What do you do when your band falls apart but you still want to make music together? If you were members of middling German alt-metallers Hyrax, you dress up as zombies and make power metal. Obviously.
“It was always clear that when we did something new, we wanted to do it together,” affirms frontman Felix Heldt, now fronting the lads' bloody new project Dominum under the alias of 'Dr Dead'. “Dominum gets back to the core of what we really are, and here I am again with my mates!"
Formed in 2022 after Hyrax bit the dust, Dominum, completed by ex-Hyrax men Korbinian Benedict (AKA 'Patient Zero', bass), and Jochen Windisch (AKA 'Tommy Kemp', guitar), plus drummer Marcos Feminella ('Victor Hiltop'), have already infected large swathes of Europe with their mash-up of Powerwolf-styled heavy metal histrionics and gruesome, zombie fiction-inspired lyrics.
"Tommy and I blend well together," explains Felix. "Musically, we speak one language, so when he plays something on guitar he immediately gets me. Victor, we met along the road; we asked him if he wanted to wear a zombie mask and sweat onstage and he was like, ‘Sure, let’s do it!’”
If you think the undead schtick just came from one of the band's members watching a zombie film or TV show then...welll...actually, you'd be be correct. That's exactly what happened. Albeit via a slightly roundabout way courtesy of Felix's other job as a producer, working on an album by Austrian pirate metallers Visions Of Atlantis (yes, there's pirate metal too. Where have you been?!)
“Every day, I drove to the studio feeling like a pirate, and went home with the mindset of a pirate!" Felix laughs. "Then I was watching The Walking Dead and thinking, ‘There are pirate bands and Viking bands, there’s a werewolf band... why is there no zombie band?!”
Of course, technically there are already zombie bands (remember Send More Paramedics? And that dude literally called Rob Zombie?), but that didn't stop Felix and Tommy falling down a gory rabbit hole to begin planning their new project.
“We watched zombie movies, day and night…it was a lot!” he laughs. Soon, a more crystallised (albeit even more ludicrous) idea formed: they'd write songs "from the mindset of a mad scientist who wants to make the world a better place with his zombies.”
Thus, Dr Dead was born - and Felix suddenly found himself with a different kind of challenge to make his barmy protagonist click.
“It was difficult to really get into the role because I’m not an actor, so it took quite a bit to develop,” he admits. “When I was trying to act too much, people would look at me like, ‘What the fuck is this, kindergarten?’ But when you balance the fader back on the natural side, people were like, ‘Yeah this is fucking great!’ You have to stick to your own thing, trust your gut and be authentic."
Being authentic while dressed in Halloween costumes singing bangers about zombies is a hell of a mission statement, but metal has rich history for this kind of thing. From Gwar to Lordi, Powerwolf to Evil Scarecrow, many a band has made its name from embracing the ridiculous and running with it, creating riotously entertaining music along the way.
Sadly, that didn't stop Dominum from freewheeling into an existential crisis almost immediately.
”On the first record [2023's Hey Living People] we didn’t know who we were, actually,” Felix says. “We had an idea: ‘OK, we’re gonna be a zombie band’. But what even is a zombie band? What can we do? What variety of music will people accept, how broad can we be?”
Felix needn't have panicked: by the time 2024 follow-up The Dead Don't Die landed, Dominum had nurtured their sound beyond the trappings of fun but flimsy comedy metal and into something much more bombastic. It's peak Euro-metal with lashings of gore. And most importantly, the songs are good. What's not to love?
“My profession is melodies,” Felix says. “That’s what keeps me awake at night, thinking, ‘Is this the best I can do?’ This has been my whole career, really: 'Can this be better? Does it really touch me?'”
Dominum's peeling, blood-splattered anthems are certainly touching metalheads. As their plague continues to sweep across Europe, the only question left is whether you're gonna sprint in the opposite direction like Robert Carlisle in 28 Weeks Later or just let the infection take you.
The Dead Don’t Die is out now via Napalm. Dominum’s UK tour starts in Birmingham on October 21
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