Ahead of Doomship Festival: Setting Sail into Sorrow
Set to cast off on June 5–6 in Hamburg, Germany, Doomship Festival promises to be one of this summer’s essential gatherings. Anchored aboard the legendary MS Stubnitz, this unique event was born off a deep-rooted desire to celebrate music, friendship, and the enduring spirit of the underground. We reached out to Olli — guitarist for Berlin’s funeral doom group Urza and one of the driving forces behind Doomship, to discover how a simple idea for a tenth-anniversary show evolved into a two-day event featuring some of Europe’s finest doom bands. Here you will find reflections on the origins of Doomship, the collaborative spirit that fueled its creation, and thoughts on the very essence of doom metal. Needless to say… be there.
Please take us to the very beginning: when did the idea of organizing a doom festival on a ship first hit you, and what pushed it from fantasy to reality?
The idea of having our own festival has been a wish for a long time. For the Doomship we just wanted to organize a gig for our (Urza) tenth anniversary together with our friends in FVNERAL FVKK, who will also be celebrating their tenth anniversary in 2025. Our artist Ole Fink from Hamburg, who also plays in OPHIS, has good connections to the MS Stubnitz and so we just asked. The idea to make it a two-day event came from them and we just said why not!
Why the MS Stubnitz? What drew you to this particular floating venue, and what were the logistical challenges involved in securing it for a two-day festival?
The MS Stubnitz is a very iconic venue with a long history of docking and hosting events throughout Europe. We have seen concerts there, and when we visited the venue in April this year, we realized that it was the perfect place for this kind of gloomy music. It was the idea of the MS Stubnitz to make it a two-day event, so it was no challenge.
ℹ️The MS Stubnitz is a former East German cargo ship turned iconic cultural venue, permanently moored in Hamburg’s harbor. Since the early 1990s, it has hosted countless underground music events, art installations, and performances across Europe. With its raw industrial interior and intimate atmosphere, the Stubnitz has become a legendary space for alternative and extreme music scenes. [photo: Pauli-Pirat, Wikimedia Commons]
How did the booking process for Doomship work – were you reaching out to personal favorites, or did you have a concept in mind that guided the selection?
The booking was done by Niko from FVNERAL FVKK and by Marc, Hannes and myself. We have been in the doom scene for a while and have been trying to play with ATARAXIE for a long time. So we just got together, made a list of bands we would like to play at the event, and asked them. All the bands performing at this festival are more or less good friends of ours, and we are pleased to make all the arrangements to have them at the festival. We are very lucky to have such a great line-up.
Do you have any other doom or metal festivals, past or present, that served as inspiration, either musically, visually, or in terms of atmosphere?
The doom metal scene, in my opinion, has the greatest festivals of all time. My wife and I travel around Europe a lot to see our friends at the best festivals you can imagine. There is a strong doom scene in Germany with a lot of cool underground festivals focusing on extreme doom like Stygian Pilgrims in Braunschweig or Doomed To Death Festival in Solingen. Going deeper into Europe, there is the Haunting The Castle festival in Anthisnes, Belgium, which will hopefully see another edition in 2026. There have been some great festivals in the past. We have travelled to Doom Over London and Madrid Is The Dark to name but a few.
Our drummer Hannes is involved in the Berlin-based Swamp Fest – an independent DIY festival featuring a wide range of underground bands from doom to all other extremes of metal and beyond.
Our bassist Marc co-organised the Doom Rotten Death Festival ten years ago, which was a one-off event featuring only doom and death metal bands.
The doom metal scene is a very warm scene of friends. It is great to meet like-minded people from all over Europe and enjoy the same passion of doom together. Doom metal in general is not a genre of competition, but of true lifelong friendships if you work at it.
Urza live — one of the excellent acts set to perform at Doomship Festival
Putting together a festival is notoriously stressful. What were some of the biggest hurdles you’ve faced so far? permits, scheduling, tech, money… and how have you tackled them?
The MS Stubnitz has been a perfect workaround for hosting a festival that has taken a lot of the stress off us, because they do it all the time. We took the financial risk, of course, and it was certainly not the cheapest time of the year to book hotels at Pentecost in Hamburg.
What are your personal expectations for this first edition of Doomship, both as an organizer and as a musician? What would make this weekend a success in your eyes?
We hope to have two incredible evenings of great music and great people. The venue is perfect, the pre-sales are going well. We would like to cover all costs with the event. And of course, the world needs more dark doom festivals that help to discover the variety of styles the genre has to offer. Doom metal is not a trend, it is a way of life, and people who follow this path need opportunities to celebrate with a mixture of tragic and dark music, in good company, in a cosy atmosphere. I really hope we can provide that on the Doomship.
Looking ahead, do you see Doomship becoming an annual pilgrimage, or is this more of a one-off passion project? What would it take to set sail again in 2026?
There is already a small glimpse of making this festival happen again, but it depends heavily on the turnout of this first edition. There are a lot of factors that we haven’t thought about yet, so let’s just say we’re trying for this first edition because it would be the only one. It is a dream coming true for us to host a festival in this great location, and we are grateful to everyone who has supported us in this project. So keep your fingers crossed, spread the word about Doomship, and enjoy the festival! Hope to see a lot of you there!
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Doomship Festival: Website & Tickets | Facebook | Instagram | Spotify
June 6-7 2025, MS Stubnitz, Hamburg, Germany
Lineup:
Ataraxie
Blazing Eternity
Helevorn
Decemberance
Ophis
Officium Triste
Fvneral Fvkk
Endonomos
Urza.
