Berlin-based emo/screamo band Older Friends, built on the remnants of past projects and a shared frustration with stagnation, have taken a slow-burn approach to their sound. What started as a two-piece experiment between Bolko (guitar, vocals) and David (drums) evolved into something heavier, faster, and more urgent. Bianca, David’s partner, joined in later—first just to scream, then on bass, and finally as an integral part of the writing process.
Their debut full-length, No Drum Policy, is the culmination of that journey—a record that shifts between chaotic intensity and introspective twinkle, mirroring the band’s evolution from raw aggression to something sharper and more refined.
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The album wears its influences openly, nodding to acts like Orchid, Jerome’s Dream, and Punch while keeping its feet planted in the tangled, twinkly complexity of modern midwest emo.
But Older Friends are carving out their own space, pushing their technical limits with every new song. “Every track stretches our capacity,” they explain. David was new to drums, Bianca had never played bass, and Bolko had yet to tap into the emo/screamo space. That learning curve gives No Drum Policy a restless energy—every track sounds like it’s reaching beyond itself, straining toward something bigger.
Lyrically, the album moves between personal unraveling and social critique.
Hole Unplugged Is What They Took From Us sets the tone with its jagged repetition, capturing the feeling of being frozen in a moment of irreversible change. “For me, it’s about realizing your life will never be the same again, but watching it happen from the outside,” Bianca says. Bolko admits the track almost didn’t make it, initially thinking it was “too basic,” but the stripped-down intensity proved its strength.
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Tröste Mich marks a turning point in their songwriting, leaning into mathy complexity while keeping its emotional weight intact. Bianca, reflecting on the title (which translates to ‘comfort me’), describes it as an existential examination of how fear is often just a construct—either imposed by society or created by our own minds.
Beautiful Dogs takes a more abstract approach, playing with entropy and inevitable deterioration. “We really played around with rhythm on this one,” Bianca says. “It took us forever to get it right.”
They throw in some playful misdirection with One by Metallica by I Hate Sex, a name that confuses audiences every time they announce it live. Despite the joke, the track itself is anything but lighthearted—chaotic and impulsive, it reflects Bianca’s struggles with impulse control and internal disorder. The humor resurfaces in Sidney Prescott, but the content is deadly serious. Bianca calls it their best song, a rejection of patriarchal oppression and a refusal to have her body or freedom dictated by anyone else. “I can only be truly free if I don’t have to refuse all these things anymore.”
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There are softer moments, too, though they remain steeped in the same sense of existential weight. Light Jazz finds inspiration in a cemetery inscription: ‘Far from the eye, but ever close to the heart.’ Bolko admits the quiet intro makes it difficult to play live—there’s something unsettling about being alone in a room full of eyes. Come on Baby Light My Fire is his personal favorite, a track he refined over months that feels like a step forward in his songwriting. Meanwhile, Fun Bobby closes things on a note of nostalgia and loss, revisiting the collapse of a friendship.
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Beyond the record, Older Friends are already moving forward. They’re gearing up for their first tour in May alongside atameo and have plans to release a new EP before the end of the year. “The main focus is writing new songs and dusting off the setlist,” they say, though live shows remain a priority. Their local scene—a tight-knit, supportive group—has fueled their momentum. Frustrated by a lack of promoters bringing the bands they love to Berlin, they started their own booking collective, hoping to turn the city into a hub for the genre.
The cover art for No Drum Policy reflects that same communal spirit. Designed by a longtime friend, it captures the essence of the band: three people who have known each other for years, still making music together, still pushing forward. “It’s about growing up and eventually growing old together,” they say. That sentiment runs through every second of No Drum Policy—a record that sounds like movement, like friction, like three people refusing to stay still.
Here’s the full track by track commentary, by Older Friends:
Hole Unplugged is what they took from us
Bianca: This was the most fun song to write. We wrote the entire instrumentals in just one rehearsal and then one more rehearsal for the vocals. There is no other song that we wrote that fast. The lyrics are intentionally basic and repeating. For me they represent a moment of change in your life. You realize your life will never be the same afterwards but you’re also kind of frozen and watch yourself from the outside as it is happening.
Bolko: I remember that I brought an entirely different and much more tricky and complex song-idea to the rehearsal but since the other two didn’t seem to be too phased about that I had this simple idea as a backup. It was something I didn’t even want to show in the first place since I thought it to be too “basic” but it somehow just worked.
David: The writing process for this song was super fun. For half an hour we just bounced ideas back and forth and suddenly the whole song structure was figured out. I also had an “aha” moment on the drums – playing a blast beat like a flam sounds way more aggressive.
Tröste Mich
Bianca: We wrote this one a while ago and it marked a change towards more twinkle emo stuff for us. It has been challenging to play for all of us to this day. It’s in German and translated to console or comfort me. What comforts me in life sometimes is knowing that all of our fears and problems are just a construct – constructs of society or even of our own imagination.
David: Before the album, we had already recorded this song in our rehearsal room, as we did with the demo. That’s always a nail-biter since the walls of the room are basically paper mache. Not only do you have to play a good take, it also has to happen to fall into a break from your neighbors or else you have a metalcore song or a Bach flute concert in the background.
Beautiful Dogs
Bianca: We really played around with rhythm on this one and it took us forever to get it right. I wrote about entropy and how we’re always heading closer to our own deterioration.
Bolko: The other two are nearly always late for rehearsals and so I often have to bypass some time by myself. I wrote the foundation for this song in one of these waiting times in just a few minutes basically. But like Bianca said, getting it right took ages.
One by Metallica by I Hate Sex
Bianca: This is one of the more screamo-ish ones of the album. It feels chaotic to me so I wrote about my lack of impulse control and the chaos in my head.
David: Announcing that song on stage is often a great source of confusion. Some people expect a Metallica cover (lol), others an I Hate Sex cover but it’s neither. Our friends from I Practice Saying Sorry To You So I Can Do It In Front Of The Mirror One Day took the pun to the next level on their demo. Given their band name, I’m afraid this joke cannot travel further anymore.
Sidney Prescott
Bianca: Easily our best song. David wrote the guitar parts spontaneously while we were spending a few days at a lonely cabinet in the woods. We didn’t finish it for ages but wanted to have it on the album so worked on it over and over again. For me it’s the most fun one to play live. I wrote about freedom in disguise. It’s about my choice to say no, no to an oppressive patriarchal society, no to my body being exploited and my freedom taken away from me. I end it by saying I can only be truly free if I don’t have to refuse all of these things any longer.
Bolko: Not only did David write most of the music, he did so in an entirely different (open) tuning. Up to this point I refused to try and tune my guitar to anything other than standard. I guess, that’s because I have no music theory whatsoever and just play intuitively, which a new tuning does not really foster. Turns out it does after all. So in a way that song changed alot for me from a songwriting perspective. That is to say the upcoming stuff will be a lot more twinkly/midwest emo.
Light Jazz
Bolko: It sounds a bit cheesy (because it is) but the lyrics go back to a tombstone I discovered while taking a walk in an old cemetery. The part of Berlin where I live isn’t really green and so I go there sometimes to have some greenery and some calm. The inscription on the stone read “Dem Auge so fern, dem Herzen ewig nah” (vaguely “Far from the eye, but ever close to the heart”). I thought it had a ring to it and then I wrote the rest of the lyrics around that.
Also it’s always hard for me to play live, because of the really long and quiet tapping melody at the beginning that I’m all alone with and feel watched by the whole room and the rest of the band.
Come on Baby Light my fire
Bolko: This is somewhat my baby and personally my favorite track on the album. I wrote the whole thing over months and I have the feeling that I tried something quite new with the lyrics and the way I sing. Although I can’t really pin down why it all just really resonates with me and feels like a step forward and an accomplishment in my personal songwriting journey.
Fun Bobby
Bianca: We rerecorded this one for the album out of nostalgia and because our producer/friends loves this track. I wrote about the end of a friendship.
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