It’s no secret that Sweden’s not just famous for their fancy furniture and blonde beauties but also for great pop music. No need to list all the classics here… But KATE BOY might be another potential name to add to the list. The three Swedes, plus one Australian (to keep it exact), celebrate atmospheric electronic pop music with a certain dark twist. Their debut EP Northern Lights, was received more than well after its release in January, 2013. And it kept us asking – are KATE BOY here to save pop music? Does it even need to be saved? Read our chat with the newcomers right here.
You describe your first meeting in this serendipitous-one-night-stand-turned-everlasting-love kind of way. I think that is something that a lot of musicians want… a musical connection that just fits. What was it about this meeting that you knew that you just had to record that night?
It was special in the way that we knew absolutely nothing about each other and we were able to connect in a unique way. It was just so easy. It doesn’t happen that often. We had a really fun night and just realized that we all wanted to do exactly the same thing.
You wrote “Northern Lights” that night. Did you feel that the track was complete, or did you go back to the song later and then start to realize your sound?
The skeleton of it was there, everything from the bass line to the melody and lyrics, but it took longer to fine tune and mix it. We spent the following year writing more songs and creating our sound, so we kept revisiting it for tweaks here and there, but our sound was definitely created on that first night.
It is often mentioned that you guys are one part Australian and three parts Swedish. Do you think this is an essential part of defining KATE BOY?
We think the mix of our nationalities inadvertently makes the sound that we have… the blend of the Scandinavian darkness with some Australian sun.
What is that you love so much about the music of Sweden?
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That’s hard for us to answer as a group since we are 75% Swedish, but speaking now as Kate, I love the way the Swede’s can make pop music with an edge and a hardness to it. It’s cold and dark, but still pop. I love that kind of music and I think it is something they have so naturally inside them. The boys think it might be due to the long, cold winters.
What elements of your sound to you draw from individual influences, and what has your experience been combining 4 specific interests?
Who ever creates the first seed of a piece of music always puts their touch on it. The first idea often sounds quite different from the finished result. It’s not until we all add our vision and touch to it that it forms a KATE BOY song. It’s a great thing that we’re all so inspired by different things, otherwise it could very easily be one sided and flat. That’s the best thing about working in a team with people you trust. Everyone will put their personal spin on it and this new, unique piece is created.
You said that “KATE BOY is an “androgynous person, almost like a character” that is part of the group. Did this idea come before you chose to call yourselves “Kate Boy” or did the character form afterwards?
The way of describing us as the “5th member” or “character” came after we chose to name ourselves KATE BOY. But to be honest, it all kind of came at once… because we knew how we felt as a team and as the one entity, so the name fit us perfectly. We guess it has a little bit of the “chicken and the egg” theory to it.
Once your debut single “Northern Lights” took off and after really deciding the direction of your work, what made you believe Iamsound would be the best label to release your first E.P?
Kate was friends with them from when she used to live in LA, so the decision was easy to go with people we really liked who also happened to have an amazing label with artists we really respect on it.
Are there any artists on Iamsound that you would be interested in collaborating with in the future?
We love MS MR, and we also think MEN could be a cool collaboration – “KATE MEN”.
We are a music magazine, all about ‘hope’ and ‘passion’, what do these words mean to you?
We think they are two of the most fundamental elements someone needs to create something true and fulfilling, for without hope and passion we never would have created anything together or for that matter – started it in the first place… we wouldn’t have even met at all.