Interview with KOOP

As it's your first time in Romania, let's start by making your acquaintance. Here's MTV Romania. And Koop's:

Oscar Simonsson and Magnus Zingmark. We've been making music together under the name of Koop for over 12 years, and 3 albums. During this time we haven't, together or separately, made any other music than under the name of Koop. Our lives and music has become intertwined and impossible to separate, since we've sacrificed everything for this. We dont' regard ourselves as producers, we're not DJ’s, and we're absolutely not a collective or anything like that. Koop is a band, with 2 members.

Youngsters are fascinated of what they call "vintage". If 20 years ago, bands like Pet Shop Boys were into futuristic and minimal stuff, kids nowadays wear old school adidas sneakers (run dmc model!), play nintendo, listen to tom waits but also run dmc!. Why do you think there is this fascination for the past?
You overcame your times and went "a la recherche du temps perdu". Describe the musical context in which you started to make music. What kind of obstacles did you overcome?

Good arts has always been about that. Taking something from the past and do it in a new way. Our way is about writing popsongs, produce them electronic and dress them in jazz history.
Koop has always felt as a battle against the rest of the world. A strong urge to be different, but at the same time trying to write songs that could appeal to everyone. This contradiction is very important for our development. When we started a lot of music around us was “jazzy”. We had the love for real jazz in common and we were so irritated that jazz was used to describe so much music that wasn’t jazz. We decided to make our own jazz, but since we were only 2 persons we had to do it using samplers and computers. There was a rumour that the institution of musicology of Uppsala had a sampler in their basement. We asked a friend of mine that studied there if he could help us, and on Friday nights, when everyone had left the building he secretly let us down to the basement. We covered the windows so that no teacher could see someone was there.

You don't really have to be a fancy psychiatrist to realise that creation is strongly related to one's personal experiences, way of life, social environment.
Just like Rage Against The Machine rebelled against US government, Jay-Z had (had!) "99 problems" or Billie Holiday sang "Gloomy Sunday" after a hard knock live, are your lives as sweet as your music? Are you two guys as chic as you seem to be?

 Our music is a fantasy and a dream, and being a part of Koop is a fantasy and a dream. Usually we are aiming to write the perfect lovesong, (mostly out of a females perspective) and sometimes we are more personal in our lyrics.
But that’s not important. What is important to know is that koop music is not a mixture of things. It’s not about jamming or describing our lives and things around us. Koop Is driven by one idea and one emotion, and that idea has been very clear to us from a very early stage in our career. Every song is an attempt to realize that idea, and when the feeling is right there is no need for the song to be more than 3 minutes.
And of course we are very chic.

You met in university and joined forces to start a jazz-but-not-jazzy! band. I guess you were very popular...with the girls and all. Or was this a way to gain popularity? :P Tell us a bit of your musical background. What inspired you when you decided to play jazz?

Being born in the 70’s in Sweden was quite special. It was a very progressive time. People lived together in collectives, grown their own carrots and listened to a mix of jazz and folk music. The music for children was written by peole who had smoked a fairly amount of dope in their days, so the melodies was impossible to sing and the rythms was very odd. Pop music was considered to be commercial and imperialistic. But at the same time there was ABBA, that everyone listened to in secret.
We don’t see the difference between “serious music” and “pop music”. In fact all music that doesn’t have some kind of pop culture in it, is dead music. We wanted to make jazz that was modern and made it to MTV, because we think that jazz is still alive.

Do you think it's easier nowadays to play jazz than back in the Duke Ellington's days?

I think it was tough for the pioneers within jazz because of all resistance from society saying jazz was negro-music that belong in whorehouses.
But these days we have to fight people claiming jazz is “difficult” music that belongs to a passed generation.

Last week you said that usualy you don’t give a f**k, but nothing disturbs you more than when your music is defined as "lounge" or "chill-out". Why are you so disturbed about it? Your concert and Nouvelle Vague's are both held under the "Studio Chillout Weekend" label. What do you say about that?
What do you think of sharing an event name with Nouvelle Vague?

 We don’t like to be labled “chillout” because we don’t think the main quality in our music is to make people relax. We aim to make people think or dance.
The word “lounge” represent a music and a lifestyle that is the complete opposite of Koop.
I usually find it more exciting when bands write their own songs, but Nouvelle Vague is cool. Cool and nothing more than cool.
And by the way, It’s not called “studio chillout weekend” anymore…..

Whose voices will we be hearing on the 23rd of November in Bucharest?

The Marilyn Monroe of northern Norway: Hilde Louise Asbjornsen. And crooner-ace Mikael Sundin.

Describe the process of making a Koop's song? How do you find the vocals? Who's making the lyrics?

When making a new album we always start by doing hundreds of samples. When we work on a song we always try to make it as ready as possible by using only samples and clips. Then we write the lyrics and decide who’s the best singer for this particular song. Sometimes the lyrics are not fully completed when the singer comes to the studio, and then we might write the last lines together with the singer. We could have done it ourselves, but sometimes it’s emotionally good to let the singer have a small part of the creative process.
We don’t like to work with famous singers and voices. We prefer friends or scandinavian singers that are not so famous, because we want people to hear the music with fresh ears without being colored by the guest singers earlier works. They also have to trust us 100% because we don't give them any chance to change the final result.
We also like the fact that our audience discovers new voices and artist through Koop.

You're from Upsala, north of Stockholm. We, south-eastern folks, think of the northern lights and snowy shores as magical, fairy's lands, Santa's kingdom.
Is Santa real or just a myth to keep us, kids, obedient and our teeth candy free 364 days a year? Have you ever met him while drinkin your coffee and reading the newspaper in a coffee shop?

Sweden is very beautiful in the summer and in the winter. On a sunny winters day you can skate on the ice along the shorline, and in the summer, since it’s light all day, nature explodes in colours for just a few months. But Swedes don’t believe in Santa. Swedes believe in information technology, equality between men and women, and tries to be the most modern country in the world.

And the final question, a shallow one, what's with the make-up, fake eyelashes and the dresses? Is it a reaction to the clichees in the jazz singer's outfits?

Thats not a shallow question. It's as important as the music.
The dresses are mostly for entertainment, but it also reflects the fact that our music is very non-macho. And we always choose dresses that matches the musical time period we're in at the moment. On "Waltz for Koop" we wore dresses from the 60's, and on "Koop Islands" we are wearing something more "art deco". And we love the fact that it makes old jazz-men very irritated.

Kind “Thanx you!”’s to Oscar Simonsson from Koop for answering our questions