interview with Datapop
Have any of you played in other bands? No
What are your names? / Who plays what? We are Anders Wilhelm and Mikael Larsson. We play synths, we’re turning knobs and pushing buttons. We also do vocals when we’re not using speech synthesizers.
Have you had other previous members? No
Where are you from? Mikael lives in Halmstad on the west coast of Sweden. Anders lives in Sigtuna, north of Stockholm.
What year did the band form? We met each other by chance online as we both used soundcloud as a platform to share our own music. Anders suggested that we should start making music together. This was 2013 and we’ve been a band since then.
What's your style of genre? We call it machine pop. It’s electronic music with the roots in the Düsseldorf music scene from the seventies and further on.
What inspires you? Technology and sounds.
Are you looking for a booking agency, and what are your thoughts around that? We don’t have a booking agency right now. If anyone is interested they are welcome to contact us.
Are you looking for a label, and what are your thoughts around that?
We have sent our music to different labels but no contract yet. However, we have a great deal with a Russian label, Razgrom music. The guy who is running the label offered us to make a CD in 2017 and we released our album POP on CD with his help. If you are interested, it is for sale on our Bandcamp page.
Anyway, if a label wants to sign us, please do!
What are your songs about? Mainly technology and the use of technology. Trains, waveforms, computers, space, rhythms, radio, cities. There are so many wonderful new and vintage technologies that we love.
Who does the composing and writes the lyrics? We do it together. If Mikael makes a melody or a bassline, Anders makes a rhythm or vice versa. We bounce and send bits and pieces to each other and combine them until we’re both happy.
Do you compose in a certain inviroment? We have our home studios where most of the music is made. When we’re not at home, Anders uses his laptop and Mikael his ipad or iphone to make drafts and gather ideas. From a computers point of view, we use Ableton Live and Reason as the main tools.
Have you done any covers live? No.
What are the least and most people to attend one of your gigs? We haven’t played live yet.
What ages are most of your concert attendants? We haven’t played live yet.
Do you always play the same songs live, or do you vary? We haven’t played live yet.
Do you have a regular place you play live often? We haven’t played live yet.
What was your first gig like? We haven’t played live yet.
What was your latest gig? We haven’t played live yet.
Where have you played live this year? We haven’t played live yet. :-)
When did you start to sell merchandise, and what do you have for sale? At this point we have no merchandise besides from our CD. The music is the most important.
Where can people buy your merchandise? https://datapop1.bandcamp.com/
What do you think about people downloading music instead of buying records now a days? It’s a natural development. People use computers and smartphones to consume music. It’s portable and convenient. On the other hand, we still like vinyl and cd as it is a physical product. Flipping through the pages in our booklet from the POP-cd is really nice and something we miss from most download and steaming services. As long as the download is legal, we’re fine with it.
How do you think the music industry have changed because of this? Well, more people have the ability to publish their music nowadays and that is a good thing. The enormous amount of new artists and music is a challenge though. It’s hard to succeed and we think it takes a combination of talent, timing and luck to make it in this industry.
What do you think of my work? You are ambitious and your blog covers a lot of subjects. It’s interesting to read the interviews you’ve made with other bands. Keep up the good work.
How do you think and know that this interview will help you in the music business? If the reader gets curious about us and visit Bandcamp or Spotify to stream, listen and buys our music we are happy. If they tell their friends to do the same, we are even happier.
Do you have any role models or idols? Musically, our role models are Kraftwerk, Karl Bartos and similar artists. We are inspired by their sound and their attitude. To copy them is not our mission, it’s not even possible. But for pure inspiration, they are unbeatable!
Why do you think that they exist? There is always a need for great music and ideas. That’s why.
Is it easier to find inspiration from older bands, or bands that are more active today? Many contemporary artists are very inspiring, for example Anthony Rother, Uwe Schmidt (Atom TM). For us, the music is the most important not the age.
What have been your biggest obstacles? The fact that we live 550 km apart and have quite demanding day time jobs. We have only met three times irl, but thanks to internet we have the ability to work as a band. It wouldn’t be possible 20 years ago. The distance betwen us makes it hard to jam together. But so far, we have coped quite well. We have released one album, two EP:s and a couple of remixes to other artists so we must be doing something right, don’t you think?
What advice would you give other bands or artists? Follow your own path. Develop your own sound, even if its inspired by others. Make music just because it’s fun, not to make money.
Do you have any new material? Yes! We have just released a new EP, Sterne I. Four space themed songs that we are very happy with. We will follow this one up with two more EP:s on the same theme. We re working hard with new songs right now. It’s available on our Bandcamp page and will soon be released on Spotify and other major digital services.
What are your web sites? https://datapop1.bandcamp.com/
Do you have something to add? Stay tuned and listen to DATAPOP!
