Interview with Oscar & the Wolf

What is the band's favorite song? Which musicians inspired them? And what record would you find in their CD player? We had the chance to ask Oscar & the Wolf our Soundcheck questions and get a little insight into the life of the Belgian quintett.

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1. How would you describe your music in one sentence?

Southern and warm but rather dark, maybe.

2. Was there something like a light bulb moment when you were young, maybe a concert, a certain song or a record that made you dream about a career as a musician?

At younger age, career didn't really got into our minds, yet! Creating music was actually a need for emotional expression. When we started off performing, we grew into this world where bands were in the middle of a tour. Seeing those people be so involved and passionate by their job, we got more familiar with the idea of doing it the same way

3. Are there any artists that might have influenced you or inspired you some time?

It's probably a mix of movies and series and of course, music. Warpaint is definitely a name we all are almost obsessed about. Thom Yorke is also an incredible musician to us.

4. How do you develop your songs? What part comes first, music or lyrics?

It depends on the moment. I constantly put down words I bump into so I can try and make a fitting text for myself. Sometimes, we have jam-sessions and create new songs within a session.

5. What song is most important to you? Why and how did it develop?

"Wash your face" is the last track we wrote. It came out of a jam-session… I think it's incredibly hard to create music where each member of the band can put his personal feeling into. With this song, we really succeeded in doing that. We also found a way of putting a sort of dance-rhythm to it so it's really a sound we were looking for. It became this sad, dark song where you can dance to. We think dancing is really important :)

6. In what aspects did your music change compared to when you started to make music?

At first, we just recorded some songs without rehearsing. It wasn't really an intention of ours to go and play gigs because we really just wanted to make music for ourselves. After a while, a lot of people were asking us to play gigs so we decided to try and rehearse the song we recorded. We realized there was a lot more to it than we thought. We released an EP and started doing more shows. Doing some great gigs, we realized we really had to put more to our live set and decided to have some jam sessions. Now, we rehearse new songs without having them recorded yet and changing them constantly! :)

7. What has been the best experience so far, together as a band?

Just being able to have the feeling that we're on tour. It's like we found the best flavor and we can taste just a little of a pie. We're pretty much aiming for the whole pie though! :D

8. What can you tell us about your current projects?

We are planning on releasing a second EP, followed by an album. We've got some shows in France and Holland coming up.

9. And what are you aspiring to in the future, what do you want to achieve?

We would love to get to see some parts of the world by doing gigs. Even in Belgium it's pretty fun to constantly be in different places.

10. With whom would you like to go on tour?

Of all the bands we did the support for (except for Ben Howard), we never really connected to them because we are always 1 band of the 300 bands they get to know every year. I do understand the lack of connection though… We'll probably go for Ben Howard!

11. What record would we find in your CD-player right now?

There is one song I listen to non stop. It's "Flaws" by the Bombay Bicycle Club. Together we've always been into Radiohead and Nirvana...

12. What do you think, as artists, about platforms like Facebook, Twitter and mySpace?

It's a great way for us to make people aware of who we are as a band. Without Facebook or Myspace, we would never be able to do the stuff we're doing at the time.

13. myFanbase is a website that is devoted to American television shows. Do you have a favorite show?

While we were recording our EP in a little cabin we always put on a season of "The O.C." (It's lame but the girls are gorgeous!). "Dexter" and "Mad Men" are also pretty great shows :)

Maria Gruber - myFanbase