DamoNomaD is a Rock band based in Seoul, South Korea. Their Alternative Rock style challenges old notions of K-Pop Dance music associated with the South Korean music scene. With diverse backgrounds of musical influences, they pull their inspiration from artists like Radiohead, Coldplay, Sigur Ros, Bjork, Asgeir, Hans Zimmer, Max Richter, Shpongle, and Oasis. DamoNomaD has its sites on the international stage stating, “we want to challenge to change the world in a positive way, by our music!”
In this interview spotlight, I chat with DamoNomaD about their latest project, challenges, technology and more.
Full Q&A along with links and music below.
Where are you from and what style of music do you create? (In your own words, not necessarily in marketing terms or by popular genre classifications.)
We are all South Koreans and we do create ‘Nomad Rock’. Our music is basically based on rock music but we always add various styles we like such as Ambient, folk, even electronica. Maybe we should say that we’re just wandering nomads in the world of music.
What led you down this path of music and what motivates you to keep going?
The answer is really simple; Radiohead & Coldplay. Their music has changed literally everything of our whole lives and our lifelong dream is to create great artwork like theirs. That dream keeps us going and always gives us fresh enthusiasm.
How is this new release different than previous ones? Were you trying to accomplish anything specific?
Well.. ‘Wandering Sequence’ EP is our one and only album for now actually so we don’t have previous one. (Haha) Anyway, we wanted to make these 6 songs in album sound like ‘one long piece of music’ because we thought each track is part of painting and whole album is one huge landscape painting. You can also find every song’s outro is connected with next song’s intro and that links each storyline.
Name one or two challenges you face as an indie musician in this over saturated, digital music age? How has technology helped you (since we know it does help)?
It seems like complicated but we think everybody knows what challenge of indie musician is. IT IS ALL ABOUT MONEY. since we can’t earn enough money by small gigs or pennies from streaming sites, we’re forced to spend time to work for living instead of create music or practice. Also, speaking of digital music age, some might say it’s ‘age of opportunity’. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with that technically but it’s oversaturated as you mentioned. Development of technology in music industries brought opportunities and excessive competitions to musicians at the same time. So, we’re just going to say, ‘Thank you tech, but we think you’ve gone way too far!’
What was the last song you listened to?
‘Less’ of Nils Frahm. He always makes great musical structure with simple ideas.
Which do you prefer? Vinyl? CDs? MP3s?
CD is our best for now but we also like MP3s for its convenient and vinyl… We really want to make vinyl album someday. It’s a legacy of music history and has a unique, nostalgic value. You know, we think it is as romantic as inscriptions of hieroglyphs on stone tablets.
How about this one…. Do you prefer Spotify? Apple Music? Bandcamp? Or something else? Why?
We’d say the answer is ‘none of the above’. Because Spotify is currently not available in South Korea and we didn’t get used to using Apple Music yet and haven’t started Bandcamp. (We’ll start soon!) We prefer South Korea-only streaming site called ‘Melon’ for now. But hey, things change.
Where is the best place to connect with you online and discover more music?
You can find ‘DamoNomaD’ on Facebook, Instagram, SoundCloud, YouTube Music, Spotify, Apple Music, Audiosparx, etc. We don’t update new contents that actively but we want you to know that we’re always struggle to make a new thing! Nowadays we’re doing preparation for making demos and videos. Please look forward to it!
Anything else before we sign off?
Love from South Korea. Thank you so much for discover us!
