A new wave of punk rock is about to explode in Stockholm’s underground scene and Delagoon is in the forefront. With their second single (entitled “Techno Kids”) released just a couple of days before, we met up with singer Charlie Falk and drummer Anton Haeffler, who were kind enough to take a quick break from their modelling careers, for a chat.
“The rest of the group used to play in this really terrible punk band,” Charlie moans as we sit down in the sofa. “The first time I met them, they were at Way Out West only to see Refused; they hated everyone who were there to see Bon Iver. Christoffer, who plays bass, wore a leather jacket with a Nirvana patch on, smoked on a pipe and glared at me the entire time. But we had mutual friends, so later on we met at a party.”
“And we wanted you to sing in the band but you didn’t like us at all,” Anton recalls. “Then we got this gig where we were payed 500 SEK each, we needed a singer so we asked Charlie who said yes only because he needed the cash.”
“We went onstage and realised that we hadn’t rehearsed,” says Charlie. “We didn’t even know each other. I said: ‘play E minor and A minor and I’ll sing something on top of it.’ Somehow it turned out really well so we kept playing together.”
Here’s a playlist the guys put together for us!
What drew you together as a band?
Charlie: We agreed that all of us like Joy Division.
Anton: All of us like The Cure and we’re all a bit sad.
Charlie: But we also really love hits. A bit like The Cure who could make an album like “Pornography” and then make a cheesy pop single like “Just Like Heaven”. Now we’ve only released two songs but one of them isn’t dark at all. “Techno Kids” is a naive pop song that we won’t be proud of in two years. When I’m thirty I’ll look back at it and think “what the fuck?”.
In percentage, how happy and how sad is Delagoon?
Charlie: 75% sad, 10% numb och 15% happy.
Anton: But even with the happy songs the lyrics don’t mean a shit.
Charlie: Our music is complete nonsense; it doesn’t mean anything. I mean it’s fun, we like what we do, but it’s not as if anything we write actually means a thing. It’s just what comes into my head when I hear the music. Like our band name Delagoon, it doesn’t mean anything.
Anton: But that’s also what I like about it.
Charlie: Exactly, it would’ve been boring if we took ourselves too seriously. I honestly don’t think music is that serious.
Anton: It’s something that’s fun to do. Something to hold on to. Otherwise you would just walk around like a zombie and work every day.
How do you think music, fashion and art merge into one another?
Charlie: In every way. If there’s one thing that’s important, it’s that it should not just be the music. It’s the overall aesthetic. Everything merge together. If we write a song, the feeling needs to be conveyed correctly. How we move onstage, what we look like, what the album covers look like, what’s the overall concept.
Anton: Just look at Bowie. He’s a fashion icon, a music icon. He’s an icon of everything. Bowie’s our utopia.
Charlie: Artists who lack this multi-disciplinary perspective are boring. Bowie’s music wouldn’t have been as good if he didn’t looked the way he did and had all these characters. That’s what made him interesting. The context is as important as the music.
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Interview by Jonatan Södergren