SXSW Interview: Slotface
SXSW? Whats that all about? Youve likely seen that were blasting interviews your way as fast as we can get them back from SXSW performing artists. Today I have a highly anticipated Q & A session from Norwegian group Slotface. This one if a gem. Hit the jump for more.
All questions answered by Hayley Shea.
ATH: There was a lot of hubbub last year concerning corporate sponsors and pay to play and what not at SXSW. As a band, what’s your reason for coming to pay at the festival? What do you hope to get out of it?
This will be our first time playing SXSW so we’re really excited about it. We hope to reach a larger part of the US music industry as this will only be our second trip to the states as a band, eat lots of tacos and get to know other artists we admire that never seem to make it to Norway.
ATH: For most SXSW sets, you get 30 minutes to leave a lasting impression. What’s your plan of attack? You have a set list mapped out yet?
We will be using our normal attack plan which involves overwhelming the audience with a lot of energy. We’ll be playing a lot of new music from our upcoming album and we’re really excited to show people all the new stuff.
ATH: The festival caters to music fans, but food and booze are an important aspect of the fans and the bands. What’s your band’s food and beverage of choice?
For SXSW we’re excited about eating a lot of tex mex, especially sick tacos (did we mention we really like tacos?) and we’re suckers for good burgers, both veggie and carnivorous.
ATH: There are tons of bands coming into town. Who would you ideally like to play with of the 1000s of bands gracing our city? Make your own optimal line-up.
if we could pick our own line-up for SXSW we would love to play with the bands we’d be excited to meet, so Weaves, Diet Cig, Sleigh Bells and millions of other bands we haven’t even heard of that we will probably fall in love with during the festival.
ATH: We are partial to SXSW obviously, but what festival do you feel is the best around?
Our dream as a scandinavian band is to be booked to Roskilde in Denmark, but our favorite festival that we’ve played at so far is Slottsfjell festival in Norway. It’s the perfect size, always has a good line- up, is located in the forest in Norway and has a really fun club night after dark. People should definitely come to Norway for Slottsfjell.
ATH: Let’s say your band has been booked an official showcase at a pop up venue somewhere in the middle of 6th street. The lineup features thrash metal, hip-hop, spoken word, and you. The sound is horrible, the lineup is not your style, and the crowd seems angry at the world. How would your band deal with such a situation?
We would probably still try to be ourselves the way we always are. Very energetic and happy to be playing together, hopefully we would be able to win some people over during the course of the set, but as a band you just have to make the best out of every situation.
ATH: What’s your favorite album to come out in the last year? What’s playing in the tour bus?
We all have different musical tastes, so it’s quite different for each member. Tor-Arne and Haley’s favorite is the latest Car Seat Headrest album, Lasse’s is Frank Ocean’s Blonde. We listen to a lot of different things in the van though and love showing each other new things we’ve discovered. Last tour we were listening a lot to ARY’s latest single “Childhood Dreams” and HAJK’s debut record.
ATH: The digital age is upon us, like it or not. What are your band’s thoughts on streaming services like spotify, pandora, etc.? Blow em all up? Or embrace the future?
We all use streaming services and have kind of always dowloaded music or streamed music and not really bought records. We don’t expect to make money from album sales, because that’s not the music industry we came into so we think it’s our job to be creative and make money in other ways so we could eventually be full time, payed musicians.
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