Dear Poptastic Readers,
As many of you know, I love the Swedish pop group Le Kid. I think everyone should love Le Kid! And they've got plenty of love to give back! They've had some wonderful songs over the past few years. Even my second blog post was about Le Kid. Hopefully, you have already bought their music! If not, I hope you will after reading this!
I knew that band member Felix has seen the Poptastic Confessions blog as he had commented on it before. So, I thought I would ask the handsome pop star for an interview. And, he kindly said yes.
I first became aware of his name when I got Alcazar's Disco Defenders album in 2009. I saw his name in the writing and producing credits. But I didn't know who he was. And then I saw his name as part of Le Kid when the group debuted.
As always, please click on the highlighted words for links to videos or previous blog entries about Le Kid. My questions are in bold type. Felix's answers are in in Italic type.
Meet Felix ...
Felix of Le Kid
How
was Le Kid formed?
Me, Märta & Anton were working as
songwriters and producers at the time (and still are). More often than not, the
songs you love end up in the bin and the ones you feel are OK end up on an album.
Also, you don’t have very much say as a songwriter about anything. So we wanted
to have a band, basically to be able to be dictators in our own universe.
Johanna & Helena were in orbit, circling round us like planets, and ta-dah!
Le Kid was born!
Le Kid: Märta, Johanna, Anton, Helena and Felix
“Mercy Mercy” was the debut single. Was it a hard choice to figure out which of your
songs would make the first impact?
We just love good pop music, no matter what
kind. We were afraid that Mercy Mercy would label us a “retro pop band” and it
kind of did. Still it’s an amazing song, so we regret nothing! And choosing
singles is more for the label to do, we just sit idly by, looking cute.
Indeed,
you do! The second single was the glorious “We Should Go Home Together.” The
video was incredible! Were you worried that you might have just made one of the
gayest videos of all time?
I think our label kinda felt that. We just
thought we’ve made something utterly fantastic. And even though we agree about
the gayness... :) We still think it’s
equally a feminist statement. There are so many videos out there with half-naked
women touching each other (aimed for heterosexual men), so when we do a video
with half-naked men we feel it’s eye candy for both gays and women. For some
reason even in 2012 people have a hard time realizing that women are horny
sexist bastards as well, and we want to change that!
Oh
I absolutely agree with you! Yes folks, Le Kid has Girl Power!
How was your experience at Melodifestivalen with "Oh My God"? Would you do it again?
How was your experience at Melodifestivalen with "Oh My God"? Would you do it again?
Melodifestivalen was fantastic. And you should
never say never. But it’s a very odd feeling competing with music. And it
really drains you. So I don’t think we’ll be back any time soon. We’d love to
have Le Kid there, it’s just that that would mean us having to do it, and we’re
not sure we’re up for it yet.
“America”
is probably my favourite Le Kid song. How come it is the only Le Kid song
available on the US version of iTunes?
Because we begged and begged our label to
release it there. Because of stupid label reasons the rest haven’t been.
Basically, they want a US label, and if they release the album before that
happens, it’s harder. It’s hard to explain stupid things, so I won’t try to.
No
worries. How come there wasn't a video for “We Are The Drums”?
A really simple reason. Money. We’ve always done
very much ourselves. Still, for a good video you have to pay quite a bit. And
the label wasn’t really ready to throw more money at us. It’s a shame though.
We had a really cool West Side Story-idea with a Drums vs. Beats musical
fighting scene...
Ooooh.
That sounds like it would have been divine! The debut album “Oh Alright” is
spectacular and got lots of great reviews. Almost every song sounded like it could
be a hit. How do you feel about it now looking back?
I am and always will be really proud of it. It
represents Le Kid 2009-2010, and was released a year too late. I love each and
every song. Still, I’m not the nostalgic type, and look more to the songs we’re
making now. I still think that We Should Go Home Together and America deserved
to be bigger hits, but what can you do? I love them, and the mails we get that
proves there are others who feels the same makes every second of angst worth
it.
Why
did Anton leave the band?
He was never that involved in the band-bit, more
in the songwriting and producing. And as we got more and more gigs, he felt
that he really didn’t want to do that. We still work with him a lot though, and
love him dearly. The bastard.
Ha! OK, 2012
started off very promising with one of my favourite songs of the year, “Human Behaviour.” However, it was only released in Denmark and there was no promotion
for it at all. What happened?
It was made for our Danish label, and frankly
didn’t get as much airplay as we hoped it would, so no other territories
followed. We knew there wouldn’t be lots more songs coming though, since we
wanted to sit down and write for the greater part of the year. I wish I had a
better story though. A unicorn ate the master tapes?
I
like the idea of the Unicorn … I’m sure the master tapes were sugary sweet!
How
did “Superficial” come about with Mi Lajki come about? And how come it wasn’t
available commercially?
Pierre from Mi Lajki contacted us about doing a
small music bit for an ad, and we did it. I don’t think it’s amazing, and would
rather forget it.
(fan-made cover art)
Too
bad. I love it! “Mercy Mercy” was revamped for Germany. It even got a brand new
video this year. Was there supposed to a German version of “Oh Alright” ... is
that still coming?
Germany is looking brighter for us every day.
The album won’t be released as is, but some kind of weird German edition with a
bunch of new songs is not impossible. Only time and spreadsheets of silly
business strategies will tell.
Ha!
What does 2013 look like for Le Kid?
It’s hard being a pop star. We really feel the
band name is improving since having the band is a lot like having a baby. You
spend insane amounts of love and money on it, vainly hoping that someday it
will pay off.
We’ve done a couple of new tracks that we really
love. We will release a new song in a not too distant future, although we don’t
really want to say anything more until we know dates for sure. What we can say
is that we feel that the new stuff is by far the best things we’ve ever done.
So we feel very good about our future!
Yay!
In 2011, you and Märta and Anders formed Dream Beats and had the amazing song “Feel 4 U” with Alcazar. Is that project over? Or will Dream Beats continue with
other singers?
Dream Beats is meant to be a long lived but low
intense project. When we have a great song that we feel is suited for the
project we will release it under that name. So it’s not dead, and you will hear
more from it! Dream Beats did also release “Love Stuck” featuring The Face, an
amazing UK band this summer!
What?
How did I miss this? OK, I was able to track the song down. And it is pretty
amazing. The video is cute. I must admit, I’ve been listening to it nonstop
since I got it. Quite lovely. Check out the video below ...
Will
Le Kid TV on YouTube be coming back any time soon?
We have been recording silly things for half a year now. As soon
as we get some release dates we plan to do weekly Le Kid TV episodes for a
loooong time! <3
Please check out Le Kid on their official website and Facebook page.
Dream Beats also have a Facebook page.
Oh, I can hardly wait for new Le Kid music.
ReplyDeleteWe should go home together deserved to be a worldwide hit, it's one of my favourite songs of all time. It's really good.
Don't take too long, Le Kid, we miss you! <3
We Wont!
ReplyDelete/Le Kid
PS: Oh yes, we do google ourselves.
This was an informative read, Dave. It's hard to find detailed information on Le Kid. The music industry is a crazy place these days-- every band has to find their unique route to success. I can't believe that Le Kid aren't a household name by now! Best of luck to them in 2013.
ReplyDeleteGreat interview, and hope to see more of Le Kid in 2013. This is recently one of my favorite band and probably the most played in my music collection!
ReplyDeleteWell done!
ReplyDelete