An Interview with Felix of Le Kid

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?

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 ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcbbOQtrEV4

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.