Iceage’s Elias Bender Rønnenfelt: “I’m Terrified of Nostalgia”
The frontman of Iceage tells Dean Mayo Davies about the band’s new album and why writing is a way of making sense of life for him
May 12, 2021
Lead ImageIceagePhotography by Mishael Phillip
“I’m sort of getting used to being statically in one place for the first time since I was a teenager,”
Iceage’s
Elias Bender Rønnenfelt shares over Zoom from his home in Copenhagen, where he’s been (behaving himself) for the past year. “You do find, first of all, you can create lots of mess in the city you’re from, you don’t have to run away to do that. And second of all you just find that the ideas start coming from different places, or there’s just another tempo to things.”
Interview
Since debuting with 2011 s
New Brigade, a furious blast of post-punk noise, Danish outfit Iceage have continually changed shape, making dark, oft-uncomfortable music that feels eternally restless. Along the way, that s meant some fans have been ruffled when one album has made a radical departure from its predecessor. We ve disappointed so many people over the years, smiles Iceage leader Elias Bender Rønnenfelt, speaking to Anthony Carew on The International Pop Underground. And I ve always found some kind of enjoyment in that. Now that I ve disappointed people through several cycles over the years, I ve also seen that I ve proven them wrong. And fuck them, you know?
Iceage Return With New Single The Holding Hand Wednesday, 03 February 2021
Photo: Mishael Phillip
Iceage have returned with The Holding Hand, the first single via their new label home Mexican Summer.
Following their 2020 single Lockdown Blues, the over-five-minute track builds through ominous, pounding percussion and guitars while retaining the slow-burning, spaced-out cinematic sound the Copenhagen post-punks leaned towards on their last LP, Beyondless , released in 2018. Frontman Elias Bender Rønnenfelt said: The song lives in a slurred world, movements are elastically stretched out and strength is found in weakness while you find it hard to tell the difference between fume and matter. Gently the swaying intensifies, feel it escalate. Reach out for the holding hand, it seems almost within scope now.