Garagarockband Traumahelikopter performing at Northside Festival

Fri, Jun 13 - Fri, Jun 13  2014

Garagarockband Traumahelikopter will be performing at Northside Festival, during Dutch Sounds @ Northside, on June 14 at The Urban Outfitters Space 98 Stage at 1:35pm, and at Bar Matchless at 5pm. 

Traumahelikopter is a garagerock band with a devil-may-care-attitude, which was founded in Groningen in 2010 by leadvocalist Mark Lada, guitarist Daan van Dalen, and drummer Roel van Merlot.

They produced their first full-length album in 2013, which was recorded in a week and got the band great reviews from a magazine like Maximum Rock ‘n Roll and many of the biggest Dutch newspapers. The single ‘Down In The City’ was featured by sites as Pitchfork and Noisey and ranked among Huffington Posts’ ‘Best Songs Of 2013’. The band has been touring non-stop ever since, playing all over Europe and in the US.

On traumahelikopter’s second album ‘I Don’t Understand Them At All’ we enter the mind of 25 year old singer Mark Lada, who writes about alienation, depression, loneliness and despair. The songs are more intense and personal than on the band’s self-titled debut, released by Excelsior Recordings and Burger Records this year.

On their second album, Mark states: “I wanted to make a record which has the same punk intensity as our first album, but in a more melodious way. With our debut being a stripped- down 27- minute statement, this record focusses on the songs”. The band’s minimal set up (floor tom, snare, crash, two guitars) ties them down to te essence of it all; rock ‘n roll. The lyrics display their love for irony, with a song like ‘Last Night I Dreamed I Killed Myself’ being the ultimate sing-a-long.

With a mutual love for rock ‘n roll music and a destructive perspective on daily life, it didn’t take long before Mark Lada and Daan van Dalen became BFF’s. After multiple bad breakups, college debts and shitty call center jobs, the two took residence in an old warehouse building to write songs. After a while, the guys hooked up with Roel van Merlot, who turned out to be the ultimate addition to transform the band into an iconic trinity, based around drums, electric guitar and electric guitar. National newspapers concluded that “traumahelikopter has found the essence of rock ‘n roll.” Go see for yourself at Northside!

Traumahelikopter will also perform in Philadelhpia at Connie’s Ric Rac on June 10th and at The Delancey on June 16.