Cliche Magazine June/July 2018 | Page 126

DAY BY DAY Their latest single may be called “Somber,” but that’s not the feeling that comes across when Violet Days talk about their music. The Sweden-based synthpop artist made up of lead vocalist Lina Hansson and production partner Kris Eriksson are anything but when discussing the track and their experiences. We got the chance to talk with Lina about how they came up with their sound, the inspiration behind their debut EP, Made in My Head, and making their debut performance at this year’s SXSW. BY MICHAEL BOYLAN / PHOTOGRAPHED BY KIRSTOFFER ERIKSSON Cliché: How did you form Violet Days? Lina Hansson: I initially moved to Stockholm to find people who could play shows with me; we met in the studio and started forming the band. At first, I called the project ‘Violet’ until Kris came on board. After we started writing and producing new songs together, the name changed to ‘Violet Days’, since that was the start of the new sound. How did you come up with your sound? Who were some of your inspirations? We’ve been experimenting, and we always are. We always try to find new ways of doing things and find what’s unique within our sound. A lot of inspiration comes from 126 movie soundtracks, though; it’s an interesting way of looking for sounds. Inspiration also comes from artists like Tame Impala, The Neighborhood, Beach Boys and Michael Jackson. What’s the process been like putting together your debut EP Made in My Head? We allowed ourselves to take some time on creating it and to really figure out the concept. We pretty much had all the songs already and after a while, we realized they all tell a story together. This worked out really well with the visual concept that we have. It’s a concept inspired by a Swedish comic book from the 60s; there are two characters from that book that we had our friend help us re-make and animate in our own way to tell the story. What can people expect from it? It’s a full story and very visual; all the songs are chapters. There will be a trailer for is that we already started to release a piece of with every song. www.clichemag.com