Stuff of IndieChina With Pg.lost
Just Hold On Your Own Feelings of Music
- Interview with Pg.lost
Interviewer:Gilbertea
Thanks:Zhuoling Wu/Jef
Pg.lost just finished their tour in China couple of days ago. And before the tour we did an interview with Pg.lost. These nice guys impressed us a lot. The interview is listed below.
Hi,
This is InideChina(http://www.indiechina.com/), the first and largest platform focusing on indie music in China. We heard that you're going to visit China for a tour. You have a large number of fans here and they cannot wait to come to your shows. Before that we wish to show your fans some more real and fantastic sides of you and let more people know about you. So we planed this E-mail interview. Hope this will not cost you much time.
The followings are a couple of questions we want to ask.
1.We are curious about the origin of your band's name Pg.Lost. Why did you change the name "Before You Give In" into this one?
From the start when it was just a hobby/rehersal space side project Mattias came up with the name “pg.lost”, as a result of a long line of thoughts, but when it was time for our first gig we thought that “Before You Give In” would be less abstract and maybe easier to remember. Later we experimented with some different sounds just to come back to the original idea of music we wanted to play, and when we were going to record our first dEmo we also took back the name “pg.lost”. We like the idea of people having their own interpretations of the name in the same way they have their own interpretations of the music so we’ve chosen not to tell anyone about the real meaning of it, but we usually introduce ourselves as pg.lost or sometimes “page lost”.
2.Many critics define your music as Post-Rock. What do you think of Post-rock? Do you like your music be labelled a specific genre?
We really like a bunch of bands that are labelled as Post-Rock bands but post-rock is not the genre we listen to the most. People and critics can put our music in whatever genre they think fits, it’s every individual’s right and it doesn’t bother us. Of course it sometimes can be deceiving to someone that doesn’t think the music fits the genre but, most of the time, what the majority says in this matter tends to be accurate.
3.A few months ago we interviewed Olafur Arnalds, an indie band of Iceland, the vocal said that 99% of the Post-Rock bands were not so awesome enough. What's your opinion about his words?
Originality is hard to come by in today’s endless supply of music. As in every genre there are always a percentage of bands that you think sound like shit, that’s unavoidable and Post-Rock might be so in a greater extent but if you say that 99% isn’t any good then I doubt you have explored the genre fully. I mean Olafur’s music can be extremely boring and predictable and you’ve heard the same thing a thousand times but that doesn’t mean that it sometimes can be very, very beautiful. It’s just a matter of taste.
4.Your new album changes a little in style compared with your last one. It seems to be more introspective. So we want to know your own evaluation of this album. Is this description accurate?
Well, that’s always up to every individual listener but in our mind that sounds quite accurate. What we tried get across was a somewhat darker feeling with more desperation and anger compared to the previous records. But when we started making Songs for it we didn’t have an exact plan, it just evolved in that way.
5.Your favourite bands? We find that your myspace doesn't show those bands which influence your music. Or maybe no one? Aha. If so, it's not so amazing for such a terrific band like you.
Our favourite bands is always changing and what we listen to can vary a lot within the band. Some of it is also completely different from what we play, but that’s only a positive thing for your inspiration. We are influenced by so much music that people would think “what the hell” if we put them on our myspace. And to put the most obvious influences would just enhance everyone’s compariSon with our music so we choose to mostly have people/bands we know, other bands we play in and people we work with among our top friends on myspace.
6.All of your own Songs, which one does your members like the best?
It’s usually the newest one, haha! No, but that’s constantly changing and we could probably never agree on one, which is good. Some of them are really fun to play live depending on which mood you’re in, how well it goes or what kind of reaction you get from the audience.
7.Have you ever focused on Chinese indie music? Have any Chinese bands or musicians you admire? Do you know about your guest bands on this tour?
Ok, now we are embarrassed. We must be totally honest and say that we don’t have a clue about the Chinese music scene at all. We’ll have to do our homework before the tour starts and check out some Chinese bands. If you have any suggestions we’d be glad.
8.Are you having planned for your next album? Will any new Songs be played on the coming tour?
We’ve started to sketch on a couple of new Songs but they are still just embryos. If we happen to complete any of them before the tour we might think about maybe playing one, but because this will be our first time in China we’ll probably focus on the one’s we already have.
9.Will you record a live album about this tour? And ever thought about coOperating with Chinese bands?
I don’t think so. It’s probably going to be too many other things to think about. But we are going to write, take pictures and film as much we can for our local paper/tv channel back here in Sweden.
The only kind of coOperating we’ve done with bands before is that we have toured with a couple. No split records or anything like that has ever been planned. And because our knowledge about Chinese bands is so sadly limited we haven’t thought about it yet, but we are always open for suggestions.
10.We heard that someone falsely used your music and attracted a record deal, but you didn't take measures to stop that and some guys mistook your music. We are so angry about the man's behaviour. What's your thought about this kind of pirate?
There was a guy who downloaded some of our early dEmo Songs, recorded in our rehearsal space; from a website we had put them on just for fun. This was long before we made the “Yes I Am EP” and we were far away from releasing anything on a record label. The songs and the sound was cRap but somehow he managed to get an album, with our songs and a bunch of other songs that he’d taken from other bands, released on a small label. One of those other bands Discovered this and they also recognized our songs and contacted us. They got in touch with the record label who stopped selling the album and they also tried to contact the “artist” but he had vanished. This was such a long time ago and we don’t think of it as a big thing. He didn’t sell a lot of albums. We just pity him for not having any musical imagination of his own. It is sad and it must be frustrating to be in his shoes.
11.Most of the bands in China have a belief that they need a job to afford their music. Are you a professional band? And in Sweden can you just live by your music?
You can live by your music in Sweden but its hard work and even harder playing this genre. Sweden has a lot of potential but can be tough to play in and our Popularity is probably higher in the rest of Europe. We try to be as professional as we can, earn enough of our music to have the time and effort to evolve at all levels but, for the time being, to make ends meet we have to have a job or go to school.
We are so grateful that you receive our interview. Looking forward to your visiting to China. Hope you have a wonderful tour!
Thanks for your patience and coOperation!
No, thank you! We’re also looking forward to it and we just know it’s going to be great! See you there!
Much love!
/pg.lost
