Interview: Golden Kanine beim Orange Blossom Special

Orange Blossom Special zum Dritten. Was für den Festivalsamstag Garda waren, waren für den Sonntag Golden Kanine. Das fünfköpfige Indiefolk-Ensemble aus Malmö, das von Glitterhouse-Chef Rembert Stiewe bereits im Vorfeld ihres Konzertes voller Begeisterung als der Act angekündigt wurde, auf den er sich persönlich am meisten freue, konnte den Vorschusslorbeeren selbst unter der knallenden Nachmittagssonne in allen Bereichen gerecht werden und sorgte mit einer leidenschaftlichen Performance zwischen schwelgender Melancholie und tänzelnder Euphorie dafür, dass die mitgebrachten CDs bereits vor Ende ihres Auftritts ausverkauft waren.

Große Gefühle in der Tradition Arcade Fires vereint in tollen Songs, ähnlich Garda erfinden dabei auch Golden Kanine das Folkrock-Rad nicht neu und geben ganz Schweden-Indiepopper offen und ehrlich zu, in großem Maße von vergangenen und aktuellen Größen wie Neutral Milk Hotel oder Beirut beeinflusst zu sein. Aber lest selbst, was sie uns im Anschluss an ihr Konzert zu erzählen hatten:

Great Concert, did you know about this festival before?

We knew about the record label Glitterhouse. It is one of our favourites for a long time. So we got really excited, when our booker told us, that we might have a slot here.

So how do you feel here in Beverungen?

It’s awesome. We’ve been on the road for more than a week now, so we were a bit tired. But when we saw this place, the perfect weather and the huge crowd, we knew, this is going to be fun. The concert was good, the sound was good, the crowd, … so we feel very good here.

Many of our readers might not know Golden Kanine yet. Can you tell us something about, how the whole thing got started?

It all got started with Linus and Ande a couple of years ago and then the other guys came along and joined. We started out as a more classical Rock’n'Roll or Indie-type of band with thousands of noisy and loud guitars and then we evolved to this more folk-style, that we do now. We got tired of the old sound and started to do totally accoustic sessions with mandolins and other instruments like that and then we mixed it up little bit and so it evolved to what we sound like today.

How would you describe your process of songwriting. Do you work on songs all together or is it more like one person having an idea and the whole band realising it in the studio?

Mostly Linus and Ande write the songs and the lyrics and then we go to the rehearsal room or the studio and they tell us their ideas and everybody tries to contribute. We often have the basics before, but there is very much done in the rehearsal room. It’s the place, where everything comes together.

So, do you have fixed band members, now?

Yeah, we are these five guys now, but we love playing with other people as well. On the last tour our drummer was missing, so we had another drummer and on the tour before we had a girl playing cello. We were supposed to have a trumpet-player on this tour as well, but unfortunately he couldn’t manage to come. So we always like to invite more people to play with us.

If you read up for Golden Kanine on the internet, the first thing you would find, would be comparisons to other bands, that use traditional instruments like violins or mandolins, Neutral Milk Hotel or Beirut for example. Are those bands influences to you?

Yes, actually Neutral Milk Hotel are one of our favourite bands. Their records were fantastic. Unfortunately we never had the chance to see them live. And Beirut as well are a great band. So we were defintely influenced by them. But we all listen to different kinds of music and come from different parts of the music-scene. Our bass-player for example started with Classic and Jazz and then came to Punkrock and our drummer is strongly influenced by Metal and stuff like that. So it would be hard for us to do some kind of namedropping.

But you aren’t annoyed by those comparisons to other bands?

No, not at all. We think, it is fun and  it would be kind of hard not being influenced by other people’s music. It is very strange, when people work in the music business and say, that they don’t care about what other musicians are doing.

So, let’s come to your album. It’s called “Scissors and Happiness” and there is a kind of tension in this title. Is it someting you intented?

Yes, absolutely. The whole idea of this album is about contrasts. Scissors as a symbol for hurt and Happiness are two things, that doesn’t really fit together. And the songs on the album are about such contrasts too. It’s about dancing and having a headache. It’s about guilt and hurt and feeling happy at the same time. It’s like life with it’s contrast in general. You can’t see stuff without the contrasts, either.

Where do you take your ideas for the songs. Do you get them from your everyday-life?

Some of them are more real, some of them are more fictional but there must be a seed of reality. Sometimes it’s almost crazy. You could write a song during one period and in a next period, a couple of months later, you can see the song or the lyrics in a totally different perspective. It’s almost like a psychic. The things, you wrote didn’t mean anything to you in the first period and a few months later, you see the lyrics again and know, what you were writing about.

You released your album last year, what are your future-plans?

First, in this summer we will play some more festivals, but we have enough songs for a full new album yet. So in fall, we will start recording. We hope, it will be a short recording session because the last time it took almost a year.

“Scissors and Happiness” von Golden Kanine ist im letzten Jahr bei Stargazer Records (Broken Silence) erschienen. Im Anschluss an ihr eigentliches Konzert spielte die Band, eingerahmt von Rapsfeld und Trauerweide noch eine kleine Akkustiksession, die bei bunch.tv zu bestaunen ist. Wer die fünf Schweden gerne live sehen möchte, erhält im August noch dreimal die Möglichkeit an folgenden Locations:

Das Interview entstand in freundlicher Zusammenarbeit mit Anke van de Weyer von kölncampus und ist auch ebendort (Zeitpunkt noch nicht bekannt) nachzuhören.

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