Fresh off the release of their latest album ‘Through Zero’ and the launch of their UK and European tour, the Elder’s very first stop marks their debut performance at Download Festival. Ever-evolving, they are genre-pushing, melding heavy psychedelic sounds with progressive elements and evocative soundscapes. Their long form songs with their independent and DIY identity have garnered an army of loyal fans. In this interview, Aggy Gillon chats with Mike Risberg (guitar, keyboards) about the band’s history, their new album, what they are anticipating on their upcoming tour, and their deep appreciation for their fanbase.
How did you find your set today, did you enjoy it?
“The festival was very nice, this is our first show of the tour. It was a little hectic and not our finest permanence, sadly.”
We are always our harshest critics, though aren’t we?
“Overall it was good. The crowd energy and vibe was cool overall so that is ultimately what matters.”
Also the crowd won’t necessarily notice the things you will notice in the performance that you found off.
“For sure, we are definitely super hard on ourselves.”
Well, being a perfectionist isn’t a bad thing. Being your first Download, what does it mean for you guys to be playing here?
“We have so many friends in the UK. It was really cool to play here. This is also the first show with our new keyboard player, he played a couple of gigs with us a couple of years ago. We just released a new record, not even a month ago. So, it was the first time playing a couple of the songs live. We released an EP in November of 2025 called ‘Liminality/Dream State Return’ which is essentially just one song that was twenty minutes long. We just released a full length record in May.”
Can you tell us more about the new album?
“The album is called ‘Through Zero’. Some music nerds will catch the reference. It’s more progressive in some ways than what has been our trajectory the last few years. There’s also a bit more heavier riffier elements. So more heavier moments and some more psychy, proggy stuff. It’s kind of like a further evolution of the band but also harkening back to some previous tones.”
Your songs are all very long, it must be a lot more hard work performing long running songs live?
“Live, I guess it’s harder. I’m used to it. I find it weird to play songs that are like three and a half minutes at this point. It feels like it’s over in a second. Compositionally, sometimes it’s also harder.”
Do you feel you can put much more in and be more experimental when it’s longer?
“Yeah you can be more experimental with the placements and the sounds. It doesn’t have to be a,b,a,b, like a standard song structure. You can really push it.”
We hear you are all from Massachusetts but you all live in Berlin now?
“Yeah. I’m not a founding member of the band. The band started during high school. The main dude in the band, Nick, studied German in University, and wound up teaching in Germany. The band moved over and I followed suit about five years later. Right before Covid happened.”
It was interesting to read about the whole band uprooting to Berlin.
“Yeah, with his studying and teaching it made sense. Then for me it was just life changes and things not looking too good in America with the orange faced fascist. Also at the time our previous drummer left the band, the founding member. So Nick and I were based in Berlin and we found a good friend of ours who is a German based drummer. We were jamming with him already and it became a natural shoe horn for the band. Our bassist Jack still lives back in Massachusetts, which is actually an advantageous thing for us as we have rehearsal spots etc in both places, home bases if you will.”
With Covid and all that, you will be experienced in you all working remotely with members being in different places anyway, wouldn’t you?
“Yeah, a lot of the music is already composed. The other guitar player is the primary songwriter and does a lot of the stuff at home in his little…what I call ‘the bat cave’. Then we all work on stuff in person.”
This being the first day of your tour, can you tell me about what you have coming up?
“We are doing some gigs with our friends Blood Incantation. We have shows across the UK and Europe”
Is there anything in particular you would like to say to your fans reading this?
“We are very fortunate to have fans, I don’t want to sound arrogant, that push our own envelope into new sonic territories. We are very grateful to have that. We still have the old fans who love the older stuff which is great too.”
So you mean like its good to have some fans who are here to follow on with the journey and evolution of Elder?
“Yeah. We also are blessed to have fans who have become very good friends of ours. Some who have always come a long to shows for the last decade. People who are stoked at hearing new sounds. Our music is pretty dense. It’s very annoying probably to a lot of people *laughs*. We are very fortunate to have a very grassroots kind of fan base. We haven’t really had any commercially successful releases; our music is not conducive to that at all. We have never aimed to make “commercially viable” music. The band has existed since high school. I met the other guitar player in college. Which was like seventeen years ago which is kind of weird *laughs*. We are just very fortunate to have very cool fans and people who are supportive of independent DIY music. People who are into really long form music, who like weird music.”
Interview and photo by Aggy Gillon