In the studio with Oholics
To our delight the brilliant Oholics invited us around to the recording studio, where they’re currently recording some new material. The studio is placed in an old industrial area just outside of Gothenburg city centre, the old industrial brick building gives the studio a nice atmospheric feel, just as how you imagine a recording studio to be. It’s got all the characteristics of a studio – the old sofa, the beer cans, the oldish kitchen and hardly any toilet paper.
We join the guys in the studio where the first takes of a new song are being recorded, the band members – Anders Thunarf, Axel Nord, Christoffer Rydeståhl, Hannes Thunberg, Niklas Hjort and Peter Freiberg are in good spirits, you can tell they’re having fun and enjoying the process.
How come you’re going for an EP?
- The decision to record an EP instead of an album this time around is that we just don’t believe it’s that important to release a full length album anymore. We’ll record an album in future if it’s called for, of course…says Christoffer (Oholics singer)
- It just doesn’t feel that important to release an album these days… Since pretty much all music being released digitally…The songs you release just gets added on to a playlist!
Christoffer continues explaining that it would be great to get some airtime on the radio and also to get some extra backing from record companies before actually releasing all of their material.
So when do you hope to get the new material released?
- We do not really have an exact date as a release date. We’d rather hold on to some of the material until we get more people on board, so to speak. But we will definitely try to release a single before the summer.
The new material has got a fresh 80′s new wave feel to it. It also have a darker twist, heavy on the synts with a slow beat, and it makes us think of retro SCIFI movies like ‘Barbarella’ or ‘The Day The Earth Stood Still’.
- I’ve been listning to alot of HipHop music recently, especially East Coast like Mos Def, but also Beastie Boys, they never cease to inspire me.
For us, Gorillaz comes to mind as we keep listening.
How do you go about making music?
-It’s always been quite easy for us to make music, we’ve known each other that long, so we sort of have a routine worked out. The process is a joint effort of course but yet individual. With the new technique it’s easy to send each other bits and bobs of new songs and sounds, and easy to add bits on to that! We always start with the beats and sounds though, that inspires me to write the lyrics.
Would you say that song texts aren’t that important?
-No, not at all! It’s just the way my creative process works, I need the beats first! But to create a great tune, you have to get the beats and sound right and you have to give the text some serious TLC as well.
Christoffer continues to add that even though coming up with new ideas and the starting process of creating new material is quite easy, they sometimes feel they lack the discipline to finish the material. This might be one of the reasons they don’t release new material as often as they would like to.
The new music we can expect from Oholics this spring is truly an interesting mix. Except of the references mentioned already there is a very strong and close connection to those old British heroes like Stone Roses, Happy Mondays and Primal Scream. But instead of going retro – Oholics takes the best of their old sources of inspiration and creates something completely new and fresh!
We are very excited to hear the final result a couple of weeks from now! We will definitely get back to you with a review later on. So stay tuned people!
