Berlin’s Double Life may come from different corners of the city’s sprawling punk and hardcore underground, but the band’s story is built on connections—some intentional, some completely accidental. The group, now featuring Andrew (vocals), Elaine (bass), Kevin (guitar), and Martin (drums), first came together in 2021, with members of Schwach, Sputa, and Wipeout, and Kevin joining as the lone outsider. “Kevin was the one weirdo who was not already in a Berlin hardcore band,” the group jokes, noting that a coworker connection is what pulled him into the fold.
The band endured early upheaval when founding bassist Sergio passed away in 2022, and later when original vocalist Nico departed. After playing several instrumental sets, the lineup settled when Andrew—previously the drummer for Drink Deep (who were recently profiled on No Echo)—stepped up to handle vocals.
While the band identifies simply as hardcore, they admit the sound doesn’t always fit neatly into that box. “We would rather just call ourselves a hardcore band, because once you start adding adjectives and prefixes, it can get messy,” they explain. Still, they acknowledge the blend: “Perhaps a more precise description would be ‘heavy (moshable) post-hardcore.’” The music pulls from punk-leaning indie rock like Chavez, Polvo, and Superchunk, while the rhythmic backbone and vocals lean more toward traditional hardcore. “If you listen to just our guitar and bass tracks, we sound like a completely different band… The hardcore part of our sound comes mainly from Martin’s drumming and Andrew’s vocals.”
Their latest release, Please Delete This, reflects a truly international effort. Justin Felder handled instrumental tracking at 1408 Productions in Hannover, while Elaine recorded Andrew’s vocals at the band’s practice space over several months. The final mix and master were handled by Brian McTernan (Be Well, Battery) at Salad Days in Baltimore, and the vinyl is being released by Thirty Something Records in Berlin. As the band puts it, “Like the band itself, Please Delete This is a true trans-Atlantic partnership.”
Lyrically and sonically, the record also contains small personal touches. Andrew points to “the acoustic guitar part halfway through ‘Lob Threat’” as a standout, along with the Allen Iverson “practice” sample that opens the track. The album title itself came from a moment in the studio. “He kept doing impressions before the takes would start and then asking me to delete them,” Elaine says. “I think he said that line in reference to an impression of a SpongeBob character that says ‘Chocolate!’”
As for their home base, the band says Berlin’s sheer size makes it hard to define a single unified scene. “The pool of musicians is so diffuse, and everybody’s making such radically different sounds,” they explain. “What we lack in unity we make up for with the volume and sonic range of ‘micro-scenes’ spread throughout the city.” Among the bands they recommend: Only, Dead Finks, Fallback, Benzin, Botulism, and Zanjeer.
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Please Delete This is out February 13th via Thirty Something Records (U.S. pre-order, EU pre-order, UK pre-order).
Double Life on social media: Instagram
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