Sanity Overdrive

Interview With Sanity Overdrive

SBS:  Welcome to our pages!  Whether you’ve been here with us in some way before, or you’re brand-new to the site, it’s probably best to get an introduction from you so that we get everyone on the same page to start.  Tell us a little bit about the history of your music, and what’s happening with it lately!?!

Sanity Overdrive:  Thanks. I go by Sanity Overdrive for this project, and to be honest I’m still not sure what exactly I’m doing in terms of genre.  It’s some strange mix of distorted guitars, synths, industrial drums, occasional breakcore, ambient stuff—whatever feels necessary to express what I want.  It’s not about fitting into a style.  It’s just my sound.

My background is in Extreme Metal and Grindcore—I used to scream and play guitar in a Polish Goregrind band years ago.  At the same time, I started experimenting with electronic music about 14 years ago, but never released anything electronic-focused until now.  With Sanity Overdrive I finally managed to merge both worlds in a way that feels honest.  I am playing and growling in a Copenhagen-based local Death Metal band in the meantime.

I also care a lot about the visual side—drawing, painting, and film are just as important to this project.  I aim to keep everything in sync.  My first EP gods.clear() came with a full music video that works more like a short film than a promo clip.

SBS:  Let’s talk about the before and after of where you’re currently at.  What’s something about the music that you’re making now that you don’t think you could have done five years ago, and what’s something you think you’ll be able to do with your music five years from now that you can’t do today?  How have you grown as an artist/band, and what steps do you take to continue your artistic evolution?

Sanity Overdrive:  Five years ago I wasn’t doing anything music-related at all.  I stopped completely to focus on my PhD and work.  So technically, I went from silence to Sanity Overdrive during that time.  There was no gradual evolution—just a total stop and then a re-entry on my own terms.

As for the future, I honestly don’t know what will happen, or even if I’ll still be around in five years.  I’m not planning that far ahead.

This project grows on its own.  I’m not trying to follow any roadmap.  I make music that fits my current state of mind—something that feels right for me, even if it’s hard to classify or very niche.  It’s a very personal thing, not a product.

My artistic evolution is tied directly to what’s happening in my life.  When I started drawing again, it gave me a creative push.  That led to sound.  And then I wanted to do more with visuals, so I made a film.  Everything feeds into each other—organically, without any master plan.

SBS:  If you were to assess the overall health of the independent music scene right now, what would you say?  What are the positives and the negatives about the current state of independent music, and what do you feel like artists & bands can do to contribute to the community & help it grow beyond the music being made?  If you’re not actively looking to listen to the music of other independent artists/bands, is it really all that fair to expect anyone would listen to yours?  How do you help the scene around you grow?

Sanity Overdrive:  The internet made self-releasing music more accessible, and that definitely changed things.  In a way, it democratized the whole process.  Anyone can put something out now without needing approval from some gatekeeper.  That’s a development—whether it’s good or bad probably depends on who you ask.

I’m not really in a position to judge the independent scene.  I’m 34, which means I already have some biases and don’t fully understand the mindset of younger generations.  At the same time, I’m not old enough to pretend I have some deep, multi-decade insight.  So I’d rather not evaluate or romanticize any “scene.”  It doesn’t make sense.

And honestly, I’m not a social person.  Even in underground circles, I’ve always been more in the corner than in the crowd.  That makes promoting what I do difficult, and I’m not really helping any scene grow in an active way.  I’d like to—but I know my limits.  What I do try to do is listen and create.  I’m way more interested in independent artists than big-name acts.  So maybe that counts for something.

SBS:  What do you consider to be the biggest accomplishment or achievement you’ve had with your music to-date?  How do you personally measure your own success – is that something that even can be measured?  Is it awards, accolades, chart position…or is your definition of success based on something entirely different?  Should success, however you define it, be something that artists are continually focused on – or is success something that naturally occurs in the course of doing what you love to do?

Sanity Overdrive:  I wish I knew how to measure success.  I’m always somewhere between total disappointment and brief moments of satisfaction.  If success means listeners, then releasing the LP with Haemorrhagic Diarrhea and now the Sanity Overdrive EP are probably the biggest achievements so far.  But on a personal level, the real achievement is staying true to my artistic vision, no matter how niche it is.

SBS:  When you’re working on something brand-new, and something about it just doesn’t feel like it’s coming together the way that you think it should, how do you know when it’s time to give up on it, or how do you know that it’s time to dig in even harder and find a way to make it work?  Are there distinct red flags you can hear when something’s not working?  What are the signs you look for that tell you to stop forcing the material?  What would actually encourage you to keep going with the process instead?

Sanity Overdrive:  There’s no checklist or red flags—I just follow intuition.  My creative process is pure chaos.  Some tracks come together in a day, others rot on a hard drive for years as a raw riff or half-finished idea.  Sometimes I keep things I initially dislike and come back to them later to reuse.  Other times, I push through something that clearly isn’t working, almost out of some masochistic urge.  And ironically, I’ve also abandoned ideas I actually liked, just out of fear they’d disappoint me once finished.  There’s no method—just moods and moments.

SBS:  One of the points of general consensus in the art of making music, is that we all get our sound from somewhere…we hear what we like, then more often than not, we take tiny pieces of what we love to find our own voice & approach to go on and make music in our own way.  Essentially, what I’m saying is that it’s absolutely natural to be inspired by other artists/bands, and almost every artist/band ends up having that inspiration show up in their own work in some way, shape, or form.  What the real key is though, is retaining your own organic perspective – you still wanna be original too, right?  So how do you go about doing that?  Are there artists or bands that you know have been an influence on your style & sound?  How were you able to incorporate that influence without becoming too noticeably derivative and still be yourself?  Should we embrace and celebrate our influences more than we do?  It’s almost like we try not to admit influences exist in the pursuit of being original, but it’s like, bruh…if it’s there, we can hear it.  We all borrow something from those that came before us to some extent, don’t we?

Sanity Overdrive:  Of course, some part of me wants to make my work original—but I admit that’s a selfish desire.  I think there’s an equal mix of direct and indirect influences.  You can name the obvious ones—artists you admire—but your sound is also shaped by things you’re not consciously aware of: childhood radio songs, traumas, films, the architecture of where you grew up.  All of that matters.

I don’t even know if I’m original.  That’s not my call to make—I leave it to the listeners.  But artists like Igorrr, Bong-Ra, MASTER BOOT RECORD, Godflesh, or Mick Gordon’s DOOM soundtrack and the System Shock remake—these didn’t necessarily influence my style directly, but they gave me the push to finally release something that crosses Metal, Electronic, and Experimental sound.  It made me feel that maybe someone out there would actually want to hear that.

I’m also constantly digging through Underground Drone, Dark Ambient, Harsh Noise like Merzbow or KK Null, Synthwave and Darksynth, old and new Goregrind and Grindcore, Classic Death Metal.  And yeah—Rammstein, no shame, they influenced me deeply in a very weird but lasting way.

SBS:  Has there ever been a time where you wrote something inside one of your songs…maybe it’s a lyrical line, or maybe it’s a riff of some kind…something that you did, where you surprised yourself?  I like to think we all have a moment or two where we can stand back and be amazed by something we created, and appreciate the fact that maybe, just maybe, we exceeded our own expectations of what we thought we could accomplish – you know what I mean?  Get as specific as you can so the fans out there know what they should be paying attention to when they hear it – what’s your favorite thing that you’ve written on the inside of one of your songs, and why does this particular piece resonate so much to you?

Sanity Overdrive:  Yeah, in gods.clear() there were a few of those moments.  In “L’autoportrait binaire,” I wanted to keep one part in 3/4 with a kind of waltz feel.  While writing the melody, it unintentionally started to sound very close to something from Shostakovich.  I just let it happen and followed the flow.  That part with the breakbeat underneath and how it transitions—I still really like that.

In “Nur-noch-leben,” the main riff is actually something I wrote some time ago.  I was surprised how well it worked with industrial drums and those sharp synth jump-ins—dissonant guitars with electronics isn’t new, but here it clicked in a satisfying way.  And with “Black Screen,” the main riff was a deliberate nod toward Black Metal.  But when I heard it back with the EBM-style drums I’d programmed, the contrast hit different.  I didn’t plan it like that, but it made the track what it is.

I’m also finishing my next release, and without saying too much—there’s one track shaped by a personal experience.  The lead synth and the breakbeat beneath it captured something very specific in my mental state at the time.  Hearing that back during production was a rare moment where I felt I nailed the emotional tone without trying too hard.

SBS:  I’ve been having a lot of great debates lately about whether or not everybody that’s making music has the right to be heard…and you’d probably be surprised by how different people seem to feel about this issue.  I know where I stand on it, and I think you can all probably get an idea of what my position would be from this free interview we’re doing here & the way we run things at sleepingbagstudios…but regardless, I’m putting this question out there to you, because I’m interested in YOUR perspective.  Just because you’ve made a song, does that mean people should listen?  If your answer is yes, do your best to explain why you feel that way & why we should make a sincere effort to listen to the music of others.  If your answer is no, explain why you feel that way, but also explain why people should still be listening to your music if that’s the case – what would make your music the exception, and not follow the rule?  Is there any value to an idea that’s not finished, or a song in its demo stages, or maybe something that’s not recorded in a top-shelf studio or with good equipment – somebody still took the time to make that song to the best of their ability with the means they had to create it – should that be listened to, or not?

Sanity Overdrive:  No, I don’t believe there’s any inherent right to be heard—whether in music or in any other form of art.  Artistic recognition isn’t a simple linear function of input parameters like creativity, talent, technical skill, or the ability to market yourself.  It’s not a predictable equation where more effort guarantees more listeners.  The relationship is nonlinear and often chaotic—some artists gain recognition, others don’t, regardless of how those variables are balanced.  From the outside, it frequently appears random, and that’s part of the uncomfortable truth about making art in a public space.

I’m not trying to position my music as exceptional, and I don’t expect anyone to listen to it.  I try—though it’s difficult in the age of instant feedback and numbers—to avoid measuring my worth or work by how much attention it gets.  I just need to create to stay sane.  Whether or not that resonates with others is out of my control, and that’s fine.

That said, I do think there’s value in every creative act—whether it’s a rough demo or a lo-fi bedroom recording.  If someone made it, it came from a place of lived experience, and that makes it unique.  Releasing something—even when it’s unfinished or imperfect—takes a certain amount of courage, and that alone gives it weight.

SBS:  There are ups and downs in the dynamics of almost every album we listen to, with very few exceptions.  Even those exceptions, probably still come down to more of a personal preference about what we enjoy about music and how we personally hear it, rather than anything being completely and totally “perfect” – you know what I mean?  Does an album actually need to have some kind of up/down dynamics in terms of what’s appealing to the masses in order for the best of the best songs in a lineup to be fully appreciated?  Wouldn’t every artist & band avoid the ‘down’ side (less accessible/less popular for example) if they could?  Does the ‘down’ side represent something else perhaps, like the story of an album or journey of an artist?  Is the ‘up’ side of a record as potent or noticeable if it doesn’t have a ‘down’ side to go with it?  Would a completely balanced album somehow be boring if it didn’t have the ups/downs that most have?  Do we HAVE to like every single song on a record for it to be considered complete?  Are the dynamics of an album something anyone can really steer in the direction they want to, or are all artists & bands simply going with the strongest material they have created at the time?

Sanity Overdrive:  I haven’t done any formal research on this, but I’d bet that for many artists, what fans perceive as the “ups” and “downs” of an album often comes as a surprise—and wasn’t part of the original intent.  I think album dynamics tend to happen naturally.  Trying too hard to flatten them out or avoid the “lows” pushes your music closer to something tailored for radio or mass appeal—and usually at the expense of authenticity.  You can control it to some extent, especially if someone gives you an outsider’s perspective on how your work might be received, but doing so always comes with a cost.

SBS:  I wanna send out a shout-out to YOU from me personally – I appreciate everyone that has taken the time to talk tunes with me throughout the years, and I appreciate the time YOU have taken with this interview too.  Because this one’s a little different in the sense that it’s been sent out to multiple people and is a little more generic in that regard, I have no doubt whatsoever that we probably didn’t get to talk to you about something you wanted to talk about – so let’s fix that!  This final space is what we call the SBS Open Floor – a spot where you can say anything else you want to say to the people out there.  It can be anything at all…your main websites…something else you want them to know about you and/or your music…your favorite bands in the scene right now…the secret 11 herbs and spices to the Colonel’s secret recipe – you get the idea, and it’s probably best you choose something that suits you rather than take any of my suggestions, but feel free to take the SBS Open Floor for a ride.  Whatever it is you want the people to know, now is the prime time for you to tell’em!  Thanks again for everything – keep in touch!

Sanity Overdrive: Thanks a lot for the space and thoughtful questions—really appreciated.  I’ll keep this last part simple.  If you want to dive into my world, here’s where to start:  https://sanityoverdrive.bandcamp.com

Thanks for listening.  No pressure, no expectations—just glad to share something real.

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