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| Photograph by Frank Eidel |
Elaine: Agnes, your debut album has been a great success- not just in your homeland, where is has received platinum status- but also in France, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and Switzerland. How does it feel to reach that many people and that many different cultures with your music?
Agnes: It's cool, you know. I think I'm always a little surprised about it. I experience it the most when I'm out playing concerts, obviously. So it's kind like, "Wow, I'm playing in Switzerland; how do they know my songs there?", you know. When I experience it, it's still always very surprising to me. I am so happy about but I'm always like, "Woah...They know it!". It's really cool. I think that's what's so nice about music; it's not necessarily about where you're from and what your background is. Music transcends these cultural things. It's really nice that we can communicate with each other through music.
E: Would you get different responses from country to country or are the reactions to your music similar?
A: Yes, very much so. Yeah, it's really different. From country to country, the song they like the most is different. For examle, in the U.S.A. they really like 'Brother Sparrow', which is a guitar song, and I didn't expect that at all, that that song would be the one I would always have to play at sessions and at shows. And then in other countries it's different, like in Denmark I always have to play 'Just So' and in France something different again. And in some countries people will concentrate critically on the classical side of the album, on the classical songs. Some people will really like the piano and think the music is sparse and minimalistic. So it's really different, but I think it's also got something to do with the individual person who is listening to it.
E: Now that you have mentioned it, there is a strong classical influence in your music, Agnes. Did you grow up in a home where classical music was often played?
A: Well my mother played classical music but she was the only one. My father wasn't into classical music at all actually, in fact, for him, classical music was something kind of holy! But my mother liked it and she would play a lot of Bachrich, the Hungarian composer. So I guess I got into it from her. And also, I started going to lessons early and had a lovely piano teacher. I think both she and my mother were big influences with classical music. It's funny, I really had to like a piece before I would play it. I had to fall in love with it and then I wanted to play it! So that's how I got into it. But I don't think my influences were typical either; there were other types of music, like rock music. They played The Rolling Stones too and other kinds of music.
E: All of your work on the album is self-written, played and produced. Was releasing this album independently something that was very important to you?
A: It was for this project. Yes, for these songs it was because I did not have a record deal before this album. The point of this record was not to release the songs; it was to make the songs to come out the way I wanted them and to make sure that I wouldn't forget them! You know? Because I had been playing many of them for years and I was afraid I was going to forget them. It was more of a personal project, especially in the way I was doing it on my own. I had been working with a lot of other people and that was cool, I really liked it. It was like a group and doing things together, but I really felt like I wanted to do this because it was more of a private thing. And then I ended up mixing it myself too and that was partly because I didn't really know anybody. I was living in Berlin. I had just moved there and didn't really know anybody so I just did it myself. But now I'm really happy I did it myself because I know I can do it if I want to.
E: You mentioned there that you had been playing these songs for a long time and didn't want to forget them, which is why you chose to lay them down. Exactly how long had you been working with the songs that ended up on the album?
A: Well some of the songs on the album were written while I was recording the others because I was in a really good place. I had somehow worked myself into a really productive mode! I was writing a lot of new stuff, for example, I wrote 'Riverside' while I was in the middle of recording another song and it came quickly, like it was an instrumental and suddently the vocals came. But many are very old songs that I have been working with since I was, I don't know, 14 or something! So really old songs. There's a good mixture of new and quite old, from my teenage time. It's really weird for me to listen to the album because it's really like jumping between scenes of my life!
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| Photograph by Sofie Amalie Klougart |
A: Yeah. Well, it felt kind of natural because it's how I create the songs, or that's how I start out.I always start out on the piano and have many instrumentals, so they always pop up. Then I have some theme I have made up and I play around with that. It's basically my way of making songs; to play melodies on the piano and then sometimes to add vocals. Sometimes songs get lyrics and sometimes I just keep them as they are, as instrumentals. So I felt like I had to put some of them on there.
E: Okay, great. And what made you choose to cover 'I Keep a Close Watch' by John Cale? [Renamed 'Close Watch' on Philharmonics]
A: Well, I think it is a really brilliant song actually; it's my favourite of his and I have always liked it very much. I think he has a very interesting mood about his music. It's kind of bleak but it's also romantic. I like that it's a love song and romantic, but at the same time kind of dark. And it also has a mood and a feeling and a type of gravity about it which I feel my songs didn't. So it made sense to put this different kind of atmosphere into this pool of songs with a different mood. So I think it's a good difference and a good counterbalance. His songwriting is definitely very different and I like this contrast.
Close Watch by agnesobel
E: Given that you were born in Denmark and your native language is not English, I just wanted to ask if you have always sang in English or was this something you did for this particular project?
A: I have always had English. I went to an international school where we learned English. I didn't go to the part of the school where they only spoke English, but in both parts we sang in English, so yeah. That's how we were taught English- by singing in English- so I was singing in English before I was really speaking it! So it feels very natural for me to sing in English. It's kind of weird because it's not my native language, but I do feel that it is my music language. And I had a little band when I was younger and we had some songs in English as well.
E: You mentioned your track 'Riverside' earlier, which was released as the first single from Philharmonics. How did it feel to have your song played on an episode of Grey's Anatomy, a really popular TV show that reaches millions of people?
A: Yeah that was really cool. I think I was a little bit prepared because I had it before with 'Riverside'. It was featured in a movie [Submarino by Thomas Vinterberg]. Actually it was a demo version of it so they are a little bit different. I got to hear the soundtrack for the third time when it was screened at the Berlinale Film Festival in Berlin. I was sitting in the cinema and it was before I had the album out and everything so I was really shocked when I heard it! It was a really great feeling but also kind of terrifying! So I experienced it there so was a bit prepared when I heard it on Grey's Anatomy but it was great. It was really, really cool. I really like to have my music in some kind of official context and I love films in general. I think it's great to have a song in a scene and have it intensify it or even drive it in a new direction.
E: One question I have to ask you, Agnes, is regarding the album artwork for Philharmonics. Although it's in colour, there was something about its eerie tone and your gaze that made me think it had an almost Hitchcock feel to it. What was the inspiration behind the owl and the shots?
A: Ah...it's funny that you say Hitchcock because that's actually what started it. You know the Hitchcock movie The Birds?
E: I know it well!
A: Well it's like my favourite movie and I love the stills that Hitchcock had made for the film with Tippi Hedren and the raven wings, and also the stills of the raven sitting with the match with a flame on it. There are some fantastic stills in black and white so the photographer and I thought that we must have some sort of bird on the cover and we tried to make my hair like Tippi Hedren. But then we found out that it would not be cool to have the album cover in black and white; we should have it in colour beause we thought there was quite a forest feel to the album. But we still wanted to have the bird so we went into a little taxidermy shop...
E: The owl isn't real?!
A: No, it's so sad!
E: I didn't know it was taxidermy; I thought it was real!
A: No, it wasn't possible to have a real bird like that...
E: I thought he was a bit too well behaved!
A: Haha...yeah but the album cover ended up looking so beautiful and it looked so alive and we were so afraid of this dead bird we had in the studio for one day! So it was a really weird experience but we got these really powerful images out of it.
E: They are really beautiful. So, Agnes, you're playing this years Kilkenny Arts Festival in August.
A: Yes, I am.
E: It's not your first visit to Ireland though...
A: No, it's not. I have played in Dublin in the Sugar Club in April, I think it was. And we also played in Cork in the Marquee supporting Fleet Foxes, and that was just recently. It was brilliant and me and my boyfriend are big Fleet Foxes fans so we loved that I was doing it. It was a really good show.
E: What can those who come to your Kilkenny Arts Festival performance expect from you? I know you're working on your sophomore album at the moment; will you play any new songs on the night?
A: We're definitely going to play some new songs. I'm not sure how many yet but we are already trying out new material. So definitely some new songs; this is for sure. And then I will play this show with two Annas, one being a cello player who I normally play with. We haven't figured out all the details yet but for sure some new material; at least two new songs.
E: That's great, Agnes; thank you so much for speaking with me today...
A: Thank you.
E: And I look forward to seeing you in Kilkenny!
A: Great, thank you so much.
Agnes plays St. Candice's Cathedral on August 11th. Ticket prices for her performance, and all Wired shows, range are on sale now from Kilkenny Arts Festival's ticketing site, which you can find here. A full programme of events for the festival, including dates, times and venues, can be found here. Follow Kilkenny Arts Festival on Facebook here, and on Twitter here.
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