On Live Shows...
The Punk Archive: I met Jonathan [Daniel], from your management [Crush Management], when you played with at Panic! At the Disco. I was behind him and he was emailing the whole time.
All: That’s JD! [laughter]
The Punk Archive: So I talked to him after, because I’d obviously read his emails over his shoulder.
David: What a creep!
The Punk Archive: His comment was that you guys really showed up to the party.
Louis: It’s actually a really great statement.
Soren: I think it’s also really cool, because it’s not like we prepare to go crazy; we just go crazy. We did since our first show. It’s always been like that, it’s so nice to see that people are really digging that.
Louis: He said New Politics really showed up to the party? I think I would take that as in the last year and half, two years; we really progressed, like really progressed as a band. We learned a lot being on the road and writing this record, we really learned a lot the hard way. You know, hitting rock bottom and stuff, and I think that we’re so grateful for everything; I know we’re so grateful for everything that’s been thrown our way. That fact that we’re here [at Sony]. It’s been an amazing year for us. The last year has been unbelievable. We’re just so excited to keep going.
Dave: And now we’re starting here [Sony]. It’s like a whole new world now.
On Touring...
Soren: When we came out with the album [self-titled New Politics] we were so blown away. We really didn't expect anything. We were just “get on the road!” you know, and the response has just been so massive.
The Punk Archive: You toured for ages…
David: We were booked from January 22nd 2013 to … all through to December 22.
Louis: We were home for like a month total, I think. But that's with free days on the road, travel days. We were gone. And we've already started again now, on the 7th of January, and now we're here.
The Punk Archive: Are you ever going to stop?
Louis: We love it!
Soren: Hopefully not!
The Punk Archive: It's been very hard for you guys, moving to New York, and you mentioned rock bottom… how do you come back from that? How do you think ‘I’m going to keep going’?
Soren: I think the thing that actually made us establish the band was that we just wanted it so badly. And there's nothing else, looking back, that I can say that I wanted. I was always trying to get by by doing all these weird things. I mean, Dave, you've always been in an artistic world, just in another way.
When we came over [to New York] everything was so hyped, and it didn't work out. And then we slowly… or fastly… spent all our money, and were just like “Oh, shit. This could actually go down. This ship could actually sink right now.” But when there's something you really want, you're not going to give up. No matter how much you think that things won't work out, you just keep on going. You do things because you want things. So we just kept on going.
I'm not religious in any way, but I really feel like some miracle happened. I mean, you get to a certain point and you have nothing to lose any more. Then you just do things a little differently.
Then there's the culture too, you know, it's crazy how different America and Europe are. They're so far but similar too. There're just subtle differences that, when you look back at it now, it gave us a story. But you don’t see that when you’re in the moment, but suddenly there are stories to tell. I think that’s such an important thing. Every song on the new album belongs to a certain period of our crazy adventure, suddenly being in a new country.
The Punk Archive: I notice that there are still throwbacks to being at home; it’s not all America-centric?
Soren: We’re definitely always going to have the European thing. The song Goodbye Copenhagen is actually about us, saying how we love you so much, but we had to go, but you’re always there. It’s always our home.
The Punk Archive: Why New York, instead of London?
Soren: I think that’s always been our thing. I mean, 320 million people in the US, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. It’s always been our thing. We have so much fire.
David: I think also, coming from Denmark, you’re automatically closer to England in a way, because it’s an hour flight. In Europe, England is like… I don’t know how to explain it. They’re very inspirational, especially to the northern Scandinavian countries. It’s like the place that you go, there’s always weekend trips and stuff like that, so when we had the opportunity to sign with an American label… Like Soren was saying, that was out of our reality. I think we kind of wanted to go with the 'bigger the better' attitude.
Soren: We are Europeans, so America is just this weird thing.
David: It’s just different. It’s more different and exotic.
Soren: I mean, you’re in London, how exotic is that, from Australia? That’s literally the other side of the world. It probably doesn’t get more the other side than here.
David: I heard that if you actually dig a hole…
The Punk Archive: You actually just pop up at my parent’s house.
David: Just make sure you get the measurements right, because you don’t want to get in the water and then a big white shark’s like [hums Jaws theme].
On Struggling to not Repeat the First Album...
The Punk Archive: Did you struggle to get away from repeating the first album?
All: Yes!
Soren: The first six months of us writing was torture. We kept writing, and the songs were fine, but something was missing. It’s not necessarily that you as a band have to reinvent yourself, but you really have to find yourself.
It’s [the first album] reflecting a certain energy that happens when someone's like “let’s do this! Let’s make a band! Let’s do all this!”. Then we wrote the song Yeah Yeah Yeah that became our first single, and that song basically made the sound of the first album the way it was. People said, “That’s the sound, that’s the sound” and then recorded the songs in that sound. And then you play it over and over again, and you build these walls around who you are as a band, and what you sound like, and it just happens.
We all knew that there was so much more in us. We did everything from dance to punk to hip-hop. We just wrote songs. Actually going back and rekindling some of that energy was, for me, super hard. I know David, it maybe came a little easier for him, but for me, that was really difficult. But then, in the end, that struggle is also a very big part. Afterwards, when you look back at it, we had to go through that period, because that was the relevance of who we were when we were still in Denmark, it was super important. That was just very relevant there, and now we’re in a different place.
Any artist should write songs about what is relevant at the moment, because people can relate to that, and then it doesn’t matter what genre you’re doing, or anything, but when you as an artist mean what you’re doing, it’ll translate to other people. So if you are in a different place, and you try to write like it used to be, it usually won’t translate. And I really think we went through that. I think it’s a very common thing that most bands go through.
On Obvious Influences....
The Punk Archive: There’s a review of your first album that says your influences are too obvious.
David: That’s very true.
The Punk Archive:Do you struggle with that?
David: I think now, if I would have read that now…
Louis: It makes sense.
David: I mean we always knew that. We were always like “Beastie Boys, yeah, Rage Against the Machine…” On our first album the element is really visible. It’s the real 90’s element that’s really in your face.
Soren: It’s also kind of what brought us together.
David: Yeah, of course. But I mean if I read that now, I would have seen it more like, we’ve all developed so much as artists and writers. Those are cool bands but to sound, quote unquote, exactly like them, we didn’t. We’re way more pop; we always had that pop side.You’ll always have influence. We didn't give a shit, of course not. But now it would be more like as an artist and a writer, you have to search inside, it has to be a reflection of you and your environment. Maybe … certain sides of the lyric elements weren’t really there, we were just having a good time, we were wild, and we had so much to say, and we were angry at the world and what not. It’s not bad, it’s just part of the process of development. You have to go through all those things. My opinion on it now and then would be different.
Soren: And it’s not that we’re not proud of that album.
On Changing Their Sound...
Soren: It’s funny, when we started the band; we were super synthy, actually. Somehow, that song, Yeah Yeah Yeah, kind of made us into a rock brand. Pop, punk, synth, that’s what we always were. That’s what we come from. Punk for sure.
Now with the second album, I honestly feel like it’s us not being afraid of using all these elements. When we started we weren’t afraid of it, so why should we be afraid of it now? We mashed everything together, and then it became the punk pop band that we are today. Again, this is that travel; there’s no way you can program it, what direction things are going. It’s really cool, because all you can do is put yourself into it. Give yourself 100% to whatever you’re doing.
David: We were shitting our pants when we were going to release A Bad Girl in Harlem. We had no idea whether we did the right thing.
One thing that was also good, was that we hit rock bottom so well, that our management came in and in those last three months, they really helped us out. They were actually probably the ones that were most responsible, more than anyone, with our label, to actually finish that album. We were so lost. With the first album it’s the same. We’ve had a year of amazing success in the States, it’s like it makes so much sense to us. We can puzzle it together and look at it from afar and see this picture that it’s becoming, and it all makes sense. These songs, we can relate to them even more, you know, performing them, taking them on. The answer’s also come as you go. It’s not that important, it’s more the journey, and when you get the chance to actually look at it, you can put a smile on your face, or it can bring you back, and it’s like, this makes sense. It makes sense that that first album is the way it is.
On Growing With Their Surroundings...
Soren: I hope that the third album is going to be about something else. I think as a listener you don’t always think about the travels of a band, but when you’re in the band, and you look back at what travels you had it’s just really awesome. It’s such a challenge, you have to put words to it, and you have to paint these pictures that people can see and listen to, and it’s a really, really, beautiful thing.
David: With A Bad Girl in Harlem, I think we really captured something in our sound that really bridges the gap between our first album and where we are and what we’ve gone through, and our change of moving and being signed to a major label, and being on tour with all these amazing bands, and learning and seeing, and really just learning…. Learning to listen to yourself and your environment and others.
I think that’s the ultimate test, if your album can change with the times. If you can change with your times, can you grow? I mean, the first album, it is what it is, and it’ll always be timeless in it’s own way, but what was the process from doing the first album to the second album? And were we able to overcome, and go through that process of changing and pushing ourselves over the edge? It’s a scary, vulnerable thing to do; you put yourself, quote unquote, on the line. That’s really what it is, what goes up comes down, everything goes full circle, you recreate and invent yourself. How will you do that, still being you? I think that’s really the ultimate test.
A Bad Girl In Harlem was released via Sony on 17 March.
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