Interview: …Inside of a Delirium Suite with KOREA

Swedish rock band KOREA was formed in 2003 and was quickly discovered by the American producer Blake Althen who realized the powerful potential that the band possessed. Last year KOREA released “The Delirium Suite” via Vicisolum Productions. KOREA are: Michael Ehrnstén – Vocals, Keyboard * Mats Karpestam – Guitar * Dennis Ehrnstén – Drums * Robert Bunke – Bass.

But let’s read what the band members told me some days ago…

Hi Guys, I’m Tarja, welcome to Metal Shock! You formed the band in 2003, and soon the American producer Blake Althen discovered you. You recorded your self-titled EP with him, but then you decided to break with Blake… what happened?

As we got better at producing music ourselves we realized that we had a different approach that suited Korea better. We parted ways but there were no hard feelings.

In 2008 you released your debut album “For The Present Purpose”, which got good reviews from different important magazines. But the years in between, from 2003 to 2008 what you were doing?

We where evolving into Korea you hear today. We recorded a lot of songs and everyone of them was different and better than the previous one. So finally in 2007 we decided on the songs on FTPP and started recording them. Because we where new at doing it all by ourselves, it took over a year to complete the record.

Please, represent us your band members and give 3 adjectives to describe each of you…

Robert Bunke, drunken bastard with narcisistic tendencies
Dennis Ehrnstén, drunken bastard with psychotic tendencies
Michael Ehrnstén, drunken bastard with no tendencies…?
Mats Karpestam, aggressive tendencies, but no drunken bastard

But seriously it’s hard to describe, we are all different and alike at the same time. I guess that’s what makes Korea what it is. We all bring our own aspect and touch to the music.

How did you get together?

Micke and Dennis got together when Dennis was born since they’re brothers, hö hö, Robot and Mats were old schoolpals with Dennis. First Dennis, Micke and Robot formed the band and later on Mats was asked to reinforce when the old guitarplayer quitted.

Talking about the band’s name, Korea, why this choice? Does it have some connection to the country, or is it something else?

Before we started Korea we had a grungeband called Aerok, but when our singer in Aerok mysteriosly disappeared in a strange sauna-accident we decided to start on a fresh page with a new name and a new sound. Aerok backwards spells… Korea.

The band started as Dennis showing two songs for Bunke that he wrote in memory for the old singer, then after we stopped searching for him we decided to keep on playing with this new sound. So it has actually nothing to do with Korea, as a country, it just a pure coincident. We do like asian food though. We would like to take the opportunity to empty our beerbottles one more time in memory for our old friend and former singer Henke B wherever he might be. Part from Micke who actually is kind of happy of his new position in the band. Before Micke was the guy making coffee, cleaning the rehearsalspace, fixing women and drugs and so on so who can blame him for that? He also occasionally played keyboards and the mandolin.

How would you describe your sound? From where are coming your influences?

We like to think that we sound Korea, but of course there are bands that have influenced us. So maybe our sound is a blend of American bands as APC, NIN and Danish bands as Carpark North, Mew, Kashmir and with a big chunk of Swedish melancholy and the epic swedish band wizex.

Last year you released “The Delirium Suite”, tell us about this album? What’s in there?

Heavy melancholic dispair…

The album’s cover is quite impressive… what is the story behind it?

It´s a visual presentation of the delirium suite, the place inside of you, where you hide your deepest most conflicted feelings and secrets.

What has been the reactions of your fans and audience about this album?

Very positive reactions. Not many have had something negative to say.

Tell us about your songwriting process? from where are you taking the topics?

The songwriting often begins with a musical idea that keeps evolving until we have a complete structure that we are all satisfied with. We never push a song towards any given genre, we just let it become what it wants to become so to speak. The lyrics on the new album compared to FTPP are a little bit darker and deals with death, alienation and the collapse of the world as we know it. The last song ”Exit” for example is a tribute to Dennis and Mickes father who sadly died from cancer shortly after the release of our first album ”For the present purpose”.

Are you touring this year to support “The Delirium Suite”? where?

We´re currently planning our coming tour, a lot happened since the record was released but we have some cool gigs coming up. Hopefully in Finland as well.

Your label is Vicisolum Productions, tell me about your collaboration…