Music In Time: Feature: The White Raven (12/05/15)

Swedish based band, The White Raven, have recently released their single ‘Keep’ whilst working on their forthcoming debut album. After releasing two critically acclaimed singles last year, ‘Headlights’ and ‘Hold On Light Up’. Their latest single has followed in the same manner after recording in some of Europe’s best recording studios they decided to return to their own studio to finalise new single ‘Keep’ which is now creating excitement around their debut album.

General Questions:

1. How old were you when you started getting involved and how?

I remember I was about seven or eight when I started singing in the mandatory choir of my school. But I didn’t “get serious” about it until I was 14 and I immediately started a band as soon as I learned(ish) to play the guitar.

2. What is the most inspiring gig/concert/festival you’ve been to?

I saw Band of Horses in 2011 in Malmö. I had listened to their album all of that summer and I was amazed by how they translated the studio album onto the stage. I loved it; their presence and sound and everything.

3. Who have you been listening to lately?

Lately, it has been a lot of The National in general, their album High Violet specifically. Cannot get enough of it.

3 Questions for The White Raven:

1. Who influences you musically and what inspires you lyrically?

Musically, I have to say that a lot of different things inspire. Could be a sound from a pedal effect I’ve found, could be a song I heard a year ago and then forgot.

In general everything could inspire to music, I remember I once wrote a song based on the beat form the washing machine in my old basement. I don’t remember it being any good, it did inspire.

2. Why did you decide to return to your own studio, to finalise your single ‘Keep’, and do you think you’ll now stay recording there for future releases, if so why?

The main reason in the beginning was actually that we wanted to record as soon as possible and we couldn’t book a studio at a soon enough date. Bu the idea to record something in our own studio had tickled in the back of our minds for quite a while.

It’s easier to spread out the time in our own studio. We are not bound to just a few days for a song; in fact ‘Keep’ took about two weeks all in all before everything was recorded. And it gave us more time and less stress to attend to the details in every part of the recording. And it’s fun to spend weeks in the studio, let’s not forget that.

We are proud of the results and we will record here again. I’m not saying we’ll never go to a big studio again, on the contrary, we hope to book one soon. But we’ll record in our own studio for a little while.

3. What process did you go through creating ‘Keep’ musically and visually?

Keep was written in a few different sessions. We wrote some parts of it during a spontaneous jam session in our rehearsing studio. I think we were preparing for a show last summer.

We all liked it, so we recorded it on someone’s phone. Maybe a week later we started to record a demo. I remember specifically that we added the into and outro after the first draft was recorded.

We played it together, getting the parts and details right. Then we recorded another demo to listen to the new stuff.

I then changed the lyrics, we all changed some details on the instruments and after we had recorded the changes, we send the demo to the label boss man, Billy. He liked it and after he’d listened to it about two times he called me and we decided to record it.

The video was planned together with two friends of ours, Robin Jansson and Kristoffer Granath. They had both done visual work with us before, Robin has filmed all our video work and Kristoffer has photographed us a few times. We like their ways of looking at things and we wanted them to join creative minds with us and make a video that was different form the ones we had already made.

They both came up with an idea each and we basically smashed them together with the vision we had. The results came to be Kristoffer’s interesting view of the world combined with Robin’s beautiful camera skills and our sort of crazy “how-is-this-even-done” type idea.

It took about three days filming; one day to film us playing, one to film the background view and then one to shoot the projections on the boxes and the back wall.

Random Q:

Favourite type of year and why? *meant to be favourite time of year*

Well that is an odd question. I guess I’d say a year where we’ll play a lot and record a lot and meet as many fans as possible and at the same time write amazing new music. Is that a fair answer? (MIT: yes definitely, yes!)

'Keep' Review:

When this song appeared in my inbox, I had a listen and honestly fell in love with it instantly. Bordering the styles of Bon Iver and Mountain Bird to create a perfect unique sound. The lyrics are emotive and honest highlighted by the vocals and guitars, backed with percussion and all the other layers that make this such a brilliant song. (Definitely in my Top 10 songs of this year, and we're not even half way through it yet). Cannot wait for a debut album from these guys. My words will never come close to giving these guys music the credit it deserves, so have a listen and let the music do its magic.