Life is looking up for darkwave artist DAMIEN.
Only four years into making electronic-industrial music, he has already released two albums, and is following up with his third offering 'Candidate For The Abyss'.Drawing comparisons to Nine Inch Nails and Depeche Mode, DAMIEN uses his powerful, explosive music as catharsis and a means of connection.
'Candidate For The Abyss' continues to explore DAMIEN's deep feelings of isolation, rejection and loneliness through sonic outbursts of expression, layered with impressive searing guitars and aggressive synthesiser lines.
The title of the album came from hate mail received after DAMIEN posted an image wearing a fishnet top, unbuttoned jeans and a cross pendant.
While the album's third track, 'Abuser', delves into the complexities of a relationship where DAMIEN felt that everything he did was misconstrued as evil, portrayed through damning lyrics: 'hiding behind every corner thinking of ways to destroy you.' "It definitely was cathartic to get those feelings out there," shares DAMIEN.
"Part of it was personal experience of being in a relationship where it didn't matter how much I tried to grow or improve, the other person in that relationship seemed to have a very static view of who I was, so I was never going to meet the bar.
"It probably resonates a lot with a lot of people, a lot of men in general; when you get that sense you're destined to be a bad person regardless of what happens. It was good to get that out."
DAMIEN recently played at SPARK Ipswich's SPARK After Dark event SPARK Mofo, which combined live music with live 'death drawing' in a fascinating meeting of artistic modes. "We thought we'd do something different in terms of melding multiple disciplines together," DAMIEN says.
"So we decided in a real quirky twist, instead of doing life drawing, let's make it death drawing. Initially the thought was we'll get a mannequin and mangle the heck out of it and make it look really dead and beat up.
"But earlier this year, I got to act in a music video for another band where I played a crackhead, and they hired a professional costume make-up artist to make me look really sullen and worn out, totally cooked on ice.
"So I was like it'd be really cool to get this person to make-up our life drawing model, and make them look really dead and zombie like. So we had an actual life-drawing model, made-up like it had been dead for a few days, getting drawn by a really accomplished sketch artist, while we had musicians onstage performing around them.
"And people in the audience could dance to the music or draw. It was a really cool vibe and I look forward to making it bigger and better next year."
DAMIEN discovered his platform and style for using music as an effective creative outlet later in life, with COVID playing a large role in facilitating the shift.
"I had grown up in a small country town in NSW (Armidale) where everybody played sport. You wanted to be accepted into your peer groups, and you had to be good at sport, which I wasn't, but I worked really hard to try and get good at things like cricket and athletics.
"It wasn't 'til later in life, very late teens, where I was going through deep bouts of depression, and my dad had started trying to learn guitar, so he gave his guitar to me and said, 'you seem to be really down and not knowing what to do with yourself, so why don't you learn this'.
"I found that I had a real affinity, it was that cathartic way of being able to communicate emotions. Music has always been about finding a healthy way to vent inner conflict and turmoil.
"The music that I create now came about around the time of COVID. I was at a stage that if I'm gonna do this, I need to drive this for myself. So I needed a way to create something loud and emotional that had the capacity to get really big when it needed to, and also pull back when it needed to.
"I didn't want to be playing on an acoustic guitar 'cause I found that didn't convey enough of the angst that I had within me, yet a band was really restricting as well. So that's where it came about, a genre of music that would allow me to make the bigness that I want, but on my own. That's where it birthed from."
DAMIEN has been open about his struggles living with bipolar disorder, but is optimistic about the benefits it provides to his life and art.
"It's really funny, it's probably the greatest thing for an artist having that; it's been a real blessing as much as a curse. I do find it really difficult to go through the motions of life, to be able to feel satisfied with a piece of work, or to be consistent in jobs and relationships.
"So it has come at a tremendous cost in terms of going through significant heartache and struggles at work. But on the flip side, I find one of the things with bipolar disorder is that you're very sensitive to your own emotional state and the emotions of the people around you, which is why I think this sways so much. But I think that's where great art comes from.
"You're able to become more in tune, particularly if you really start to do the work, and focus on yourself, and work out 'why is it that I'm really swinging into this depression or into this mania and what is this reflecting and telling me of myself?'.
"It helps to find ways of communicating things that humanity is feeling on the whole, but may often not have that sensitivity to articulate. I'm currently reading a book by Rick Rubin, it's called 'The Creative Act: A Way of Being'.
"It resonates a lot because he talks about that sensitivity towards the feelings that you have. I find it's really helpful when I'm in depression to stop and sit there and just look at even just a flower or a tree or listen to a bird, and allow the emotions that I'm feeling and then the stimulus of the outside world to meld together.
"I've actually weaned myself off the medications I was taking, trying to see can I actually live with this disorder, knowing what it is and be able to manage that in a way that allows me to feel the full brunt of it, but in a positive way."
'Candidate For The Abyss' is released this Friday 28 July. DAMIEN launches the album at King Lear's Throne 4 (Brisbane) August.
