Down and Dirty with Denmark

Within months, they’ve gone from acoustic sets behind Italian restaurants to playing their most anticipated show of the summer at Bowery Electric, where they shared a stage with the likes of The Revel, RAGS AND RICHES, TELEVISION SKIES, and Honey Drop. And for good reason. If you’ve seen them live, you’ll know that Denmark makes moshpits out of dive bars. They’re notorious for their onstage energy that’ll get even the 70-year-old wine-sippers rattling their bones. But as rowdy as it all is, that doesn’t mean they don’t have the musical chops. The guitar riffs are unpredictable and artfully crafted, the bass-lines come from years of theory and training, and the drums are rapid firing with constantly changing rhythms and time signatures. And if the songs themselves don’t sound that complicated, it’s because their technical skill enables the band to play effortlessly. The three speak their own musical language and finish each other’s sentences— it’s only natural that their music be as harmonic as the three of them are.

Ben Denmark— I work at a collectibles auction house on Long Island.

Frankie Fowlkes— It sounds like a joke, but he's being serious.

BD— Is it funny? I'm going to say a lot more funnier stuff later on. So get the giggles ready.

I'm getting the giggles ready. How'd you meet?

David Reichberg— Well, Ben and I are stepbrothers and we've been playing music together since 2013. And Frankie and I met in highschool. It was our mutual friend’s birthday party and he was like, “Dude, it's gonna be sick. Make sure you come, there are gonna be so many people.” I show up with my friend and it's dead. There's no one there and I go into the other room and it's just him and Frankie doing whippits. Frankie was lying there dead, so I sit down next to him and he shoves them in my face and goes, “Bro, you got to try!” [laughs]

What if your mom reads this article?

FF— My mom knows this story!

So when did you all get together?

DR— Right after D-Day in 2022. Ben and I were in our own band where we actually wrote some of the Denmark songs. We had this other kid who was playing drums, but right before we were supposed to play this show, he flaked, so we had Frankie fill in.

BD— It was kind of funny because, at that point, we were already planning to invite Frankie to join, we just didn’t think he’d play with us that soon. I wasn't as sold on Frankie because he’s way too pretty to be good at guitar. I didn’t know he was going to be sick! And then we jammed together for an hour in David's living room before that show. I was just playing drums on my lap and they were playing acoustics and I was like, “Damn, Frankie's actually good!” And then he talked about Slowdive and Dinosaur Jr. and bands that I like, that are actually really nerdy, even though he literally looks like he’d be the lifeguard in an eighties movie.

DR— Right before that show, I was talking to Ben and was like, “We should have Frankie join” and Ben was like, “Who would you compare him to? In terms of skill?” And I said “Me!” [laughs]

You guys do complement each other very well on stage. I know it’s not your choice, but I wish you’d get some better setups because it’s been David, Frankie, and Ben and the drums off to the side and in the back.

BD— I’d like to be in between them, but any time I can just see their beautiful cheeks is good enough.

Did you all decide to be Denmark after one show?

FF— After that one show, we didn't play again until late August. A friend was getting rid of a kit, so I brought it to my house and Ben was like, “I have this backyard where we should jam.” So on the day of the Caribbean Day parade, these two guys came over to my house and we set up the drums and we wrote our song “Magazine.” It was the first acoustic demo that we did together. And that was where we really felt like a band.

BD— It was a crazy feeling when it all came together for the first time.

DR— We did our first show on October 1st in Ben’s backyard, still under our old band name Torma. There were three actual people. Everyone else was just the people who lived in his house. And then my sister. And my dog.

FF— We didn’t know our roles yet.

DR— But we did a show two weeks after, like October 14th. We did our actual first Denmark show. Our first few shows were all in Ben’s backyard, but this one was legit and had like 30 people.

How did people start hearing about you guys?

DR— We did this one show in Ithaca at our friend's house. This guy reached out to us saying that he was hosting this showcase for bands, but there were like, two actual bands there. We were one of them, and the other one had to borrow our drums.

BD— In the footage, you could see me standing in the back the whole time, arms crossed, just making sure this guy doesn’t mess with my kit because I'm about to go on. They messed with our guitars pretty badly, I was pissed.

FF— But that was the first show where it felt real. People were moshing, it was the first show that we didn't set up ourselves. It was sick.

DR— It's not even about the size of the crowd. Sometimes I get the same feeling playing for, one or two people, as I do with a giant crowd. But playing music for the two of these guys is what gets me the most excited. I play for the two of them, more than anything. Other people just happen to be there.

FF— I think the moral of the story is that size doesn’t matter. If you’re playing a crowd, and it’s a below-average size crowd, sometimes that’s all you need.

Biggest musical inspirations?

DR— Let’s do our least favorite musicians too [laughs]

FF— My favorites are Smashing Pumpkins, My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive. Blue Smiley, Julie, Sonic Youth. I love the Heads and Nirvana…

Very eighties lifeguard.

DR— My least favorite artist is this guy called Frankie Fowlkes [laughs]

No breaking up in the middle of the interview!

BD— For me, it’s the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Chad Smith. I think that the combination of them— that energy is something we try to emulate. I like a lot of drummers like Stewart Copeland from the Police, Danny Carey, J Mascis from Dinosaur Jr, who’s not necessarily the drummer, but he wrote a lot of the drum parts... I just wanted to say as many as possible before David goes [laughs]

DR— Most of these are the same for me, so I’m going to go with a couple of weird ones like Michael Jackson and Maroon Five— Adam Levine and his early stuff.

He does have a swagger to him.

DR— Off the Wall is one of my favorite albums. And “Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough” has one of the most famous drum fills of all time.

BD— It’s iconic and I get the inspiration. I want to be the backbone of this band in that way where David and Frankie are Michael Jackson. They’re the sexy drum fills, and I just want to hold the pocket for them to be sexy.

It's funny that you say that you want to be the backbone because you’re also the namesake of the band. How’d that happen?

DR— Well, we realized Torma was not a good band name and I've always liked the name Iceland. But then Frankie was like, “It’s Ben’s last name, why don't we just do Denmark?”

BD— I was kind of like the Tony Soprano of the group. All I do is eat prosciutto and have panic attacks.

DR— But Ben also brings the energy. I've always learned about energy and onstage presence from Ben, growing up and just seeing him.

BD— The funniest thing is that I learned that shit from you, bro!

FF— I didn’t know anything about performing until we started playing together. These guys really taught me everything, especially with guitar and being able to play on time. I thought I was pretty good at guitar before we started playing. I could technically play, but I wasn't able to play with other people. This is my first time playing with anyone else. If it wasn’t for you guys, I wouldn’t be able to do what I do.

Aw.

BD— Frankie, you sexy little devil.

BD— Another one of our biggest influences is Dan Stein. He taught David bass— for how long again?

DR— When I started playing bass, we started at our summer camp and then I started taking lessons with Dan. He's taught me not just literally how to play but how to think about music. He's also the guy who mixes and masters, he's also taken keys on a couple of songs, and he's played with us live a couple of times.

BD— He’s a really big part of what we're doing right now. So I just wanted to shout him out. Sexy guy. That's on the record. And he’s got a sweet mustache, real German style. Either way, my fingers are going up there—

In the mustache?

BD— I mean… [laughs] I'm not talking about German scat or anything. That's not what I was talking about. On the record!

FF— German scat?

DR— Oh, you mean when you're just scatting but it's in German, like jazz and that stuff.

What are you focusing on the most when you perform?

DR— Being tight. We always talk about being in the pocket. That's our pre-show chant— “we are the pocket.”

Explain the pocket.

FF— It’s being together. Not necessarily on time like a metronome, but in time with each other and—

DR— having the same feel, having the same type of like anticipations,

BD— having the same dynamics,

FF— having the same flow!

DR— There’s playing for yourself and then there’s playing for the music, and especially playing for the band. For example, if you’re the drummer in a band, but you want to show everyone that you’re the best drummer in the world, it’s not going to be good for the band at all. Being in the pocket, it’s not just timing. It’s also playing together and playing stuff that compliments the other stuff that's going on. It's a big problem when I see very technically skilled musicians only playing to show off how technically skilled they are. When I switched from learning how to be a good soloist to learning to play chords well and supporting people— that’s when I really learned how to play music.

In your shows, your songs take on an entirely different life every time. I think that's pretty incredible. 

BD— Our goal is to have our live sound and our sound on the record be as similar as possible. We want the authenticity of our live performances to come through on the recording, but we want the quality of our recorded version to be reflected in our live performances. In your earbuds, we want to be the same quality musicians that we are live.

You want the energy of your performance to come through in the studio version, and you want the skill of the studio version to translate to your live performances.

DR— The performance of such is a big part of it— there's no better feeling.

FF— Ever since I was a little kid, long before I ever knew how to play guitar, I just would listen to music and imagine myself and my friends playing in front of everyone. It's the dream. Nothing makes me more excited and amped up than imagining that, especially because I never even thought that it could be our music. Just playing music that we wrote, in front of people that have either never met us before or love us and are our friends, it’s the best feeling. It’s just showcasing all the work that we do.

BD— Honestly, I just love playing music. Not even just for the massive crowds of all 40 people who come [laughs], but just for the feeling.

DR— Exactly. Plus, I don't even see the crowd when I’m up there! It’s just knowing that, if I don't give these people the best performance that I possibly can, I'm just going to feel depressed afterward.

FF— My vision goes red. I don't see anything. I don't hear anything. It’s just me and the music.

DR— And playing with people, there’s the energy we put out and the energy that comes back to us. It’s so emotional.

How do you write your music?

DR— Generally, we'll send over an acoustic demo or even just a voice memo.

BD— I ignore it until they play in person.

DR— Yeah, exactly. But then we get together and usually, it happens immediately. So it always changes depending on who worked on it first and you can kind of hear it. If you know each of us you can hear who did what. 

FF— Probably my favorite song that we've done is “Just For A Day.” That was perfect. I had the progression and the melody for the verse but I didn’t know what to do with either. But David had the chorus and we took it to Ben and the first time we played it with him— going from our little acoustic demo, Ben came in with the drums and changed it dramatically. It was the perfect collaboration between all of us because it started with something I didn’t even know what the fuck to do with. Ben took it to a whole different level.

DR— That’s how it normally goes.

Where did the lyrics come from?

DR— Frankie wrote the verse and already had the phrase just for a day. I wrote the chorus: ego tripping in your mirror / Is it me or is it one of your friends? I wasn't actually tripping when I wrote that. I had a concussion, so when we were playing it, I had such a bad headache, but I wanted to figure out the chorus. So I just kept singing different things and eventually that came. 

FF— The verse after is kind of inspired by an old woman I imagined— she retired from New York to Florida and was addicted to drugs. So, that’s where I got: thought I saw you waving through a glass door / It’s a long way home from here. And I had this CBS bag that my dad gave me sitting on the floor and I came up with CBS is blasting in the background / all that silver in your hair, because a lot of older people like to have their news constantly blasting.

They do that! My grandma always had Filipino game shows on— but they were crazy. There was a game show version of rock, paper, scissors and it was so melodramatic. There were so many rapid zooms. People cried.

BD— Rock, paper, scissors with high stakes has to be one of the most carnivorous things I’ve ever heard of.

All right, last question. Who's someone you want to work with?

BD— In September, we're going to be working with Steve Albini, who produced In Utero, the Nirvana album.

How did you get that?

DR— We just reached out! We’re really excited to work with him because he’s all about capturing what the band actually sounds like live. Most other places want you to be in the studio with a click track. Steve doesn’t even believe in click tracks, so we’re really excited to work with him.

BD— I'll take Dave Grohl. He’s amazing. He's just such an old, well-rounded musician and I’d love to meet him— not as a fan, but as a fellow artist. 

DR— Frankie’s mom actually told us this, but Dave said that, when he plays, he imagines that every show is literally the last show. I like that. All I want to be doing is playing music with you guys and if I were to step outside and get hit by a car, I’d know at least I was doing what I wanted.

FF— Same. My dream for my whole life is to be in a band with my friends and there’s nothing else I’d rather be doing.

DR— Any of these could be our last show.

Knock on wood.

DR— Obviously knock on wood, but if we play like it’s our last show every time, we’ll have no regrets.

FF— Exactly, but what sucks is that even after I go as hard as I possibly can after every show, I'm like, “fuck.”

But that just means you're like, “Ok, next show I'm going to go even harder than I was.”

FF— Every show I go as hard as I can.

DR— It’s not even about going as hard as you can.

BD— It’s about being focused the whole time.

DR— Eventually we will play our last show, whether it's in a month, a year, 20 or 40 years. And that will be the best show we play. I don't know when it will be, but that will be our best. Hopefully not for a long time.

BD— Hopefully it's not until forever. Hopefully, there's some sort of serum that lets us live forever. We can just do this for the rest of our eternal lives.

Where do you see Denmark in a year?

BD— Celebrating the one-year anniversary of this interview!

FF— Just giving it our all. There's no way we could say anything for certain with music. I mean, I want to have an album and a bunch of new songs. But I just want to continue to give it our all and to work as hard as we can and get better.

Before we leave, what's one thing you want people to know about Denmark? What's one thing you want to say to the office readers?

DR— Energy.

FF— Come see us live because we’re going to go as hard as we can until we pass out.

BD— Our music will literally rip your chest hair off.