KoC Page Deo2.com Interview

Kings of Convenience’s qualities are quiet, restrained and melodic tunes; the band brought us delightful hits 'Toxic Girl', 'Failure' and the debut album ‘Quiet is the New Loud’ to be quickly dubbed the ‘Creators of New Acoustic Movement’. Luckily for Eirik Glambek Boe and Erlend Oye, that tag was short-lived…

That was four years ago and KoC are at it again with ‘Riot On An Empty Street’, an album that continues where the other one left off, adding few surprises. The acoustic sound is still very much the leading sidle, augmented by banjo (Eirik), self-taught trumpet (Erlend), bass, drums and other instrumentation in carefully selected places. The greatest surprise is the bossa-nova sound…
Recorded over the last six months in Bergen, with periodic visits from ex-patriot Erlend - now based in Berlin - ‘Riot’ contains the familiar harmonics on its opener 'Homesick', 'Gold In The Air Of Summer' and 'Surprise Ice', to the new-pop swing of live favourite 'I'd Rather Dance With You', 'Know How,' 'Love Is No Big Truth' or the first single 'Misread' to more complex instrumentation this time around.

And, there is a song behind the title of the album but it is not included as the twosome aren‘t satisfied with the version; but then, we are informed that some of the included songs predate the maiden disc. Brewed to perfection?

“Great thing about taking four years off,” Boe speaks fluently with a distinct Scandinavian accent, “to come up with the second album is that people forget about you… Or, it looks like they’ve forgotten about you, our music. There was no pressure, I was in a studio, 200 meters from my house. I didn’t think, for a single moment, about listeners, fans…”

“What I did think about is the ugly world we live in. There are too many difficulties and problems in the world today. Violence, cruelty, war on terrorism, people are dying every day and the news are full… Still, I didn’t try to counterbalance that, consciously, but was thinking - ‘Why am I making pretty songs about close relationships when the world is in such an ugly state?’”

“The conclusion I came to,” he continues unaided, “is that most things happen on one-to-one basis and they are not that ugly. I decided I’d rather not comment on the world’s political situation but concentrate on what is the most important to people - their personal life.”

Subtle subversion

During the KoC’s hiatus Erlend released a debut solo album 'Unrest' early last year then toured the record both with a full band, and as a Singing DJ, where he would sing over records, play acoustic guitar and dance. It was something else in the clichéd world of DJing… Oye is currently working on his new project 'The Whitest Boy Alive' that made its maiden appearance on the Kitsuné’s recent 'Midnight' album.

While your partner was spreading his music, you went for a spell of work in a mental institution?

“Yeah, I studied psychology for six and a half years and have another year to go… It is a very long training process and to become clinical psychologist in Norway you have to study a lot of different fields… I did neuro-physiology for a year, trying to figure out how brain works.”

For our more scientifically minded readers, any conclusion on the subject?

“Brain, despite of the accepted view, is not like a computer; there are two sides to it, organic and mechanical, inasmuch that the whole is greater than the sum of its pieces. Brain is an apparatus that receives signals from everywhere, spiritual sphere for instance, and human mind is more than the sum of physiological processes. Brain is connected to the spiritual, non-physical realm.”

How much is all these helping your songwriting? You’ve been quoted about therapy being “about creativity as much as music, making something new out of all the pieces that are already there.”

“Music and therapy are very similar because both are about the personal development. It is about going further, deeper and having your own cognition and feeling but taking it a step up. It is unravelling mystery and a good song is not written, it is discovered, if you know what I mean.”

Split stylings

The Kings were joined in the studio by hotly tipped Canadian songstress Leslie Feist [whose disc ‘Let It Die’ is released 12 July 2004]; aside the bossa-nova track she is on the album's closing track 'The Build Up' - duetting with Erlend in a most stark and emotive melody of the year. “For the first time ever we managed to do something spontaneous,” Mr Oye comments.

“Erlend saw Leslie in Portugal, at some festival, and then he heard she was playing in Berlin in December 2002. I was spending time with him in Berlin and he took me to see her and she performed alone with electric guitar. I was totally blown away by her and the disc she gave me [‘Red Demos’], became my favourite album of the last five years. I gave tape to few friends in the industry and everybody started calling me about her, to sign her up. She’s got a new album out…”

Haven’t you got any ambition to do some solo work?

“I have no wish for the moment but in the future, I will. In the best case scenario, I believe that Erlend and I would be working together for a long time. When I get round to doing my solo album, I’ll be making an ambient-record… I am a big fan of Brian Eno and his series of albums in the early 1980s… I’d like to do it with organic instruments, acoustic and that is what attracts me. I’ll probably release a piano-ambient record in 2020.”

Have you got some more imminent plans? Aren’t you playing a guitar in another rock band?

“Yes, I’m and it is my friends’ band; it is my hobby. We don’t have a name, we have not recorded anything and are only doing it for fun. The band sounds melodic, a rock band expressing anger because there is no much room to express anger in KoC, its music is not convenient… But then, the [other band’s] music got melodic.”

Is it true that Kurt Neilson, the ‘World Idol’, was a plumber in a studio where you record?

“I don’t know, I’m not really sure… There is a sign in the toilets of one of the three main studios in Bergen… Someone wrote ‘Plumbed by Kurt’, which could be true. He is a plumber and Bergen being a small place, it is very likely.”

After a short promotional tour, the two hit the road for selected shows: three in Great Britain [19-22 June], one each in Paris [28], Amsterdam [11 July], Roma [Rome, 16 July], Berlin [12 Agust], before proudly adding, “We are playing Jazz Festival in Montreux [17 July],” and then conclude: “We are just testing the demand, we hope to tour more extensively.”

KoC also play Summer Sundae Festival, Leicester, on 14 August.