Messed!Up
2021 has pretty much been a disaster so far, even worse off than 2020 (we had three great months before the pandemic arrived, remember?). But in all of this darkness, one of the only guiding lights has been an especially stellar slate of new bands releasing debut albums.
If you enjoy the sound of guitars with a side order of strong choruses and guitar-driven hooks, Popsik is going to have multiple entries on your 2021 playlists. At first glance, the band might give you the impression of an average parka-wearing group of lads trying to make music. However, the Gothenburg-based band is not your everyday indie boys.
Releasing their debut album at the beginning of 2021 the five-piece were hoping for a miracle to happen that would re-open the live scene, but as the pandemic wanted different Popsik continued working on new songs, and to not rest on their laurels they recently announced their new single “Boom!”.
We caught up with three out of five Popsik’s at a pier in Gothenburg a few weeks ago and chat about having the debut album already done two years ago, growing tired of doing it DIY, and aiming for a tour in the UK in the future.
The challenges of doing it DIY
You all met as students a few years ago and started Popsik in 2017, right?
Yeah, Popsik started in 2017, but I [Elias], our bassist Max and our second guitarist Koffe had another band before Popsik called Nymf that started already in 2016 when we met at high school. A year later we started to play another type of music, brought in a new drummer, and then Mihajlo joined the band as a second guitarist which made it easier for me because I could focus on vocals and keyboards only. Joel is our most recent band member and joined us last year.
You can summarize it as a band that met at high school, in the same music class, and when we needed new band members we just picked someone from the class (laugh).
But what made you turn away from punk music and play indie rock/alternative rock music?
It wasn’t actually that much punk from the beginning, it was more like pop punk, that type of punk that’s influenced by rock music and has catchy choruses, and we just changed direction a tiny bit to infuse more indie rock, but there are still elements of pop punk in there.
Everything happened quite quickly from the day you started as Popsik to becoming the winner of Partillerocken 2018 [major music competition in Sweden].
Yeah, it was just one and a half years in between but we actually intended to participate already the year before, in 2017, but were too late, we missed the deadline (laugh). But it was probably for the best because we were a bit disorganized at the time and needed a new guitarist.
As I understand it you do it all on your own, dealing with music, recording and promotion in a DIY fashion. Are you going to continue doing it DIY or is it your goal to find a record label or for the next release?
We really need a label. Sure, it’s great to do it all by yourself and to have control of what you do, we’re really careful concerning any offers we would get because there are many pitfalls for a band of our size. But it’s really hard to do everything on your own, especially when you’re not good at it. You’ll get burned out if you do everything that you have to do as a band, and there is lots of stuff that doesn’t have anything to do with being creative, and we really need someone who can deal with those things.
It sounds like you’ve faced some major challenges already.
It’s hard to find your position in the scene. We know what we’re good at and really believe in our music, it works out great when we play live and people seem to like us, but we really struggle to get a bigger outreach. We’re just not good in promoting ourselves.
This whole PR machine is just a big fucking joke, you’ll drown in it. We put all our energy into writing and recording music and when we release something we’re like “And what happens now? What do we do?” (laugh). It’s just too much to learn in a year and we don’t know enough to do it all DIY. We learned a lot during the process with Safe Travels but it’s not enough because we put all our efforts into the album process but forgot about the rest (laugh). Even if we are surrounded by people who know quite much more than us and can help us out it’s too slow.
It worked out fairly well with our debut album, but we’re quite sure that there are many better ways to do it, and that’s why it would be good for us to have a label. Much of our promotion was a last-minute thing, and when you can’t play live at all at the moment we’re losing a great opportunity to reach out to people because gigs is usually how we promote ourselves, not with online campaigns. You know, gigs are the freemium promotion tool; friends turn up and bring their friends and just like that you’ve started to build a local fanbase.
What we really need to do is to find a way to distribute time between different chores. Or find a label (laugh).
Hook-driven songs for live shows
For something that is often just an italicized collection of four letters that follows an act’s name on a festival or club line-up, the phrase “Live” is one that has never carried as much significance as it does today. Live music is capable of bringing an immeasurable amount of joy to audience members. It will put a smile on your face, make you forget about your worries and instantly change your mood into a very happy one. Simply put, there’s nothing quite like experiencing live music, and bands like Popsik put all their promotional efforts into their gigs.
On the debut album Safe Travels Popsik reveal their weak spot for catchy hooks, melodic riffs and punchy, indie rock-based beats – or simply music made for a great live experience. And the band has its target set for touring outside Sweden in the future, particularly in the UK.
Your debut album Safe Travels was released at the end of January this year. Is it the result of three years of hard work or did you already had an album for a release last year and just waited for the right time to get it out?
That’s kind of interesting because most of the songs on the album are quite old; the newest song on the album was done already in early 2019 and then we spent lots of time on the production. Everything after that, the music we have written and started to record, is stuff we haven’t played live yet.
Just like many other bands we postponed the release date. The plan was to have the album out by May last year, but first we had a bit of a problem with the production and reworked the whole process of mixing and mastering, and then we wanted to wait until it was possible to have a release party and perform for an audience. When we finally released it the live scene was even worse off (laugh). So much for the release party idea.
But you can’t sit and wait for times to get better because you don’t know when things will change, and the pandemic has obviously been quite unpredictable so far. For us the songs are already old and we don’t want to wait to get them out when we have new songs on the way. The songs on the album deserve their own promo window although that window is quite tiny at the moment, but if we would have waited a few more months it wouldn’t have felt good for us because we have evolved as a band while we waited for the album to be released.
What strikes me is the hook-driven choruses on the album. Do you have it in mind when you write the songs, that the songs should have a hook because it’s easier to remember the music?
(laugh) Maybe a bit but we have played together for quite some time by now and have learned what works out and not, but we also have a broad taste in music in the band. When we put our influences in the same pot, it comes out like catchy and hook-driven songs. In the beginning we had this idea that all songs should have a clear hook, it was a sort of strategy, but we never really think about it anymore because our music turns out like that whatever we do. We’ve played together for such a long time that some sort of shared music vision has evolved.
Does it also mean that you visualize how your songs will work out live when you write them?
Of course it’s like that. When I [Elias] write the lyrics I always think “It has to work out for sing-alongs”, because people will remember us if it’s they’re part of the show. That’s like a template for writing lyrics for us.
When you’re at gigs you always like bands with catchy hooks more, it adds a lot to the overall live experience. It’s important to have in mind that a good show entails great music, sing-along lyrics and a great performance.
I guess it’s quite hard for you to not be able to come out and play at the moment but you seem to compensate by releasing new music. You’ve just released a new single, “Boom!”. Do you have more music coming up for 2021?
We have a few more songs in the works but nothing ready for release yet. Since the lockdown of the live scene we’ve changed our strategy a bit and have started working on new music as an outlet for the frustration of not being able to play live (laugh).
At the moment we’re trying hard to find a label for releasing what’s next, but also someone who can help us out with promotion. But we also want to work with a label that pushes us forward and supports us with ideas. We really need that type of help because we’re simply not good at it.
It’s always easy to release the first album because you’ve had all the time in the world to do it. Have you discussed how you will release music in the future, for instance if it’s better to release EP’s to get music out quicker rather than putting a lot of time and effort into a new album?
It’s inevitable to start reflecting on the best way to release music for us, especially when you see how other bands do it. It’s not impossible that our next release will be an EP before we release a second album, but it’s also dependent on how quickly we write new music. If we have ten great songs ready for a release in a few months, why not release a new album? If we have songs that won’t work out on an album we release them as an EP; and if we’re not productive enough we just release an EP. There are a few options and we’re not stuck at all in the thought that we have to release an album the next time we release something.
You said that gigs are the best way to experience Popsik and I guess like most bands from Sweden you want to come out and play in Europe. What’s your target country?
England! That’s the big dream for all of us. Our music works best there and much of the music we listen to is from the UK. We’ve also heard that Germany is great for touring and that Swedish bands are popular there, but our target is the UK.
If you allow yourself to reflect on the future. Where is Popsik in three years?
Ullevi [arena in Gothenburg]! (laugh)
It’s hard to know or plan anything at the moment because we don’t know when the pandemic is over. If you would have asked us a year ago we would probably have thought that we would have reached a bit further than we have today, but we didn’t know about the pandemic at the time. But in three years we really hope to have leveled up in the indie rock scene and that we have a bigger audience. We have probably toured Germany and the UK, at least once – we’ll probably gig like hell across Europe (laugh).
And of course we won’t sit and whine about how hard it is with promotion and marketing because we’ll have a label that takes care of it (laugh).
Photographer: Björn Vallin
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