[Originally published in flashback's December 2009 issue]
First, let’s get one thing straight. Miike Snow is not one musician, it’s actually a group of three. And that misspelling of ‘Mike’ is no typo. Yes, this is slightly confusing, and Pontus Winnberg, one third of the band, is well aware of this.
“Yeah, we get that a lot and I guess it’s our fault because we called the band Miike Snow. We try to put it out there as much as possible. It was kind of randomly picked, the name, but we also liked the fact that it could be anything – it could be a guy, a DJ, a band – whatever. So I guess we just have to deal with that problem for a while.”
The trio are made up of Swedish production duo, Pontus and Christian Karlsson, and American singer/songwriter Andrew Wyatt. You mightn’t know it but you’ve almost definitely danced along to a song created by Pontus and Christian in the past.
Better known as production team Bloodshy & Avant, they are the brains behind well-known tracks like Britney Spears’ Toxic and Christina Milian’s AM to PM. They’ve also worked with artists like Kylie Minogue, Madonna and Sugababes.
But, at least for the foreseeable future, Miike Snow is the trio’s priority.
“It is definitely a full time thing for us. It’s probably going to stay that way, I mean we have shows booked until October next year and they keep coming, so I don’t think we’ll have time to do anything else but this.”
A full-time band may not have been in the grand plan for the production duo, but after meeting Andrew, their priorities changed.
“I guess it was just the timing and the fact that we met Andrew. When we met Andrew we cleared our schedule. We hadn’t done it earlier because we hadn’t really cancelled everything in our schedule because it takes up a lot of time.”
The band have enjoyed exposure with two tracks from their debut featured on trendy television show Gossip Girl, which has opened them up to a wider audience. While Pontus says they’re grateful for the exposure, he’d rather people had a more complete view of the band.
“I guess the ideal way for us to get to people would be through live shows. I think that that shows another side of us, it’s more like a complete picture with that and the CD. But without the live show it doesn’t really show the whole spectrum.”
And indeed, in the short time that the band have been together, they’ve become known for creating this live ‘experience’ that includes tracks from their debut self-titled album, but also incorporating a sense of spontaneity into the mix.
“We’ve been touring off and on since June and I still feel like we’re in a development stage of the live show and the live sound.
I think that the whole live experience has been influencing us a lot, so I think that will definitely play a bigger role in creating the new album. Whatever that means, we don’t really know yet. We’ve been talking about it, but I think that it will probably be slightly more ambitious when it comes to creating sounds.”
Last month, the band played their first Irish gig as part of Heineken’s series of Green Spheres concerts. The concert wasn’t in the country’s capital however, but rather in the Dinn Ri entertainment complex in Carlow (read our review here). While this gig was a great success for the group, things haven’t always gone so smoothly.
“Our first show, it wasn’t a disaster, but it was still at a very experimental stage, so it was too many gadgets and not enough thought put into it. We pulled it off but it was extremely stressful.”
Since then, they’ve had the chance to travel around the globe, with highs and lows and a few surprises thrown in along the way.
“The biggest surprise so far, in a good way, was probably when we played in Mexico City a couple of weeks ago. It was just a fantastic night and I really want to go back there. We did a really good show and it was fun. That was probably the highest point.
We hadn’t really thought about where we have a following or whether we have a following. In North America it’s been growing and now it’s on a pretty nice level. But then just by accident, I don’t know why but we got a request from a promoter in Mexico City.”
Adding to the sense of mystery around the strangely named band is the fact that they wear masks in photoshoots and during live shows.
“It’s kind of, we just came up with it as a fun thing, and also it’s much easier to make photoshoots when we can wear masks.”
The group’s symbol is what appears to be a rabbit with antlers attached, and indeed appears as the cover of their first album. While Pontus says it has no specific meaning to the band, it turned out that they were not the first to come up with this strange creature.
“We asked Christian’s tattoo artist to come up with something and we told her that we wanted something with antlers. And then she came back with a rabbit with antlers. And when Andrew saw it he was like, ‘That’s a jackal.’
We didn’t know what it was and apparently it’s a mystical creature from Wyoming, kind of like the Yeti, and he scares the kids. Even small towns there have the jackal up in their symbols. It was a pretty funny coincidence.”
With two-thirds of the group hailing from Sweden and the lead singer from the US, the group draw influences from both of these countries and Pontus says the mash-up of cultures probably has an effect on their music.
“All of us have kind of travelled for years, so we have kind of a more international way of communicating, but there is always a degree of where you belong, and what your values are and so forth. It’s hard to pinpoint, but whatever it is, it feels like it’s a positive thing, just makes our lives a little bit more interesting.”
The band’s music videos are quite high-concept, their video for previous single Black & Blue (see end of post) features an old man making music in his apartment, encountering the band along the way. Pontus says the band have quite a strong influence on the direction their videos take.
“It’s kind of like we bounce ideas back and forth and it usually starts off with us saying like in very big terms, we want it to have this vibe. When we talked about the Black & Blue video we wanted to have someone having a lead role in it and then that we didn’t really want to be in it, but then they put us in there anyway as a small kind of part.”
Although ending up in Miike Snow might have happened by chance, it’s not as if Pontus stumbled into music by accident. He says that it has long been a passion of his, and from an early age he was surrounded by it.
“My dad was a music teacher and we always had a bunch of instruments at home so, to me it’s come very naturally. I haven’t even thought about anything else to do.”
If music hadn’t worked out for him, however, maybe a career working on the high seas would have beckoned.
“I guess maybe it would probably have something to do with working on a boat or something, because I really like the water. I would probably take care of someone’s sailboat or something – whatever that job is called.”
[Images courtesy of Sony Music and Heineken Music]
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