Why are you named Kårp and what’s the story behind it?
Spelled differently the word Korp means raven in Swedish. Which is strange since the word raven actually is of old Norse origin. Pronounced in English it sounds almost like the corpse which is pretty bad ass and resonates with our fascination by darkness, dying and death. Shit, we sound like freaks already?!
The real reason tho is that because KÅRP is a word of our own invention it’s super easy to google (if you have a Swedish Å Ä Ö keyboard) and thus helps satisfy our self-absorbed minds 🙂
How did you guys meet and how come you decided to start a band?
Haha. We met at a course in UFO studies a few years back. It sounds ridiculous, we know. But it was kind of scientific -ish. You get to look at old pixelated photos and learn how to know the difference between ”real” flying saucers and fake ones. Most pics are just dirt on the lens or reflections or whatever, but who cares WE WANT TO BELIEVE. Don’t judge.
The music bit came later. Jonas is a sound engineer, Tobias an ADHD idea maker, Anders a master of harmonies and Anna-Maria has a voice from out of this world. No reason to not start a band!
Who do you look up to musically?
We live in Gothenburg, Sweden. It’s a middle sized city on the Swedish west coast which has a music scene other cities could only dream of. We’re talking The Knife, El Perro del Mar, José Gonzalez, Ace of Base(!), Jens Lekman, The Spotnicks, Fever Ray. We just keep drinking the water over here and hope for the best. We’re blessed to be surrounded by friends who are creative geniuses – our love and inspiration.
What do you wish in the next step for your music?
To dig deeper, go darker, come closer.
Things have moved quickly for us since our first released Therapist^2 in October last year. With three tracks in our backpack, we’ve just started to build our dream house. We wanna stay on top of that mission and keep exploring the depths of our music.
What was the last text message you wrote to each other?
This just in from our group chat:
A-M: I just spoke to ”lazer-mike”, he said we need to choose between the dolphin idea or the deep space rings of Saturn idea”.
J: can’t we choose both?
T: lol! the deep space dolphins of Saturn???
A: Nooo! the deep dolphin idea of space!
(and so on forever… and YES Lazer-Mike is real, he’s a friend of ours.)
What did you last argue about?
Woody Allen once said, ”I don’t worry, I grow tumors”. We have kinda the same philosophy when it comes to arguing. Everything takes place under the surface. This has sort of reached a point where a comment like ”could you please turn up the guitar just a few notches on this track?” basically means I hate your entire family and hope you die of drowning very soon.
Sometimes we argue about where to meet. 3/4 of us always wanna be at Jonas’ place cuz he keeps Red Bull in his fridge and we like to drink that. Jonas wants us to be not in his house cuz we drink his Red Bull. Also sometimes we argue about that we can’t fit our instrument in Jonas’ car cuz it’s always full of empty Red Bull cans!!! Hm, it seems like we have a theme here… Someone plz break our energizing soft drink chains :'(
What did you last laugh about?
Anders had a dream about how Anna-Maria had written a song about how she fired everyone in the band by writing a song about it. That was fun. Even more fun the next time we met and Anna-Maria had written a new tune about how she did just that; fired the lot of us. Out sooner than you know, keep your ears out!
What’re your different personalities in the band?
Anna-Maria: Comes up with the most amazing melodies both vocals and music. It’s a wonder she trusts us with her ideas.
Jonas: Meticulous as fuck. He never ever finishes working on a track. To him, all our released tracks are just interrupted works in progress.
Tobias: The opposite. More like ”wow! nice chord guys! Let’s record it and release it tomorrow as a full-length double triple album!”
Anders: ”Hey guys! Don’t you think that the bass drum at 02:42 could end 0.29285803 seconds earlier and it would change the whole worlds understanding of music and we could make it in the states?”
Bye-bye! <3
story / Clara Nordlander Wiberg
CONNECT WITH Kårp:
FACEBOOK // INSTAGRAM // SOUNDCLOUD