interview with Idiot Ikon
How is it that you started playing music? I raised listen to music since I was a child so it was natural for me be involved with music. I was 13 years old when I get to play drums in my very first band. It was a very bad punk rock band but you can't wait much out of a 12-13 years old kid. Since then I never stopped playing. I have mostly been involved with punk music but when I have a spare time I do write songs that is not directly punk in the musical sense but always true to my idea of music which is beyond of contructing good riffs and harmonies but to try to expose a soul in its very essence in form of sounds therefore I try always to find the melodies inside me instead of make a xerox copy or following certain rules and existent patterns.
What are your names? / Who plays what? / How old are you? Fabbe - guitar 34, Maria- vocal 31, Calle- bass I believe is 31 and Daniel - 38
Have you had other previous members? We had Niklas since the beginning as the second guitar but for personal reasons he has recently left the band.
Did you make music even when you were young? I answered my experiences in bands in the second question. I believe that the others have been involved into music in the early days as well but I can't precise how young they were though.
Where are you from? We are from Stockholm Sweden.
What year did the band form? Idiot Ikon has started with this shape in 2013 but Daniel and me had started rehearsing the year before that 2012 but the oficial year is 2013. The band started after the demise of our former band Clutches, then I met Daniel and later on Maria and Calle both also in Clutches with me joined in Idiot Ikon.
What's your style of genre? Genre is punk but due to the fact that punk is genre with dozens of different style we can say that we play d-beat punk.
What inspires you? Personally I could say that any sort of art in general. I'm really into old dark movies and specially horror,sci-fi,history,war and crime genres,I'm into also pictures, paintings and books. Usually I get inspired by old stuff therefore I like to get the essence of a work and try to reinterpret to the modern times on my own persective. I believe that it is unecessary to mention that among all kind of arts, music is over the top for me.
How often and where do you reherse? We rehearse at least once in a week but sometimes we don't do it just because we all get our jobbs, 3/4 of the band has kids, etc. Our rehearsal room is located at Hökarängen, south in Stockholm.
How have you developed since you started with the music? We developed our scene performances along with our music as well. Maria has every show a special outfit, we have a kind of circensis or theatrical background and also in the music sense we've gotten our sound and musical aestethic. We no longer need to think how a new song should sound but how to make news songs a further developing of the old ones to not fall into the mistake of repeat ourselves and sterelize the creative process.
Do you have other interests of work outside the band? Yes. I do. I try to get involved in the "do it yourself" community through setting gigs to friends on tour,a few years ago I was involved indirectly with a political and punk collective called Grundbulten who did a lot of work and gigs. Besides that I've worked as music teacher at the high school and now I'm studying to continue working as a teacher.
Are you looking for a booking agency, and what are your thoughts around that? Not really. Our "booking agency" is ourselves and our network of friends. We are a diy punk band that means we can't and not intend to employ anyone or make a living out of the band. It's not that I'm think that it is wrong making a living out your work but I'm realistic that to achieve it I have to compromise my work to achieve a higher audience when I really just want to make music to myself and eventually others that got the same vibe. In other words I think booking agencies might interfer in the band freedom to make decisions about where to play or don't based basically on cash because they want their share of the cake as well.
Are you looking for a label, and what are your thoughts around that? Yes,we are looking for labels to release our upcomming records. I myself had my own label back in the days and I think that mostly it can work really fine between a band and the label if all the process of production is clear and keeping the rights exclusively to the band and not to the label. There is different ways of working with a label, sometimes they only do the pressing but theres cases with bigger labels which pay all the costs starting with the recording bills to the end of the process which is the record itself. Of course when the entiry process is made by the label they will keep the copyrights so it's really a dilema for me say with it's a good or a bad deal. Depends on the moment. I wish rather to release my bands records myself, like the band label and hold all the control within the band but in fact I can't afford it now but it is something that I keep in mind for future projects, I mean, start again with a label but only for my own projects. On the other hand I do admire and respect a lot independent record labels that support independent bands in a fair and honest way without being a bloodsucker which happen and it is not an isolated problems unfortunally.
What made you decide to make this music? As mentioned before here, I grew up with punk music and it was the first kind of music that I deeply felt in love so in other words, it was purely rage,frustration and passion for this music style that made me do it. The fact of this music put both feelings as rage and frustration in a simple way giving the chance to anyone to just grab an instrument and scream you guts out was and still is inspiring for me.
What are your songs about? Our lyrics handle with the negative side of life, the bad things that surround us constantly. It's not political in the strict sense. I'd say that we put our perspective about existence itself.
Who does the composing and writes the lyrics? The lyrics it's Maria and I and eventually Calle who write them and the music it is me and our former guitarist Niklas when he plyed with us. Now it's me but the final result is a overall contribution of everyone in the band.
Do you start with the music or the lyrics? Mostly with the music and then Maria has some lyrics that we make it to fit in but there are songs that I do the music first and afterwards the lyrics however when I do the music I do starting from a theme that I already havein my head like war, crime or whatever human stupidity for instance. Then I do the music thinking already on the lyrics but lyrics come always afterwards.
Do you compose in a certain inviroment? Yes. In my room where I can work isolated and have access to all my sources of inspiration as books and records.
Have you done any covers live? We used to play Disrupt A life is a life but we no longer play it.
What language do you sing in? Swedish, Norwegian and English.
What ages are most of your concert attendants? It's hard to say but somewhere between 30 to 40 years old.
Do you always play the same songs live, or do you vary? We're a quite new band so to say so we play the same songs live but not always. We started with 7 songs which 4 is in a split 12" lp with Passiv Dödshjälp but during the first two years we got a couple new songs and this year we're gonna play a new set list and a couple of old songs. We play the songs to promote the actual release but as long as we make more songs along the years we'll try to vary according to the gig. Even playing the same songs live I can assure that every gig is unique and is intended to be so.
What was your first gig like? It was really good as far as I remember. We played in a traditional venue in Stockholm called Kafé 44. We played our first gig with good local bands and friends in Makabert Fynd and Honnör SS. It was 7th december 2013.
What was your latest gig? It was our best gig so far and it was powerful. It was the last gig for Niklas as well which we didn't know by then. It was a gig that I fixed up the datebut it wouldn't happen without Ronny from Dead Rythm klubb who is a pro to booking and running gigs in Stockholm. We we're support act to Deathraid and Mob 47 and it was the debut gig for Svaveldioxid. Great gig with great bands and atmosphere in one of nowadays best places in Stockholm, Cyklopen.
Have you had to cancel a gig? Not so far. We had to decline invitations a couple of times though.
Where have you played live this year? Well, the year is just starting so we haven't played yet. We have so far one gig already booked in may in Jönköing and some other town that we haven't decided yet. Now we're working on booking gigs and festivals in Europe for this year, trying to booking as much as possible until the fall. Some places in the plan are Finland, maybe England, Poland, Denmark and a future project maybe in the end of this year a one week tour in the south in Europe like Spain, France, Italy, Portugal.
When did you start to sell merchandise, and what do you have for sale? It's been a couple of years now. We have not too much left now but we're going to restock coming soon with t- shirts with the old draws and a new draw as well and a small colorful parcel. Besides that we have a vinyl compilation Turist i Tillvaron vol. 8 where we contribute with one song.
Where can people buy your merchandise? At our gigs or write to [email protected] and ask for updated list or you can purchase directly from our bandcamp website.
What do you think about people downloading music instead of buying records now a days? Honestly I don't see that much problem about downloading. Of course the best for a band is that people support the band by buying records but in a way I noticed along the years that people that used to consume records still do it and people that listen to downloadec music never been actual record buyers. Theres is also the fact that since this then new technology came out the entire idea of music consuming changed, not only the market but the variety of forms to listening it is totally different. I do listen myself quite a lot in the digital format like spotify or download but still I have my private colection and I still think that the hole experience of listening to a vinyl is way better than digital but the modern life forced me to do it. Before I used to have loads of tapes and a walkman with me, nowadays I have some sort of eletronic device with digital music. I don't have too much spare time to appreciate vinyl at home and I must do everything with music as backgrund so this is a good alternative. The good side of all this "new age" is that for me the moment to listining to vinyl is like a religious ceremony where I enjoy it in its all extent.
How do you think the music industry have changed because of this? Everything has changed since the advent of the digital format. Nowadays the record labels bet on small pressings like 500 or 1000 unities when it's smaller bands but even bigger bands or mainstream bands get smaller quantities. Vinyl records are made as special and limited editions for die hard fans and cd records have turned into useless and disposable piece of plastic. It was a huge impact for the record labels as an industry but for the bands it hasn't change that much since bands or musicians have always survived of shows and general merchandise like t-shirts for instance. Of course records are a part of the merchandise but I notice that our t-shirts sell way faster than records. I must say that this is how I see the industry nowadays.Personally I still do love vinyl records and I think that they are way cooler and better sound than mp3 or whatever digital format.
What do you think of my work? I admire your work and your support to the bands into the underground scene which I think there are many more interesting music happening into this scene than mainstream. Your work helps bands to spread their noise worldwide.
How do you think and know that this interview will help you in the music business? The band philosophy is to spread our music as far as possible and reach people that get it. Not necessarly a huge amont of people but people that really could appreciate us. I think this interview may help with that.
Do you have any role models or idols? Not really. I do have people that inspires me in one way or another but I wouldn't say they are role models or idols. I mean, I can get inspired by people that are close to me but anonymous to the world.
Why do you think that they exist? I can't answer this question properly. I assume that people seek for some guidance to fullfil their emptiness or maybe it is laziness to figure out life by themselves. I don't know actually.
Is it easier to find inspiration from older bands, or bands that are more active today? Definitely from older bands. I like to see how a band developing over the years for example when you listen to the classics like The Who, Motörhead, Black Sabbath ,etc. You get their techinical developing as musicians also how a certain decade influenced them. New bands can be inspiring as well when the band captures exactly what you've been searching not as a musician but as audience instead.
What advice would you give other bands or artists? Do it yourself. Don't wait for others do it for you and be honest to yourself don't try to fit in the trend, it may attract bigger audience for a moment but it falls into oblivion when the trend is over.
How do you get psyched for a gig? Usually I get anxious before a gig. I only get psyched a few seconds after I've played the first chords, after that I feel the stage as the best place in the world to be in.
Do you have any new material? We have 7 new songs that we'll be recorded in march at Wolfden studio in Stockholm. We're not sure about the format yet, if it's gonna be a 7" or a 12" but keep your eyes open to further informations soon.
What are your web sites?
Bandcamp:https://idiotikon.bandcamp.com/releases
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/idiotikondtakt
How can people reach you? Through facebook, bandcamp or our e-mail.
What are your plans for the future? Release a couple new records this year, and play a couple festivals this year. For a not so distant future touring in Brazil, US and Asia.
Do you have something to add? Thank you Robex for the space and interview. Keep doing this good work. To everybody else I say, see you on the road.
