Interview: Aerial
Desolate, isolated, mechanical, impersonal, or just Stanley Kubrik. There are many ways to describe Aerial, Sweden's own Sonic Youth meets Mogwai postrock act, and their latest record "The sentinel". What is postrock to start with? And what does Enrique Iglesias have to do with it all? I met with the guys backstage on this year's Arvikafestivalen and, even though we had competition from both funky disco music and brutal death metal, we managed to talk quite a bit. Read and enjoy.
- Christian Stenbacke
Sebastian - Vocals / Guitar
Viktor - Guitar / Vocals
Joakim - Bass / Casio / Guitar
Niklas - Bass / Korg
Markus - Drums / Guitar / Juno
1 am, the first day, a tiny stage; what can we expect from Aerial?
S: I have no idea, anything can happen. It's a great time and a cosy venue.
What would you call the music of Aerial?
V: Some would say post rock, but I'm not sure I have the same opinion. Not when it comes to the new material at least. Although much of the material from "The sentinel", our latest record, might be considered post rock, we're going in a slightly different direction with the stuff we've written recently.
It's always interesting when it comes to the release of the second record; comparisons to the first one are inevitable. What are the reactions so far?
V: Well, I don't know really... We've got some reactions from people we didn't expect to hear from.
S: Lots of metal kids seem to enjoy this one, "The sentinel".
V: Yeah, it's always a different thing with a new record, at least for us. This one is different from the first, and the next one will be different from this one and the first one as well.
Is this something you can tell when you're playing live, that you appeal to different kinds of people? How does a typical Aerial visitor look like?
S: We're still such a small band... We haven't really been in contact with the people we've been playing to. I don't even know if we have an audience or followers, I hope so! We'll see tonight I guess.
Tell me a little bit more about your label, No Method.
V: Magnus from No Method is our distributor as well as the head of our label, or his label rather. We're actually not quite sure about what he's up to, but at least we're making some progress!
J: He just scored a deal with One Little Indian, a label in the UK and the States, and that's a good thing.
V: Yeah, we're releasing "The sentinel" in the UK in a couple of months.
S: Which we hope might lead to a gig or two I might add.
I can imagine that people come to see Aerial, not so much for the visual experience or show, but to actually feel the complexity and beauty of the music alone. How does a typical concert with Aerial look like?
S: We basically grab our instruments and start to play. We've never really given the visual part of the performance much thought, except for one time when had neon lights on stage. That was cool!
V: But that's perhaps something we should be thinking about, how we look and act when on stage.
S: I don't know, we have way too much self respect to start acting out on stage, if we don't want to...
V: My point is that perhaps we should start doing just that, not because we want to, which we don't, but because it's what we're supposed to be doing?
S: Holy fuck, just listen to us talking... It's crazy.
Did you guys watch Live Earth?
N: I saw Enrique Iglesias...
...why?
N: Because I was at home, lying in bed, sick! I laughed at him!
Yeah, of course.... I had a hard time to tell if some of the artists played because of the environmental issue, or just to promote themselves. Like Madonna with her upcoming single for instance. Would you ever consider doing something you don't like, just to earn more attention to yourselves? Say, wear pink shirts to be "hip"?
S: I don't ever think I'll wear a pink shirt, no matter the circumstance...
V: If you want to wear a pink shirt, then wear a pink shirt. Didn't your father give you one Niklas?
N: It's nothing wrong about pink shirts! Yeah, he gave me one, but I haven't used it yet. Poor dad.
S: The thing is, we don't have a plan or marketing strategy. We don't have an image, and we don't really strive to create one either.
V: Our image is that we don't have an image.
S: To steal the credo from Pavement. Image is such a hard term to come to understand. What is an image? I can't really tell what makes up someone's image.
No conformity alá The Hives then?
S: It's possible we might want to do something like that in the future, but not at this point, no.
V: If we could get hold of a couple of astronaut suites to wear on stage... That would be awesome.
S: We really dig Sci-Fi. It was a great inspiration when we recorded "The sentinel". We get inspiration from Philip K. Dick...
V: I think "The sentinel" has a Stanley Kubrick vibe to it. You know, slim, simple. Impersonal, is that the right term?
S: Yeah, one could say that. Cold, almost mechanical.
Now, with a new record out, do you have any thoughts about what might come next? You mentioned that some new material had been written already.
S: Most of the work with the songs for the next album has been competed. All we have to do is to record them. Well, perhaps we have a couple of small things to finish first, a couple of noise songs to start with...
V: I think we have quite a bit more to do before recording?
S: I'm not sure I agree, we have written the songs, haven't we?
V: Yeah, sure, but we can always write more songs! But ok, we have lots of things ready to go, yeah.
S: It was the same when we released "Black rain from the bombing". By then we had already done most of the things on "The sentinel".
V: We played a couple of "Black rain from the bombing" songs live before we recorded the album. After we released the album, we stopped playing those songs live, by then we were all into the songs from "The sentinel".
J: Tonight we're going to play three songs from "The sentinel", nothing more, nothing less.