitar riffs in the music. Dark rock rises from a graveyard in the Swiss capital, Bern." The visual image of the musicians also refers us to classic gothic shows. The frontman of the project kindly found some time for us to discuss creative plans for the coming year, his tastes in art, and childhood dreams that became reality.

The first thing I want to say is that you and your band have a very unusual and memorable look. Do you do all the makeup and outfits yourself, or does someone help you?

Yes, I primarily create the stage costumes myself. For the makeup and look, I need a little help from a nice young lady called Minx Nocturne. Thanks to her, I look presentable today, and she does wonders to my ugly face.

What would you say is the most interesting fact about your band?

The most interesting fact is how we've managed to stick together being such different and crazy individuals. The most interesting fact to the audience, not to me, I guess, is how we dress and act on stage, our sense of humor, and anything that doesn't involve music. The music sucks.

I'd also be interested to hear about your band's philosophy and where such an interesting name came from.

I was lying in my coffin, as usual, and I was looking at Instagram. And I noticed that most bands, I mean most metal bands, try to make a name like Nordic names. The whole Nordic mythology thing... It made me want to do something a little bit different. And also I noticed that it sounds a little bit like “Lana Del Rey.” I think she's beautiful, by the way. But actually the title is pretty dark and popular in the places where I and our guitarist are from. And it means “give me your soul” in Spanish. And that's the basic thing we want from people. When we make our music, we give it our blood, sweat, and tears, and we don't expect anything else from our listeners.

How do you think your music affects your listeners?

Sometimes when we play live shows, our guitarist likes to add a bit more sound, and it certainly has a big impact on the ears of the listeners, and it seems to be a sonic frenzy. Or sometimes the sound engineer makes some mistakes and there are explosions. So there is a physical impact on the audience. That's also how I hope we affect the audience with our lyrics, because I'm crazy about that. I try to write about things that bother me—love, desires, death—and do it in a beautiful way so that it hooks people. That way, I try to affect people emotionally and physically.

Good answer!

Thank you.  I rehearsed it all the way through today.

Your stage image and creative themes seem to be just as mystical. Do you believe in anything mystical or paranormal?

We believe in the power of wine and the blood of Christ. I myself believe in spiritualism, Satanism, Luciferianism and wine. But we only use it all for “scarecrows” for idiots. We don't mess around reinventing the wheel. There were and are already many people who have done it before us and we may be standing on the shoulders of giants going the same way. So we use this whole dystopian image to scare stupid people. It's kind of a defense mechanism against random people who don't need to listen to someone who looks something like us. We're offering something different from the usual stuff people believe in. It's an attempt to change the status quo and help people think about something more than mysticism. We have different faiths and belief systems ourselves, but we try not to incorporate that into our creativity. Most of what we do exists to annoy people.

A career in music is definitely not the easiest way to live. What led you to this choice, and how did you make the decision that you couldn't live without music?

First of all, we are not alive. I told you I lay in a coffin most of the day, so we don't need to be alive. That's the upside of being dead: you can live through music. Or die for it. I'd like to die for music. I'm not looking for a way to live through music. So we're okay with that.

Your lyrics are filled with a dark aesthetic. Would you describe yourself as a dark person in real life?

I'm a teddy bear in real life. But don't tell anyone that. Such a weird teddy bear. I can't do any advertising here, but there are these funny toys in the US market where you push a button and their teeth jump out and other weird stuff. I'm just like those toys, cute and evel.

Which song would you say is the most important right now and why?

Probably the newest one. The newest ones always seem to be the most important. Some of them are like personal diaries where I can write what I'm feeling at the moment, or what's bothering me, or what I'm dealing with. So I'll call important things that we're working on right now, or even things that haven't been written yet. But right now, this song called “Skinwalker,” which is an homage to the story of Little Red Riding Hood and the wolf. It's about desire, which is flavored with notes of cannibalism and horror. That's why I like this song a lot.

You use quite a lot of makeup...

No, what do you mean? It's natural beauty.

But you are literally creating a new look and a new personality for the stage. Maybe it's an attempt to escape reality and your fears?

Of course, it's a kind of escapism. For the same reason, we only show a part of our lives. We try to create a kind of surrealistic approach to our image. When I think about horror, there's a thing that really scares me. And it's not horror movies. What really scares me is the way rock stars show on Instagram what they had for breakfast. Personally, I don't want to tell people what I have for breakfast, and I want to have my privacy. And I want to invite you into the world I've created. It's such an attempt to make a real world out of the real world. Let's be honest, we all go to jobs we don't like. One of my favorite comedians, his name is Bill Burr, says „everybody eats a shit sandwich“. And I believe that. Why don't we take people's minds off of it? It's okay to look like clowns on stage for the sake of it.

Do you have any special rituals to get inspired, or do you just sit on a chair and work 6 hours a day?

If we talk about where I get my inspiration from, I have a cemetery not far from my house, and I often go there with my acoustic guitar and pretend I'm Robert Johnson. And I write songs about Satan. But I'm really trying. I also take something from movies. I love art in general: painting, poetry. But, we're not talking about contemporary art. I don't like a banana stuck to the wall. I don't see it as art. It's certainly art to sell something like that for a lot of money. In general, I'm not very original in my tastes.

What kind of things do you focus on when choosing the songs that will be on the album?

Right now I'm working with a dear friend whose name is Tommy Vetterli. He's kind of the brains of ‘’Coroner“. It's a band from Switzerland. He helps me with the recordings and tells me what he likes. Sometimes I need some therapy after his advice because my heart is broken. But that's only half true. Generally, you know and feel these things. I also have the “pasta technique” in stock—when you throw it against the wall and it sticks, that means it's done! That's exactly what I do with songs.

What qualities does an artist today have to have to be able to compete with other artists and new technologies, artificial intelligence, and things like that?

I'll probably get crucified for my opinion, but I don't think you can fight these things. Technologies are those things that are like a monster. If you don't learn to work with the tools available to you, you're just going to drown in them and not be as relevant. Yes, of course we try to learn how to control these things, but we also have to learn how to use them. It's like learning how to swim. At least I'm trying.

How do you put up with criticism or comments from haters?

I cry a lot and go to therapy. My heart is still broken by the comments at „X“. That's the exact reason why I was 30 minutes late for this interview: I cried the whole time because of the horrible comments. I'm a very sensitive person. But in general, I don't care. People can say whatever they want. I write music because I feel it's something I have to do. Sometimes people hate me.

I've even had a few relationships where my partner hated me for banging on the table and humming. Music is literally inside me all day long. So I have to do it as therapy and let it out in one form or another. And I don't care about comments about it because I'm really happy with what I'm doing. I think most of the people who leave all these angry comments are the people who don't understand anything about the music industry, and they think it's easy. I can be a troll sometimes too. So for the most part, I don't really care.

What was your childhood dream that you were able to fulfill?

I remember that I was always singing or making music. The first thing I can remember is when I was 6 years old or so, my mom gave me a keyboard for Christmas. Where I'm from, all these fireworks and pyrotechnics are very popular. And I remember one time I lit one of those and it exploded in my hand, and my whole palm was covered in blood and wounds. And so when I unwrapped my Christmas present, I started crying and played the first notes. So music has always been filled with pain, tears, and joy for me. And I fell in love with that feeling in that same moment. And I felt that I was giving music all my wounds, and it was healing me. My childhood dream was always “to give music what it gave me”. And I make music according to that principle.

Can you remember the best piece of advice that got you the best results?

Tommy Vetterli once told me that shooting is quite therapeutic. He enjoys shooting, and maybe it's just something personal to him. But I've yet to see it work. But I'm having a hard time with advice—I'm a pretty stubborn person. I rarely take advice before it's too late. My mom often told me, “Don't stick a fork in an outlet,” and the first thing I decided to do was stick a fork in an outlet. So I obviously like to get burned and have my own personal experiences. You might think I'm just dumb or maybe a natural scientist who likes to do dumb experiments. I like to do things and see what happens because I have a belief that everyone has their own path and experience of life. My formula for life may not work for you. But sometimes I try to listen to advice from people who love me.

When can we expect a new album or a new record from you?

We have a tour with Gothminister in March, which will be a European tour with some dates and countries in Europe. After that we'll be back in the studio, and we'll be preparing some records in April. But I have a plan to release a couple of songs very soon, and I hope it comes to fruition before we go on tour.

Jenet Bonishi