Rasmus Weng Karlsen 

Hailing from Copenhagen, Denmark, Efterklang have been making music since 2000, blending orchestral sounds with their unique indie pop. The band are currently on tour in support of their third album ‘Magic Chairs’ and fly into Liverpool on 3rd November for their only UK show as part of Liverpool Music Week.

You’re playing Liverpool Music Week in November, what can we expect from the show?

Well we’ve never played in Liverpool before so we’re really excited about visiting the city and we’re going to be playing a lot of new music and also songs from our latest album ‘Magic Chairs’.

With such a busy touring schedule, do you get any time to go to gigs and check out new artists?

When we’re on tour we get a chance to catch artists playing at the same shows as us and nearby but once we’re home going to a gig is the last thing we think about doing!

What advice would you give to some of the new acts that are emerging on the scene at the moment?

Keep doing what you’re doing! I think as long as people are focusing on making good music then they are doing their best. I think with the amount of new music coming out, a lot of people feel they’re not being heard but I still believe that good music reaches good ears and at some point it will happen for them.

When we started out we created a lot of gigs ourselves as there weren’t people like you who were there to showcase new talent. We were writing to bookers at venues all over Denmark but didn’t get much of a response so we thought we would make our own events instead and invite different artists, painters, music groups and just make a big party out of it. It turned out that our area was crying out for something like that so we ended up having a lot of people turn up who got to experience our sound. It’s good that there are now more and more venues that are inviting new artists to play with to support bigger acts or to showcase their talent. We’ve noticed this a lot in the US, where we’re currently touring. It’s great.

The band’s done an incredible amount of touring in the last 3-4 years. How do you cope with all the travelling?

Well we have a good time on the road and we enjoy each other’s company…most of the time! We’ve been touring continuously for about three years now so we can have our bad days but generally we enjoy it and we get to see the world and lots of places we wouldn’t normally if we weren’t doing this. It’s a great honour to have people around the world booking us for shows and being able to go there.

Do you think travelling influenced the recording of Magic Chairs?

I think it helped to feed the ideas for the album and the way we think about future projects. Magic Chairs was definitely inspired by our playing live especially because we would try out songs we had written for the album whilst we were on tour to see what the audience thought and how we could improve them. We would then go ahead and record them pretty soon after. The album and the way we think of future recordings have always come from a live source.

Efterklang formed back in early 2001. How do you feel your music has evolved since your Springer EP (2003) and Tripper (2004) to what it is today with your latest album, Magic Chairs

We’ve been around since 2001 but the Efterklang project itself kicked off around 2003 and we have definitely changed a lot in the last seven years. As the four core members of Efterklang don’t have any other projects, we throw every idea we have into the band which ultimately evolves it.

How did Efterklang begin?

Well Mads and Rasmus grew up together and then we met in high school and formed the band as a trio but it was more of a pop/rock band back then. At some point we felt it was good enough for us to move to the ‘big city’ of Copenhagen and start performing there. Once we got there we decided that we wanted to start afresh, so we forged some more group members and took it from there. It’s then really that the band started.

Once we properly formed the group we started playing around with recording equipment and making music. This is still how we do it; we compose music, start recording it and then edit it as we go along like a sculpture almost.