There’s a new force arising from Scandinavia and they go by the name City Keys. With ex-members of Gust, I Am Hunger, Iron and Anchor, this new straight edge hardcore vessel have raised the bar high for themselves: all or nothing, read all about their work ethic in the below interview.

On October 21st, City Keys will release their debut EP Tip The Scale on 7″ vinyl and digitally on Evil Greed. Pre-orders are available now along with their very track, ‘Self Defense’, which we’re incredibly proud to premier today. Find it at the bottom of this article.

Please introduce yourself and your band.

“Yo, CITY KEYS is a brand new band out of Scandinavia. Me and Fred were in a band called ANCHOR until it ended about 5 moths ago. It came naturally for me and Fred to continue do music together as we share a lot of common ideas, visions and got a strong friendship, of course.

Like many who are into this community and a thing I think define hardcore punk, is hard work. May you be in a band, booking tours, shows, making zines or whatever there is, people often do it from their hearts. For me that is an absolute necessity to make it worth something. On the note of doing things for real we asked Carl from IRON (who played drums in ANCHOR before Fred joined) if he wanted to start a new band with us. From that on we started to work on songs with me in Stockholm, Carl in Malmö and Fred in Melbourne, Australia. I feel like when me and Fred started talking about this band we wanted to be heavy and when Carl came into the discussion we also slid towards a darker vibe.”

How did you come up with the band name, City Keys?

“Carl is somewhat involved in the graffiti scene and suggested CITY KEYS. It’s slang for “bolt cutter” which we really liked in a both symbolic and graphic way.”

Define your sound in three words and elaborate on that.

“Hard. As. Fuck. We’re still finding our sound and still shaping what CITY KEYS will be but I feel that this first 7″ is a good teaser to what’s about come. We wanna play in a hard band and I’m not meaning hard in a way that we are going for shockwaves in breakdowns but rather on how we will run this band. We want it to be for real. We won’t compromise on what we find to be important with the band. We’re starting from zero and gonna work really hard to to get our songs and name out there and do what we feel is important. Mostly for ourselves of course but also to contribute with something to the community that we feel we belong to.”

Your debut EP Tip The Scale will be released on October 21st via Evil Greed. What’s the story behind this release, in what formats will it be available and how did the collab with EG come about?

“It will come out on 7” vinyl and digitally. We had been talking briefly about working with Pascal from EG prior to this band’s existence and when CITY KEYS was born it all happened kinda naturally. I feel like we both have been bringing a lot of good ideas to the table. I’m very curious to see what the future holds for us.”

Where do you hope this release will get City Keys?

“We hope that it’s a good introduction of our new band and that people find interests in what we’re about and what we’re going for. This is for real and comes from the bottom of our hearts. As cliche as it sounds it’s really what it’s about. Doing something that means something for real. We know no other way.”

Can you share some of the plans you have for the near future?

“We will be on the road for about a week in Germany in the end of October when our 7” is released. We´ll do another tour through Europe in November which is currently being booked. Without saying too much we have a plan to record a second 7” in the beginning of 2017 followed by a European tour in the end of February and we already got shows booked for the summer of 2017.”

Listen to City Keys’ first track ‘Self Defense’ in the Bandcamp player:

Catch City Keys on tour in October with Neighborhood – check all the tour dates below:

18/10 – Kiel @ Alte Meierei
19/10 – Dresden @ C40B
20/10 – Mannheim @ Juz Mannheim
21/10 – Leipzig @ Kulturcafe Manfred
22/10 – Berlin Orwo Haus.
23/10 – Griefswald @ Jugendzentrum Klex

City Keys: Facebook / Pre-order Tip The Scale

Photo by Julian Emile Guedj