Vandalisbin: Soulful Songs of Love, Separation, and Social Issues

2023-06-26 16:47:10

Helena Niederstraßer is actually known as the drummer in numerous bands: Cosma Joy, Tiger Tiger, the Bridgetones, Wildes or Ennio. For her own band project Vandalisbin she puts the drumsticks aside. With their sensitive songs about love, separation and social problems, the band shows how it feels to dance on clouds and stand in the rain. Songs with an uncanny lightness without being melancholic or pathetic.

“Sophiea” is one of those songs in which Helena processes the painful experience of her second separation. But there is always a portion of wit and enough charm to be heard. The soulful framing of guitar, bass, keyboard and drums provide the appropriate groove.

When Helena was 15 years old, her music teacher gave her a guitar. A warm gesture that was decisive for Helena’s musical path. Helena later urged her mother to take drum lessons as well. Since then she has been active as a drummer, received a scholarship for the jazz school in Pasing and completed her training there. But she held back with her own songs and preferred to play them in the “kids’ room,” she says and laughs. At some point that wasn’t enough for her anymore. The biggest obstacle to going on stage as a singer is fear. “I’m so insecure as a singer compared to playing the drums,” says Helena, although she otherwise appears very self-confident.

She performs her songs with Misha Kaznacheyeva and Sam Simons on the Keys. She met both of them in jazz school. The musical background of the three can be heard in the songs: dominant chords and jazzy keyboard interjections characterize the music. The drums remain vacant and will be played temporarily by Simon Stewart.

After the first concerts with her new band, the relief is great. She now feels the fear of being on stage with her own songs differently: “I think it’s nice to have a stage, a space for me, which wasn’t easy for me either,” she says.