INTERVIEW + BILLEDSERIE: Lørdag blev Aarhus gæstet af Palace Winter. Vi fik æren af at mødes med dem inden deres koncert på Voxhall. Snakken gik bl.a. om at spille på Spot, samt kærligheden til deres kommende debutalbum, bromance og ”The Hug”. Læs mere her.
Lørdag eftermiddag brød solen endelig frem, og gav forårsstemning til alle Spot-gæster i byen. Vi havde alliereret os med Carl Coleman og Caspar Hesselager, som sammen udgør Palace Winter, til et hyggeligt interview ved Pica Pica.
Vi fik placeret os ude i solen, og forsynet med lækre sommerlige øl tog vi en god snak med bandet om deres musik, samt forventninger til aftenens koncert:
Can you start by telling me a bit about yourselves and where you know each other from?
Carl: Yeah we met through a band that Caspar was playing in called The Rumour Said Fire, and I was doing a support tour. We just hit it of and we decided to make a project together. So we started recording in March 2014.
Caspar: So it is pretty much two years ago. We were just trying to see where the project would take us, so there were no big plans. I saw Carl play before at a lot of the support gigs, and it was just him and his guitar. I thought that he got something really special, and I thought that we could do something good together.
I read somewhere that you accidentally formed your band? So is that true, or could you say that it was “love at first sight” for you?
Caspar: Yeah sort of! We bonded over a lot of things, we played a lot of Fifa, talked shit about Seinfeld, movies and stuff like that.
Carl: But the project wasn’t an accident. The project was Caspar’s idea, and I got really psyched about it. It was exciting to work and collaborate with someone from a totally different world in music. So I went into Caspars studio that March. And that was it, we just started banging chains together.
Caspar: And because we didn’t have any big plans, we just took our time, and made six songs, which came out pretty awesome. So we started contacting labels, but really without any expectations.
But it turned out pretty well, didn’t it?
Caspar: Yes we got very fortunate with Tambourhinoceros.
Carl: Yeah they are super, like family!
So now you are here I Aarhus, playing at the Spot festival. And I can see that you are going on tour, are you looking forward to it?
Carl: Yeah we just played yesterday in London, and now we are going back to the UK next week. We look very much forward to going back!
What is tour life like, do you have any special things or rituals you do while touring?
Caspar: You know, 5 percent is playing music and 95 percent is logistics and trying not to get pissed at each other for meaningless reasons, ha!
Carl: Yeah and for example in the UK a lot of it is about carrying stuff in the tube. But it is still exciting and all a part of the adventure. And we have some other things coming up, where we will get in a tour van and do it all properly.
Caspar: But all in all, it is very enjoyable touring, and we are having a good time doing it together with our awesome band.
But tonight you are playing at SPOT Festival that is for upcoming bands. How do you feel like being a part of this concept, is it a progress for you as a band?
Carl: Sure! And I think especially playing Voxhall at that hour got us super stoked! And regardless of what comes out of our concert business wise, it is just sick to play at that hour. And hopefully someone sees it and digs it.
Caspar: Yeah we played some business concerts before, but I think the good thing about Spot is that it is also very much for the audience. Spot is quite a big thing in Aarhus cultural wise.
So you like the concept of SPOT?
Caspar: Yeah it is always a good thing playing for fans of music.
Do you have a “thing” you do before you go on stage?
Caspar: We give each other a hug.
Carl: I usually just smoke a lot of cigarettes! And I guess I try to like get into that “place”, you know?
Caspar: But we will hang on to it!
Carl: Yeah I know you like “the hug”Caspar: Yes it is good for me.
But I think a lot of people will show up tonight, because you have had a lot of success with your EP. I have myself listened to it 10.000 times, and I really like it. That leads me to ask you about your debut album, which is one the way? What does that feel like, it must be a pretty big thing?
Caspar: It feels really good actually. Regardless of what is going to happen with it, I feel really proud of that album. We really put an effort in to that album and spent a lot of time on it. And it is so nice to get to play the new songs live. And of course we are really excited to see what people think of it all.
I have always wandered about this actually: When you are a musician, and you put your heart into the work you do, what does it feel like when you play live and see the audience get just as “high on the music”, as you do yourselves?
Carl: Yeah it is pretty wild. It is always wild to see when someone connects with your music, whether it’s on some emotional level or something else. And it’s just a huge buzz to see when what we try to communicate gets through to people.
But about the new album, it almost feels like a concept now. I look it as one piece, because my previous work was different stuff from here and there. But this is like..I mean I have never worked like this before!
Caspar: We went to the studio and we had nothing, we just started from scratch. And then we came out 8 or 9 months later with the finished album.
Carl: Yeah so that was pretty intense. And when I compare that to what I thought was my favorite thing, which is doing the live sessions, I now reflect on the whole working process and songwriting as a very interesting place to be too.
You also have a special “sound” to your music, how did you agree on that sound?
Caspar: On of the things about us is, that we come from very different places music wise, but then we got this sort of “middle ground” that we can go to and that we know we both love. So we both have one leg in this middle place, and then the other leg in our own other place. So yeah, if feels like we found something, or some kind of sound. It’s always a bit of a struggle to name the sound as well.
Carl: It’s always really funny when your dads friends ask you what you play and you say “dead rock” and they are like: “Oooh yeah that’s like AC/DC, cool!”, and then you are like: “Yeah kind of, but not really”. Haha! So yeah, it is kind of hard to label your own music.
Caspar: But in a way, I think we are also both big fans of traditional songwriting, and really crafting song.
How do you write your songs, and who is writing them?
Carl: I had a lot of demos lying around before, and then Caspar would add things to it. And this time with our new album, we both had some things lying around, and then we took them and “Bvaarh”! (Smashing hands together).
Caspar: Yes, this time we didn’t have anything solid. We knew we had to make an album before a certain time, so we just started with Carl singing gibberish and playing guitar and me playing on the piano, and we would record stuff on our phones as well.
Carl: One of my favorite parts of the working process was when we were digging through my garage band shit on my computer, and Caspar would be like “Oh, what is that?” and I would be like “ah that’s a piece of shit”, and he would be like “no, no!” – that is really cool when other ears hear it and give an other perspective on the music…and then it grows into something.
Koncerten med Palace Winter senere på aftenen, blev til et fyldt Voxhall af glade og dansende mennesker – således en stor succes, og tak til Carl og Caspar for en eminent koncert og et spændende interview. Alt held og lykke med tour og nyt album herfra.
