Future Palace: Beneath The Surface
From the outside, FUTURE PALACE appear to have their shit together. They have dropped a new record every other year since 2020 like clockwork, each one packed with modern metal bangers that specialise in anthemic immediacy. Their consistency tells us something about the trio’s work ethic and knack for putting together a memorable hook. This young German outfit are on the rise, and with fourth record Resurgence, that ascendancy shows no signs of abating.
But that’s the surface. What’s been going on beneath it is another story. In the band’s early days, Maria Lessing felt like ‘yes, yes, yes’ all the time. New songs, new shows, new opportunities. But recently, the singer has questioned her purpose within FUTURE PALACE. “I started being like, what is this actually for? What am I doing it for?”
Although touring arenas with ELECTRIC CALLBOY was “fun as hell”, those bigger stages brought bigger doubts. She shares, “I thought those shows would bring this extreme and positive healing feeling where I would suddenly feel like I achieved everything.” Instead, she felt like she didn’t deserve it. Imposter syndrome kicked in. On the surface, she was playing to more people alongside a prominent headline act, but underneath, the fulfilment she hoped for never came. “It was like a slap of reality. Nothing external will fix this feeling in yourself and make you feel like you belong or you are understood.”
It led her to separating the act of creativity from how her art is received. She doesn’t need the stage to make something. And if what she puts out in the world connects with someone, that’s a beautiful thing. She remembers watching bands from the crowd and realising, actually, music can help you. Believing her own music could do that for others was more difficult, but she’s getting there, and rediscovering her purpose along the way.
“I would say what makes me do what I do is being creative, being myself, and also knowing our shows are a nice place for people to go where they can just feel for a bit, not be judged, and yeah, have a safe space. I’m doing it for our fans, people who might need this, and for the art.”
It is really hard to be diagnosed with ADHD in Germany, but Maria is working on it. She works best when she feels, ‘okay, shit is about to go down, I have to get this done’, but this causes stress for her bandmates. It led to an hours-long chat with guitarist Manuel Kohlert, who does the band’s demos, about their process. He doesn’t know when her lyrics will come, and while he’s worried everything will fall apart, Maria’s ADHD glows in this ‘stupid stress situation’.
“I even explained to him,” she says, “I might have ADHD, and don’t be worried, it could be a good thing, even though I am like dying with stress while doing it.”
So although it’s a lifelong struggle, it’s also a ‘beautiful gift’. It’s how Maria does things, and the results speak for themselves in FUTURE PALACE’s music. There are other perks too. “People with ADHD have their hyperfocus and that is the most powerful fucking shit that others don’t have. I get these moments where I’m completely in the zone, they’re almost like a drug. You bloom up, loving or feeling something so much. I love those moments.”
That intensity is all over their new record, Resurgence. At its darkest, like on Nightfall, the album takes listeners to the depths of distress. There were a lot of tears recording it, but Maria was adamant the song should stay true to how it feels at your lowest. “I think it’s one of the most emotional songs we have ever done, and it was really important for me to have it as brutal and dark as it is.” Even if you paid no attention to the lyrics, Maria’s performance on the songs communicates real, raw anguish with her throat-searing screams. Before resurgence comes pain.
The Shades came from the loneliness neurodiverse people often feel comparing themselves to more functional folks. “I always feel like I just don’t belong in this world. Like, the system and everything is not built for me, and the people who are normal work so much better.” An honest chat with Manuel about the way she works left Maria feeling like, ‘I will write this stupid song and fuck off’. She was done. Its chorus: “I’m sorry that I’m such a big burden to you, I always try my best but it just doesn’t come through.”
If Resurgence is about a healing process, so was recording it. “I am so proud of it,” she says, “and that feeling was gone before. I felt like a failure, like I was not competent enough as a musician. Now, Resurgence has given me a boost of hope and energy.”
Ebb And Flow was a big part of that. Although she’d studied music for a time, Maria wasn’t so involved with the band’s instrumental side. ‘Why not?’, she thought. So she came up with Ebb And Flow, and in the studio during its recording, she would be asked, ‘how should this part be?’ For the first time, she felt her vision was able to flourish. She got the record done within the deadline. “I was like, ‘fuck yes’.”
The band’s fights have changed from not understanding each other’s processes. Armed with an album they’re all proud of, they instead went back and forth over what songs to release ahead of the record. “Every song could’ve been a single. We love this album.”
For Maria herself, it’s about remembering there are places she belongs which have nothing to do with the size of crowds or how many streams a song has. “I feel most myself when I’m in a park with a friend and we’re drawing, reading, or writing. And I realised almost all of my friends have ADHD or autism or anxiety and I love them so much. As soon as I’m in a room with people who aren’t like that, I feel like an alien. I’m like, ‘where are all my weird people at, that are loud and emotional, I need them’.”
Resurgence ends with Cyclone, on which Maria is ready to move forward. She says if she wanted to convey one thing with the album, it is that you have the power to change through healing. “Maybe I can actually be a better version of myself, and I want to so badly become a better version of myself. I said many times, ‘I’m not sure if I can do this. Maybe this is the moment where I finally fail and everything shatters’. But it did not happen, again. I never expect too much, but I’m happy to release Resurgence. I’m excited.”
Resurgence is out now via Century Media Records. View this interview, alongside dozens of other killer bands, in glorious print magazine fashion in DS132 here.
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