Interview: Jenny Wilson and Karin Dreijer Andersson
This past fall, I met with Jenny Wilson and The Knife's Karin Dreijer Andersson; Jenny was heavily touring the acclaimed "Love and youth," and Karin was still working on "Silent shout" (which will be released in March). The two began their friendship with the collaboration on The Knife's "You take my breath away" duet, and "Love and youth" was released on The Knife's Rabid Records. So I was quite lucky to talk to them together. it's indeed rather curious that they're each acknowledged for uniquely cerebral creativity while simultaneously being portrayed as espousing quite mundane political directives. The opposite is clearly apparent: they present provocative ideas with the casual, quirky attitudes evident in their music.
- Roni Brunn
RB: How did you two begin to work together?
JW: The first thing we did was a duet, when I sang your song. We didn't really know each other before...
KD: I knew her band. I've seen them quite a few times. So I just, I asked you in some ways.
KD: Yeah. I think, we, we were actually working at the same place.
JW: Yes. A web magazine called Sourze. You were actually a webmaster at the web page, and I made illustrations for articles. But I was sitting at my home and just mailed pictures. So we've been around all the same places for a couple of years but never really, like, knew each other before you asked me to sing [laughs].
RB: How is it that you wanted a guest vocalist on the Knife album?
JW: Yeah, I was wondering that, too.
KD: I liked Jenny's voice a lot. I thought it would be interesting to get her voice into our music. So, actually, at first, we thought about making it more like a hip hop song, but it ended up like singing, "oh, you're so good and you are good, too." That's three years ago since we finished it.
JW: Feels like six years ago.
KD: Yeah. And after that, when you started to make your solo stuff, I got demos.
RB: Jenny, how did you decide to go solo after being in the First Floor Power?
JW: I think it's a natural step forward, because I've been working with a band, as a member with lots of long discussions about everything. And then I just felt I had to do something my own way and don't have to compromise for everything.
RB: What sort of things did you feel like you were compromising?
JW: Well, you have to compromise if you work with other people. It's simpler stuff. Everything. I mean, it doesn't matter what you do. You have to compromise. And that's good. I mean, that's a nice thing. But sometimes you feel like, "no, I don't want to explain my ideas to everyone right now." I mean, when you [Karin] heard my songs, I've been working almost a year on my music, just to find whatever, what the heck am I going to do.
RB: How did you find your sound?
JW: I didn't find it. Have I found it? I'm not sure. Actually, I listened to the radio yesterday. It was, for the first time, since I released it.
RB: What was that like?
JW: I thought it was pretty good, actually [laughs]. But it was... It was sweet. I thought it was hard. But it was sweet album.
RB: What do you guys like about working with music?
JW: I think it's pretty fantastic in some ways to work with music, because, first, you can go deep inside your own head, and just work alone, and you don't have to talk to anyone for a very long time, which is fantastic, [laughs] and then, when you're finished, you have to do the opposite. And you have to talk about the work and the process. I think it's pretty funny, because when I finished my album, and was talking in interviews, I had no idea what the fuck I had been doing for so long a time, because it was, like, I'd been working so much, in isolation, and intensively, so I was, like, "oh, I didn't remember anything of what I've done [laughs]."
RB: Did any of the stuff that came out when you were talking surprise you?
JW: Yeah.
KD: Right, I totally agree that, afterwards, you construct what you have done. You can afterwards find the right words about what you have been doing, and while you are working, you don't have to do that, you don't have any references...
JW: You don't want to have that.
KD: And you can't describe what you are doing or anything...
JW: I remember when I was going to do the first TV interview, and I was pretty nervous, because I felt so stupid and empty in my head. So, I was sitting, writing down everything. It felt like I was lying, but I wasn't lying. I really had to...
KD: I mean, someone asks, "what is your album like," and I don't like the idea at all.
JW: No, you have to put words about it for yourself. You have to ask yourself those questions. But you didn't ask about this. You asked about [laughs] what's the great world of making music. Well, the contrast between being in an isolated cell and meeting a lot of people, and, because I was playing so many gigs this summer. And it was really great, actually, to meet so many people.
KD: I don't meet [laughs] so many people.
JW: No, but you should. I think it's very difficult to realize how much your music means to other people if you don't meet any people. Do you know what I mean?
KD: I know...
JW: I mean, you've got so many fans. I'm sure that you've get mails.
KD: But that's so anonymous. If someone writes you a nice email, you don't feel so much about it anyway. Not for real.
JW: No, that makes you happy, but it's something beyond that to stand up on a stage and see the people.
RB: Who is your audience, do you think?
JW: Yeah, I try to figure that out, but I'm not sure. I think it's pretty mixed, actually.
KD: I think it's fun, because it's a lot of older people, like, 40s, or something around that, who listen to Kate Bush and Laurie Anderson.
JW: Depending on what place you're playing at. It depends so much on the stage you're playing on, because in some places, there are almost just 20 year old people.
KD: Yeah, I don't think that only [laughs] that group, but, obviously, a younger audience goes to clubs, and the older ones are more rare.
RB: [To Karin] How do you interact with your fans?
KD: I don't know. It's obviously not so important for them to interact with me...
JW: That's, in some way, a part of your image, also, I think. You are a secret band, and, I think, people think it's very, very exciting, because you almost don't show your faces in even one video. And you didn't do so many interviews.
KD: We did do a lot of that [laughs]... I suppose that we don't appear in videos so much, and then we started to wear face paint because we don't think that our private personal lives and how we look have to to do so much with our music.
RB: Why is that?
KD: I want the music to be able to stand for itself. It's a construction. Some journalists say, "oh, you're so secret all the time," but that's not our issue about it. I don't [laughs] consider myself very secret. Olof [Dreijer] is deejaying a lot, so that's not secret. But maybe if we come up with a good idea about doing performances, we will do it.
RB: What do you like about working with music?
KD: I agree with Jenny about being on your own, but I work most of the time with my brother anyway. But it's almost like being alone.
RB: How do you integrate the videos?
KD: I think we think very visually when making songs. We often have pictures of what the song is about when making it, so, I think the visual part of it is very natural. We work with different artists that we think are making good stuff.
RB: Have you started thinking about that, or is it after the album is released?
KD: We have already started to talk to people, and the album will maybe be finished in a few weeks, so, that's why we need some time before the release. We want to have many videos ready at the release.
RB: How did the "Hannah med H" soundtrack come about, and what was your experience like doing it?
KD: We were asked to do it just when we finished the "Deep cuts" album. We got the manuscript, which we thought was interesting. We'd never seen the manuscript before that, so I didn't know what to expect. But, it was very hard work, we made music for three months, and it was much harder than I ever expected.
RB: In what way was it difficult?
KD: We worked with the flow of the director. And she had lots of ideas about music that maybe we didn't really connect to [laughs] all the time. I think an easier way is for you to make a few or couple of themes that they can use in the movie. I think it's, like, thirty different songs in the film, so that's much more work.
JW: I never saw that film, but I like the soundtrack [laughs].
RB: How about your collaboration with Robyn?
KD: That was also just after the release of "Deep cuts." She asked us for a song, and we didn't have anything to do, so we said yes, and we made music and production and everything. And she did the lyrics, so that's also the first time we wrote anything for someone else.
RB: What was that like?
KD: Also difficult. I mean, I think both the soundtrack and the Robyn thing, we hadn't sold many records or anything, so we were quite broke and we thought of it as an opportunity to make some money out of our music work. You have to say yes, and try out a few things, and afterwards, you know what it's like.
RB: How did you begin making music with your brother?
KD: That's, it's six years ago now, and...
JW: How old was he?
KD: He was only 17 then, I think. And I had just been making guitar-based music before, and he had a computer, and some sequencing programs and stuff, so when we started out, he was just going to help me to record some ideas. And it just continued. He was so young; he didn't have any idea.
JW: How long a time was that after that you finished with Honey is Cool? How many years passed in between?
KD: I, actually, for some time kind of mixed, or cross-faded [laughs]. I think we released the last EP in early 2000. And during the same summer, six months after that release, the Knife 7" came out.
RB: Does that genre -- guitar rock -- at all interest you, or are you done with it and you want to keep with the more electronic stuff?
KD: I think it's quite easy, because today I just need a computer, but I'd like to get a MIDI guitar. I am not done with guitars. We'll see.
RB: What inspires you in music?
JW: Lots of other music, of course, but I have to say that in the middle of the process, you almost try to avoid listen to other music.
KD: You get quite tired of music.
JW: Yeah, you don't want to listen to music.
RB: Outside the world of music, what do you like?
KD: Reading some books.
JW: I like the artist Tony Oursler. He's making projections on pillows and stuff. He has been filming a face, and then he projects that on the pillow, and that pillow becomes really like a real person. He's making some project with Kim Gordon right now. She made some soundtracks to his art. They've been in Luxembourg, actually. I've seen his work in Sweden two or three times. He's brilliant. And Laurie Anderson is cool.
RB: Do you still illustrate?
JW: Not so much. I do it all the time on paper, but I don't do anything with it. It would be fun to work with some more graphic stuff in the future, but I don't really have the time right now.
RB: How do you know when a song is done when you're producing it?
KD: I think that's most most difficult [laughs] because...
JW: And the most important.
KD: Because that's what Olof and I argue about mostly.
RB: Do you have a consistent point of view, each of you, about the direction or whether or not the thing is done?
KD: Yeah, we started to. It's a quality or skill, or something that you have to learn to have to decide when it's finished. I think if you're never finished with anything, if you never think it's finished, then it's something else is wrong. Because you think of it as something else. In the end, it's only music.
JW: I think it's very important, therefore, to have strict deadlines. So you have to be finished by that date, and that's it.
RB: How have you each evolved as an artist?
JW: I think when I started to write songs, when I was, like, 20 years old, there was something else. I was so keen to just let my expression go out, and music was not so very delicate a way of thinking. It was just a guitar and some shouts, and the lyrics were not so very important. It was just some cool words in Swinglish [laughs]. Now, I think it's very, very important for the lyrics, and there is something else. The situation is wider and bigger, and everything is more a world of music than a song.
KD: I think, today, you have much better overview.
JW: Yeah [laughs].
KD: The elements you can do are much better, you are better at controlling each and every element in the music, so it becomes more of an experience and everything becomes more important to work with, the different parts.
KD: I also think that the lyrics have become more important over the years. And I am not as interested in pop as much as I was when I started.
RB: What are you interested in now?
KD: Well, it doesn't have to be pop. I mean, each song can take its own way more. I don't feel locked into one position as much like I was when I started, or a few years ago. It's so difficult to say, but it actually is like that, because you think you can work wider or something.
RB: Politics has been a covered in a lot of the press that you've gotten. How do you see politics' message in the public presentation of your music?
KD: When we did "Deep cuts," we wanted to do a more political album. We wanted to show our ideas about feminism and other kinds of ideas, in very obvious, and very pop packaging. And I think we [laughs] succeeded with that, because the first album we did was more introverted, and we didn't sell any records. So we wanted to do something totally different. But this time, I don't think that it makes any difference if I say, "don't eat meat," or if I do it more delicately. I don't think it's good to shout things.
JW: It can get pretty tiresome if a band is putting things, and...
KD: Yeah, you have to leave stuff to the listener. That's the good thing about listening to music. You make your own ideas, and you get your own impressions, and your own pictures in your head, when listening to it. And if the person who has made the song, if that person's intention was to make you change your idea about something, in a political way, and you do, and you get a new idea, that's good. But I don't think it's a good way to use music, to be that way and to push things.
JW: As a listener to music, I think the best experiences, and the best ways to find the message from the band is to get into a world that you feel that an inside of his head. [to Karin] When I listened to your new songs, I felt like I walked into a world, and I thought, "oh, I want to find what's behind this, trees, and what's behind that, what's behind that house." I'm speaking literally [laughs]. That's a very interesting feeling.
KD: Yes. I think that's the way to make music. When you're too obvious, then you're shouting things like, "this is what I want to say, and I'm saying it." Maybe it's fun for five minutes, or a few listenings of a song, after that, maybe it stops there.
RB: Are there political themes in the upcoming album?
KD: We are a very political band, so, I can't make any music with politics out, but maybe it's only me who sees it.
JW: I think it's very political, but you don't shout it out.
RB: Do you have any perspective on being a woman in music or do you see yourself as an artist making music?
KD: Or a man.
JW: [Laughs] What, a woman? No, actually, I feel like a human being. I'm not sure what it is, but people all used to ask me things, "oh, it's so great that you're a woman and you have been producing this, and you're a woman, and you have been playing this, and you're a woman, and, now, you're playing live shows, and you are only using women, and that's so fantastic." And I say, "well, right now, I'm playing with two girls, but I could also change that and I'll play with two boys." I don't find it so interesting, actually. I know that it's important that I am a woman and that I am doing this, and that can be important for other girls, and that's great.
KD: It's nothing you think about while working.
JW: It's not a statement that I am a woman [laughs].
KD: Yeah, I mean, you can't do so much about it [laughs]. Can't do it in another way. you don't have any choice.
JW: Many people think that it is a statement that I have only women on stage...
KD: But there are a lot of men who have only men on [laughs]. It's more common. I know it's a different situation in the rest of Europe, but in Sweden, the feminist debate has gone a lot farther than in many other European countries. I know in the US, you have Kathleen Hanna, Guerilla Girls, and the Riot Grrls movement, and a lot of bands who we say they are feminist, but it doesn't exist in Europe in the same way. So, [to Jenny] you will [laughs] really see when you go in Paris. Or go to Spain or Italy or one of those kinds of countries, it's totally different from Sweden.
RB: Anything else that's different about Sweden, do you think, that's conducive to making music, or your kind of music?
KD: Since we're socialists, a democratic country, we have a lot of support from government to cultural work, so, that's good...
JW: I don't find there is so many support things for popular music.
KD: No, not that much, but it exist. But we have a lot of things that make it easier for women to work if you compare it to other countries. We have child care, and that's mostly paid by the government, so it's easier for a woman to work in Sweden. You have feminists, so it's a bit different. Social security in Sweden is very good, but it's getting a bit worse.
RB: Have you ever gotten, "you're a good driver for a girl?"
JW: Yeah, I think I've heard that.
KD: And it's the same on every kind of some work you do. It's nothing more in music.
JW: I think it's very common that people say, "oh, she's a very good guitarist for being a girl."
KD: I think, in music, it's very common to be invited to festivals and shows, because, first, they invite, like, 20 men, or boy bands, or what you call them, and then, "oh, shit, I forgot to get a woman. Well, who shall we take, could we ask to get some good credibility? We'll ask a feminist, and we'll ask Jenny Wilson or Karin. [Laughs] But we just pay them half of the money that the guys get." You can enter places because you are a woman, but it's often on worse conditions.
RB: Do you think it's harder to sell albums if you're a woman, and do you get less radio exposure?
JW: I'm not sure about that, actually.
KD: I think it's the opposite, many times. The Swedish public servants are a bit aware of, and a bit afraid of, the fact that they should have a good mix. So they play five percent female composers.
RB: I think the one thing that you do get as a woman in music, because there are so few, is that you have more freedom, whereas for a guy, every little nuance is compared to exactly that one band...
KD: Yeah, you, maybe, you have more freedom, but you don't get as well paid. That's, I think, that's quite a common thing. "Let her sing. She can get the beer [laughs]." But I'm convinced, the more records you sell, and the more power you get, the more they listen to what you say. That's really tragic, because that's what they see.
JW: But that's how that world work works.
KD: Yeah, that's capitalism [laughs].
.:About the author:
Designer/musician Roni Brunn dreams of Stockholm while residing in Los Angeles, where she runs a math club. Of course.