The Underground Youth was started in 2008 as the creative project of Craig Dyer. The band have released 12 albums and 4 EPs, over the years developing their unique sound, which has ranged from cinematic lo-fi psychedelia to a raw and noisy, albeit romantically melancholic, form of post-punk.
Shrouded in a dark aesthetic and the imagery of various art film movements, The Underground Youth have established a devoted global following and cult fan base, continuously built upon by their extensive touring schedule through Europe, Asia and North America. Signed to independent record label Fuzz Club in 2012, The Underground Youth currently consists of Craig (Vocals/Guitar), Olya Dyer (Drums), Leonard Kaage (Guitar) and Samira Zahidi (Bass). The band relocated from Manchester to Berlin in 2016.
Questions and Answers:
3 FACTS
1: “Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination.”
2: “Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.”
3: “It’s awfully easy to be hard-boiled about everything in the daytime, but at night it is another thing.”
11 QUESTIONS
1. What is the biggest inspiration for your music?
All of the clichés, love, beauty, desire, heartache, hatred, outrage, darkness.
2. How and when did you get into making music?
Age eighteen, nineteen, almost half of my life ago, a few guitar chords and a naive poem about a group of youths who were infinitely cooler than me.
3. What are 5 of your favourite albums of all time? (yes we know it is difficult).
Rowland S. Howard – Teenage Snuff Film
The Fall – Live at the Witch Trials
Slowdive – Souvlaki
Bob Dylan – Blonde on Blonde
Suicide – Suicide
4. What do you associate with Berlin?
An ever changing landscape, historical, industrial, dark and smoky, wide open and green, diverse and culturally rich.
5. What’s your favourite place in your town?
It depends on the mood, our local kneipe, or even our own home. Also, Volkspark Friedrichshain is just at the end of our street, we’re lucky to have this beautiful space on our doorstep.
6. If there was no music in the world, what would you do instead?
I find great satisfaction in writing, so providing poetry and prose still existed in a world without music, I’d turn my hand solely to that.
7. What was the last record/music you bought or listened to?
Working through these questions I’ve had Nico’s Desertshore playing in the background. I recently read Cosey Fanni Tutti’s fantastic memoir in which she documented Throbbing Gristle (as X-TG) recording their cover of the full Desertshore album, it reminded me to revisit both versions, which I hadn’t in a long while.
8. Who would you most like to collaborate with?
I feel as though if you utter such desires out loud then they’re less likely to come to pass, but in the spirit of things… I’d have to opt for a filmmaker that I’d love to work on a soundtrack for, Luca Guadagnino.
9. What was your best gig (as performer or spectator)?
Swans are one of the most powerful and immersive live bands I’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing. The first time was in a small club in Manchester in 2012, an all out sonic assault. Somehow no matter how loud they are, Michael manages to find space for each individual element of the live band. It’s really a case of beauty in extreme noise.
10. How important is technology to your creative process?
It’s certainly made the recording process easier, achieving your desired sound without the extreme financial cost of tracking down rare vintage equipment. But as a live band we rely on the simplicity of our instruments, guitars, bass and two drums, in that regard I wouldn’t say technology is important to our creative process, however much it affects every other aspect of our lives.
11. What can we expect from your concert at Pop-Kultur 2025?
A collection of songs that spans our 17 year career, all worked together and delivered with everything that we love about live music, fierce energy, beautiful layers of noise, our own raw excitement that we’ll feed back to the audience.
