“This is still very, very precious” – An Interview with DIVES
Among the many things I love about The New Colossus Festival each year is not just seeing a load of new bands but also discovering great music from other countries. This year I saw artists from Italy (Flame Parade), Lithuania (shishi) and Germany (Matching Outfits). I also found that there were a couple of bands from Vienna, Austria playing which really caught my eye as my family tree has some branches through that wonderful city.
DIVES are an indie trio that met in 2015 and quickly attracted a lot of attention in the music scene with their low-threshold and self-taught approach to music. Consisting of Dora de Goederen (drums), Tamara Leichtfried (guitar, vocals) and Viktoria Kirner (bass, vocals) the band released their self-titled debut EP in 2017 followed by two full-length records (2019’s Teenage Years Are Over and 2022’s Wanna Take You There). DIVES have played around 180 concerts in 16 different countries, toured with L.A. Witch and Courtney Barnett, headlined Viennese Popfest, played big name industry festivals (The Great Escape, Eurosonic, Festival Internacional Cervantino, Reeperbahn Festival, c/o pop) and supported various established international artists (Franz Ferdinand, AnnenMayKantereit, Bilderbuch).
We caught their show at Baker Falls on Friday night as part of the festival’s Indiepop Showcase. In front of a packed venue, the band delighted the crowd and played a cracking 30 minute set including “Wanna Take You There”, “Burger” and “Say”. A few hours before the show, we caught up with DIVES to chat about their music and the indie scene in Austria.
IDOV – Hi! Is this your first time in New York?
Tamara – Yeah. First time being here. First time ever in the U.S.
IDOV – You said you got here on Sunday. What have been doing so far? Any Sightseeing?
Tamara – We’ve been walking more than 20 thousand steps every day. Our record was 28,000 yesterday,
Dora – It was so cold and windy!
Viktoria – We’ve been doing so much that we almost forgot that we are here to play some shows.
Dora – We were talking about it yesterday. Normally if you go to a festival in Europe, I think one of the most interesting ones would be Primavera Sound. It’s in a big city, Barcelona, and you go there for the festival but it is also very exhausting because you can see like 20 bands a day if you want to. But the whole schedule during the day is different because you wake up at 4 in the afternoon and then you start getting your pizza and your breakfast and go to the bands. But here, we have to combine everything. We get up at 9 to do 8 hours of sightseeing then get ready to see 10 or 20 bands, so after 3 days of bands and sightseeing, we’re a bit exhausted!
Tamara – Our first show is tonight so we’ll have to just push through it.
IDOV – Which classic album cover art is your current mood?
Viktoria – We thought a bit about it and the most fitting one would be PJ Harvey’s Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea. Because it’s a woman strolling through the city and we can quite identify with it right now.
IDOV – You released two new singles last year (“Be Fine” and “Happier”), when did you write and record those? And are they part of a larger album that may be coming out?
Tamara – Well, we did it kind of on the run because we were touring everywhere in 2023. We’d been around England, France, we did a tour in Mexico, and we were very busy with touring.
Viktoria – And we left it open a bit because we haven’t decided yet what to do with the last songs but there are some singles to come.
IDOV – What do you know now that you would tell your 2016-selves when you were going to record “Shrimp”?
Tamara – I would tell myself you have everything you need already.
IDOV – Who were your influences when you were growing up? Which bands were you listening to?
Tamara – I feel like the last five or six days in the US was pretty cool. I grew up with a lot of American music and everywhere you walk in the store or somewhere else, the charts are playing . That’s the music I grew up from the eighties to the two thousands. The Black Eyed Peas was playing and I was so happy.
IDOV – The second question I send you guys was if you could only listen to one record, what would it be?
Viktoria – I think I would choose a movie soundtrack. So it would be very diverse in the moods and I would have a choice of moods. Either the Juno soundtrack because I’ve listened to that one a lot when I was a teenager and it kind of motivated me to do music because of the very DIY, low threshold approach. Or A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night. It’s a movie with a quite diverse soundtrack that I really like, so It would be every mood for at least one song.
Tamara – I would choose Beach House – Teen Dream or The soundtrack of Dirty Dancing.
Dora – This is quite hard for me actually. I was thinking about Psychopomp from Japanese Breakfast. It’s a very good album, but her voice is pretty distinctive and I think that if you listen to it for six hours in a row, maybe at some point it might annoy you a little bit. But, yeah, still a great, great band and great album.
IDOV – So you’ve been together since 2016 through COVID and everything, what’s the secret to keeping a band together for that long?
Tamara – (laughs) To have a break like COVID 19 after five years! We met in 2015 and then DIVES was formed in 2016. So after five years on the road and playing and playing and getting to know each other and everything, it was nice to have a moment to sit back and let everything sink in. It was obviously not cool to have this pandemic but for me it was a very necessary break.
Viktoria – I would say a healthy balance between being open to new things and new stuff, but at the same time, having the confidence that it’s already cool what you’ve been doing so far and you don’t need to pressure yourself to achieve more and more. Being a little bit relaxed and confident that things will just be fine.
Dora – I mean, we’ve toured a lot of countries and a lot of continents which is just crazy. If we think back ten years ago, nobody would have thought it possible. Sometimes you’re on the run so much that you need to take a step back and just inhale the New York air and realize for a second that your music actually brought you today to a scene like this, and I think this is still very, very precious, and that’s the reason why we’re still doing music.
IDOV – My maternal grandmother is from Vienna, my mother was born in Vienna and I’ve been a few times but I know nothing about the Austrian music scene. I’ve loved discovering your music and I just saw your friends (Cousines Like Shit) play as well at the festival. Are there a lot of bands playing similar music to you guys?
Dora – if you look at all female bands, or female- fronted bands in the Austrian indie music scene, there are a lot but there are not many that are actually visible which is a problem. There is My Ugly Clementine – they have got very big in the last few years and you should definitely check them out. Topsy Turvy are really cool.
Victoria – Also, Gardens which is the side projects of Laundromat Chicks.
Dora – You can also check out our label Siluh Records. They are still signing very cool, very fresh underground acts. But I thought when we started, we got a lot of attention because of the fact that we were the first all-female group in a long time that was doing this kind of music on a higher level, like being played on the radio. In our social circle, all-female bands were normal so we thought that after we got so much attention, it would get better. But it is ten years later and it has not. It’s still difficult to search for a female guitarist or drummer.
Tamara – It’s Austria, it’s small. I mean, compared to New York, Vienna is a village.
Viktoria – There’s a big music genre that is German speaking, or German lyrics and people always ask us why we don’t write our lyrics in German because then there would be like also a big market. That’s maybe also something that made us a bit distinct from a lot of other indie bands that have a different style because of that.
IDOV – I was just about to ask you if it is difficult for you to write and sing in English?
Tamara – I grew up in Upper Austria and it’s a place where we speak a German dialect. If I sing with that dialect, it sounds like German country music so its a way to be like separated from that kind of music. It’s easier to sing in English because I grew up with English music as well. But there is also this German music like Herbert Grönemeyer which I also grew up with, but for me it’s easier to have an alter ego, like an artist ego, in English.
Dora – I think it’s two different things, writing in English and singing in English, because if we are jamming and music is coming out, then we instinctively starting singing in English because we grew up with it. It’s more about letting out feelings because there’s kind of a language barrier still there but it feels more natural. But when writing, sometimes I really do have to write the lyrics in German first and then try to translate and try to make it work.
IDOV – What was one thing you had to bring with you that you couldn’t leave at home for this tour? Apart from your instruments obviously.
Tamara – Well, we didn’t bring them. We borrowed everything here.
Dora – I brought my Kindle. I have to read every night otherwise I cannot fall asleep.
Tamara – I brought my heating pads because I thought it’s going to be freezing and now it turns out it doesn’t work. The first accommodation I was sleeping in was so hot, it was like a sauna, so I didn’t need them.
Viktoria – Maybe sunglasses, I can’t go anywhere without my sunglasses. The other two can confirm that!
IDOV – I had been thinking back about visiting Vienna and I have some either/or questions for you. First one is Schnitzel or Leberkäse?
Tamara – I’m from Linz. We have the Leberkäs-Pepsi. It’s the local specialty so I have to say that.
Viktoria – I would always go for a very good thin Wiener Schnitzel with potato mayonnaise salad.
Dora – I think I would also go for the Schnitzel but the vegan option. I eat meat sometimes but I really love those fake meat products.
IDOV – Schnapps or Kirschwasser?
Tamara – That’s a cherry water – we’ll take that one.
IDOV – Last One – Schönbrunn or Prater?
DIVES – Prater!! Always Prater!
Viktoria – We went to Coney Island yesterday. I was very sad that all the things were closed and we’ve been to Central Park today.
Tamara – So it’s a combination of Coney Island and Central Park. Prater is the perfect mix of it.
IDOV – You’ve toured with some really great artists, like Courtney Barnett and L. A. Witch. What did you learn from going down the road with them?
Viktoria – I think especially from L. A. Witch, because we had a few shows with them and we really got to know them. They encouraged us at a very early stage of our band’s history and it was really, really important to be on tour with people you admire so much, but then hearing from them, “Hey, You fucking rock! Don’t be afraid. You’re very good musicians doing interesting music. Just continue.” It was really, really cool.
IDOV – You’ve toured 16 countries – what’s your favorite venue that you’ve played?
Viktoria – For me in Paris, we played at Supersonic and that was the perfect Paris trip and Paris show and it was just like I always imagined it.
Tamara – I really liked the England show in Brighton, The Prince Albert. I really liked that one, but there are so many of them.
Viktoria – And all of the shows in Mexico were insane. Music works differently in Mexico, it’s all about fan culture and it doesn’t matter if people know your music or not, they are just so appreciative of the fact that you are standing there on stage. After every concert, there were loads of people queuing just to get a photo with us and get our autograph and you just felt very much appreciated.
IDOV – Final question we ask everybody – what would go on your signature pizza and what would it be called?
Tamara – Yeah, we talked about this. Let’s put it together a “Viennese Pizza” because there is ham on it and corn. So you have the sweet taste and there’s no pineapple on it because it’s not allowed in Italy. So you have the perfect mix at the Viennese pizza.
IDOV – last question I have – what else are you doing in 2025?
Tamara – We’re going to play some shows and a big tour in November but it’s not been announced yet.
DIVES have just announced some of the shows they hinted at during the interview and you can get tickets here.
You can find out more about DIVES by visiting their website where you can also see their music videos.
You can also visit their Bandcamp page to grab some music and some merch.
Follow the band on Instagram and Facebook for all the latest news.
