Read Our Exclusive Interview With The Duo About
This Indie Pop Gem
photos by Nicoline Verdi Petersen
Upon our first listen to “Gossip From the Mothership”, we hear the influence of indie favorites “Belle and Sebastian”, the Scottish grand-daddies of sardonic indie-pop themselves. For fans of indie music in the 2000’s we bring you Todd and Karen, a duo comprised of Øyvind Berge from Kongsberg, Norway, and Ina Verdi-Ruckstuhl from Ireland. Drawn together as creative collaborators by way of working together at the same company in Norway, what is delivered to us is a refreshing, upbeat indie release. “that also “Gossip From the Mothership” also brings to mind the Swedish group Peter Bjorn and John and their massive hit “Young Folks” due to the alternating male and female vocals, a feature of the duo’s music that we feel makes them distinctive in a sea of indie bands. We love the candy-pop intro, the uptempo beat, and the unexpected instrumentation such as the melodica, a musical keyboard that creates the sound of a harmonica by blowing into a mouthpiece. In other words, we hear a creative duo that is simply having fun and making music. Are we correct, is it possible that we hear creatives having fun here?
We get a chance to talk to Todd and Karen and ask them a few questions about the new release and what inspires them to create their music:
The Exclusive Interview:
SBN: Hey Todd and Karen, it sounds like you are having a lot of fun creating music together! Are we right with this assumption, were you drawn to working together to have fun and be creative?
T&K: You are right. We were already working together before we started creating music together. We were part of the social committee at work, creating various events and being creative in the workspace, hopefully to the joy of our colleagues. During that time we got to know each other better, realizing that we shared a lot of similar tastes in music, and the idea to take our common interest a step further started taking shape. Both of us have a past either in bands or orchestras, so as the social committee eventually disintegrated we started throwing musical ideas back and forth. Slowly, but surely, our first original tunes started to emerge. “Mr. Beardsley” was the first one, and also got to be our first single back in late 2021. If you listen to that, you probably hear the humor element of our music. All our favorite artists incorporate a humor element into their art. Anyway, since then we haven’t looked back. Full steam ahead.
SBN: We hear a lot of early 2000s indie artists in your music like Peter Bjorn and John, specifically their hit “Young Folks” and even the sardonic style of one of my favorites, Belle and Sebastian. How close are we to the actual musical inspiration for your new song?
T&K: Quite close, definitely. Belle and Sebastian is a constant inspiration for us. We love them. We never deliberately try to sound like them, but that is a name that comes up time and time again when people hear our tunes. Peter Bjorn and John is a new reference, but we see what you mean. It’s a good tune “Young Folks”. We love it. This current tune has been compared to Elvis Costello, Bruce Springsteen, and The Flaming Lips, by other reviewers. It seems people hear different influences there. We were lucky enough to work with a real music industry powerhouse on this one as well, so he brought some pop pep to the proceedings, having worked for such acts as Beyonce, The Script, Toni Braxton, and Billy Joel, to name but a few. He mixed and mastered it and gave it a real pop flair. We’d love to namedrop, but for contractual reasons, we refer to him as “The Hotshot”. Speaking of inspirations though, initially, the main idea was for the song to sound a bit like late 70s- “London Town”-era Wings meets Elton John. That’s where the farfisa organ comes in. However, the song took on a more current mood in production. And we are very chuffed with the result.
SBN: So we need to ask… what is the Juicy Gossip? Was this inspired by actual events and did it get you or someone else into a little hot water?
T&K: Haha. We haven’t gotten into any hot water… yet. As with any art, the best art imitates life to a certain extent. It’s a song about gatekeepers and how they seem to value your input, as long as it suits them. The moment you think for yourself, they do their best to sabotage you. We assume it’s relevant universally, so we’ll let the juicy gossip be whatever you’d want it to be. We all have, or have had, people in our lives who treat us this way. If you’re asking if it’s a poison pen song, you aren’t entirely incorrect.
SBN: What is your songwriting and production process? Do you record and self-produce your music?
T&K: It usually starts with one of us coming up with a melody line or a hum, or an interesting phrase turns up in conversation or out of the blue and gets us going. To be honest, our songwriting process is fairly random and can take place at any time or anywhere. To give you an example, the only song we’ve written together in one go is “Norwegian Summer”, the single preceding “Juicy Gossip From The Mothership”. We were working on some string overdubs for another track as the snow was melting away outside, and the whole idea just came to us in one go, more or less fully formed. Otherwise, it’s a lot of loose ideas that get joined together into something. It doesn’t matter who gets the idea, we run with what we both get a kick out of.
Up until now, we’ve recorded all our songs with a producer called Sigve Høghaug. He has a studio and gear that suits our sound. He also has a great knack for the type of music we play, so it’s been great working with him so far.
SBN: Where can locals in your hometown of Kongsberg, Norway watch you perform?
T&K: For a myriad of reasons, mainly time constraints, we have only performed a couple of very exclusive performances until now. So at the moment, we’re mostly a studio band to be perfectly honest. But, we’re not shutting any doors. Maybe a world tour in 2025?
SBN: What is next for you for your music, are you always creating new music to release?
T&K: We’ve released six singles and one EP so far. The 7th single is ready to go and will hopefully be released quite soon. Hopefully, it’s out by early March. We have a huge backlog of tracks and ideas and we’re always adding to it. So there’s more where that came from!
SBN: What advice do you have for any artists who are interested in the indie scene?
T&K: Reach out to like-minded musicians and try to get a network going. In our experience, the indie music scene is full of very friendly, very collaborative, and hugely talented people. We are part of a couple of “indie communities”, the loosely connected #tweetcore scene and the New Artist Spotlight community, set up by Ed Eagle to promote indie music in all its different forms. This has provided us with a great network of possible collaborators and, above all, a lot of friends and supporters in the indie community worldwide. Especially as we’ve been mainly a studio venture so far, it’s provided us with a “scene” to belong to.
SBN: What keeps you creating while the music industry is beset with massive issues such as the devaluation of music and streaming?
T&K: The way the streaming platforms, and especially Spotify, have decided to run things is nothing short of criminal. The fact that these people on top allegedly have a bigger fortune than Paul McCartney and have never released a song in their life is nothing less than infuriating, when you think about it. The new proposal for Spotify royalty rules is a completely ludicrous thing. Completely scandalous.
But what keeps us creating music? Well, we were never in music for the money. For us, the biggest kick is to hear the songs we’ve lived within our minds and on our demo become fully-fledged, fleshed-out works of art that people can listen to wherever they are in the world. It’s a really good feeling to think that these songs we sat and noodled around within Norway are getting listened to in the United States, Australia, and all sorts of places far away. It’s incredibly cool. So these are the things that keep us going. We don’t mind getting in a position where we get paid well…if someone has a commercial campaign they need some “Juicy Gossip” for, give us a call, you know. However, we are in it for the music and the satisfaction it brings to create it, record it, and release it.
Don’t miss our next single – “Bougie Suzie”. It’s around the corner!
