Miike Snow: No Second Thoughts

RubyHornet:  I’m just curious how many interviews or sound checks etc. start with someone asking you guys, ‘so which one of you is Mike?’

 

Miike Snow:  None of them actually have. It’s funny, you would be the first.

RubyHornet:  Well, I knew that none of you guys were actually named Miike, but is there a significance to the name?

Miike Snow: It was kind of our way of rebelling against the whole process of trying to figure out a band name. We just knew a guy named Mike Snow and we like him. And he’s just a regular guy. He’s not a music business guy or anything.

 

RubyHornet: I’ve been doing research and reading other interviews with you guys and a lot of them are solo ones with just you. Is this something that just happens naturally or has the group collectively decided that you’re the mouth piece more or less?

 

Miike Snow: No, I would say it would have more to do with the fact that I speak English a little bit better than those guys because I’m from New York and they’re from Stockholm.  So it may be easier for me to conduct interviews, but it’s a sheer question of energy conservation and putting energy into the places where it’s probably easiest. And also because they’re in Sweden most of the time, and I’m in New York when we are off. They do a lot of engineering stuff with the album that I don’t do, and that’s a lot of work for them. So, it’s a way of evening out the work load.

RubyHornet: I read that you said that New York has somewhat influenced you and influenced your sound. I was wondering if there was ever a time where you thought you would never be making music with people behind hits for Britney Spears and Jennifer Lopez just based on where you come from musically?

 

Miike Snow: I’ve always loved pop music. At every phase in my life there has always been like one song on the radio that I love. I’ve always been influenced by my favorite band, the Beatles, and you don’t really get much more poppy than that. Sometimes you just don’t know where life is going to take you. I think it’s strange that I ended up doing a band with two guys from Sweden. But our relationship and our personalities always felt like they went together well anyways. That’s kind of more the foundation of the band than any kind of other consideration.  It always felt natural for us to be hanging out in the studio.

RubyHornet: I know that you guys meet in 2004 and formed the group. And I know that your bandmates have known each other since they were 15. So in a sense, you guys are a trio that also encompasses a duo. At what point did it feel like a whole new band? Did you ever not feel as comfortable asserting yourself creatively?

 

Miike Snow: No. I really don’t. I think it’s sweet not putting your ego first. I’ve just learned that through life lessons. I think when we are in the studio we have a lot of respect and consideration for each others ideas. We always felt comfortable and when we are together creating in the studio we are all just equally excited about it…Times on the road, where everybody’s speaking Swedish, I do get reminded of being the guy coming from a little bit of a different place, but as far as making the music it never feels like that at all.

RubyHornet: One thing that I really love about the band are the videos that you guys put out, the visuals that accompany the songs. I wanted to talk about the attention and details that you put into the videos starting with “Black and Blue”. One thing I noticed is that it seems to have elements of “Finding Forrester” in it. Are you familiar with that film? Did that lend any influence to the treatment?

Miike Snow: Never seen that film, only vaguely remember hearing that title, and I don’t think either of the guys in the band remember it either.

RubyHornet: It’s a good one. Sean Connery is a recluse old writer. He looks out of his window and he sees kids playing basketball and develops a relationship with one of them. But the song “Black and Blue” centers on this guy who seems like he spends a quite a bit of time alone. We see that in the video. In the chours you sing “I won’t waste my time with your revelations.” It kind of feels like the character in the song is assuming that nobody wants to hear his thoughts or he doesn’t have a voice. You put that together visually with the guy making music. At the end he leaves his apartment…What made him leave his apartment at the end?

 

 

 

Miike Snow: Actually we never thought about it. I think that was more of the act of the director of the video. We just like the way it looked and liked how it went with the song. We really like that era of Jaguar that we drove in. That’s really the thing that sold us on the video. And the other stuff was the director’s idea. I haven’t even thought about the video as hard as you have. I think it’s great that it makes people think about what it means. We liked the equipment and the couch and the messiness. We like the actor and I thik he did a really good job. I didn’t really think about the plot at all.

RubyHornet: If we looked at the video for “Animal”. You say “when I look into your eyes I see the eyes of someone who could be strong.” In the chorus you say “I change shapes just to hide in this place, but I’m still an animal.” Is this a person talking to another person or is this a person talking to themselves?

 

Miike Snow: I really just think it’s just a song for everybody to decide for themselves. I don’t see the song as being too hard. I feel like it’s a very straight forward kind of song. I do feel like people can have some room to interpret it for themselves so I won’t take that opportunity away from them.

RubyHornet: I also read that you’re opening up a restaurant on Halloween. Is that true?

 

Miike Snow: Yea it is. Where did you read that one?

 

RubyHornet: I read it in another interview you did on a website. You talked about wanting to be a dentist, and then you talked about the restaurant opening in New York on Halloween. I’m just wondering, is there anything as far as creating a good recipe or dish or icecream flavor that can also remain true for a song or remix that carries over or you share in both fields? I’m guessing that patience may be one of the qualities.

Miike Snow: Well, it depends on what kind of a song you want to make. Certain remixes are like eggplant parmesan. You have to take the eggplant, slice it to medium thickness, and you put salt on it and what happens is it sucks the bitter juices out of it. It becomes very palpable. So sometimes you get a remix and you want to take it somewhere that is more dancy and you can make the remix a little bit more charming or just happier. Maybe we did that with “Kids Don’t Stand A Chance”. Well, maybe that’s not the best idea. Maybe we did that with Passion Pit because we made that more of a dancing song.

 

RubyHornet: I also heard that since you guys have been touring, the live shows that you’ve been doing have kind of influenced where you want to go on newer material.  How’s is that shaping up or affecting your ideas for new records? 

Miike Snow: We’re going to use less computers. The live show, it was not an option for us to use a computer. We use electronics, but not anything that can be called a computer. I think that it’s going to make us use move further away from the use of computers on the next album. I think that it’s a little bit of a turn off to us because everybody is making beats now using programs that came with their computer. I’m not saying we don’t like that about the world. I think it’s great that people now make music all the time. But for us to feel proud and like men we need to actually step it up and use more of the skills that we spent years cultivating that can’t be had by any kid opening up Garage Band.

RubyHornet: Does being on Downtown records give you that kind of freedom to explore?

Miike Snow: I like Downtown and I think Downtown is a well curated label. But I don’t think our record label influences our creativity at all.

RubyHornet: Speaking of influencing your creativity, last time you guys were here you played Lollapoolooza at Grant Park, which is a huge venue. Tonight you’re at the Empty Bottle, which is much smaller. For you, what role does space play in a your experience?

 

Miike Snow: I don’t think it plays that much of a role really.  The thing that matters the most is the sound in the venue, and I have no idea having never played there before. If the sound in the room is really good, then we will put on a good show. But if the sound is really bad, we will put on a good show for our fans but we probably won’t enjoy doing it.

RubyHornet: Do you alter the set knowing that this set may have fans that just come to see you, whereas at Lollapalooza there are people who come to see numerous bands and wander over to your set, as well as those who come specifically to see you.

Miike Snow: The good thing about a fest is the people who really want to see you sit in the front. And so you have that experience for playing for people who really know your songs. Then in the back you feel like you have the opportunity to make some fans out of people who never heard you before. And we’ve meet many people all across the country who saw us at Lolla who actually found out about us at Lolla. You can really get a good idea about our values, about going into our next phase of our career when you hear the band play live.

RubyHornet: I want to go back to something you said earlier in the interview.  You said that sometimes when your doing press and people are speaking in Swedish, that’s when you’re kind of reminded that you do stick out a little bit. When touring America, do you take on a role of more or less at the forefront or tour guide? Do you feel anything ‘like this is my turf?’