Swedish Horror Punks THE DAHMERS Share a Track-by-Track ‘Down In The Basement’ Breakdown [Exclusive]

Sweden’s rock-horror act The Dahmers are due to drop their third release, Down In The Basement, October 26th via Lövely Records. These thrashy horror punk aficionados ooze energy and swagger, and inject their Jay Reatard-esque garage punk with heavy layers of beautiful pulpy, gory, slashy mythos. We are totally psyched – and mildly terrified – to have band member Christoffer Karlsson give us a track-by-track summation for the imminent release.

01. “Blood On My Hands”
– Inspired by stories like Psycho and Jekyll & Hyde, the song is telling the horrific story of a schizophrenic murderer trying to cope with himself and reality. As melodic and horror influenced as always, but with a rawer surface, this three-minute slasher will find its way to your brain and cut it in half, marking you for life.

02. “Murder Ride”
– Written and sung by our killer drummer Karl-Oskar. “Murder Ride” is a song for the wild rock ‘n’ roll animals, riding in an accelerating car right into the night.

03. “Street Of The Dead”
– A tune inspired by bands like The Kinks and T. Rex, basic melodic rock ‘n’ roll really, it’s hard not to like.

Yes, I have “Blood On My Hands”, and this video won’t wash it off.

04. “Down On My Knees”
– This song includes everything that created The Dahmers. Rock ‘n’ roll riffs, punk attitude, flashing guitar solos and a big pop chorus that sucks to your brain like a leech. A Frankenstein’s monster of music!

05. “The Ripper”
– Inspired by old biker movies like Wild Angels and Easy Rider this gives you an energetic rock ‘n’ roll song with a contrast between pop and a lot of darkness.

06. “Hit ‘N’ Run”
– With a rock solid punk riff this song moves like a machine. About a fast driving paranoid man with an urge to kill people with his car.

07. “Howling”
– Once again, pure rock with a pop feel based on melody, about the wolves constantly howling in your chest.

08. “I Spit On Your Grave”
– We wanted to pretend that we were Motörhead.

The Kinks with “You Really Got Me”.

09. “Demon Night”
– It came straight out of a nightmare of chaos and anxiety. With punk energy and attitude it takes you on a ride through a 1 minute and 40 seconds night of hell.

10. “Creepiest Creep”
– A song about your darkest fears lurking under your bed or in your closet and it’s slowly creeping up on you. We like rock and we like to boogie oki?

11. “Reoccurring Dreams”
– “Reoccurring Dreams” is about sleep paralysis and various phenomenons one can experience in conjunction with exhaustion and intoxication. A garage influenced punk frenzy that, much like the swing of a blade, will be over before it even started.

12. “Without A Face”
– Unknown and straight out of the shadows comes a man without a face. A pop influenced garage punk tune with straightforward energy. Basically everyone likes a good melody so that’s the not so secret ingredient.

13. “Kiss Of Dario”
– As the sun goes down violent compulsive behaviour is all around us. This is a paranoid pop tune from the vault of the crypt with a lot of 60’s vibe.

14. “Man Obsessed”
– A cover on Daniel Johnston’s song “Man Obsessed”. We wanted to do a cover of something completely different from our own music so we could give a more personal touch to it. This song we recorded live straight on tape ’cause we wanted to get the feel of the early Beatles recordings. And also Daniel Johnston is a really cool artist.

15. “No One”
– A fast and frustrated punk song with a grain of country. It’s about spending your Friday night alone, drunk and bored.

16. “Social Fools”
– DEVO is a really good band so we did a version of their song “Social Fools”. Check out the original.

17. “November”
– Records are always better when they include variation and contrast. This is a basic pop tune that’s very T-Rex inspired including mostly acoustic guitars and bongo drums, sometimes the most punk thing to do is to go against peoples expectations. So we never limit our selves in the creative process and like to keep on doing just what we feel like doing in the moment.

18. “The End”
– We like horror, we like synthesizer and we like John Carpenter. This track is the proof. Written and performed by our nice bass player Age.

Johnston’s original “Man Obsessed”.