Interview with Ola and Leari in Cologne - English Version

(The Ark)

03.10.2007 von Melanie Schupp

You’ve been touring for a while now and Oskar Humlebo is playing the guitar as Jepson decided to stay in Sweden. Is Oskar doing a great job?

Leari: Yes he is playing the guitar. He’s a friend of ours and he’s a good guitar player.

Have there been any problems in the beginning?

Leari: No. Of course at the first rehersal it was like Jepson wasn’t there and that was a bit strange but Oskar’s so good. Maybe it’s a good experience for us as well. And you feel something new is happening. We’re waiting for Jepson’s little kid so…

Date of birth will be in November, right?

Ola: Yes. It’s a bit empty without Jepson but we had fun so far we toured, but we call Jepson and send him some postcards so that he can follow the tour.

So when will Jepson return?

Ola: Well we don’t have anything more to do after this tour. So I guess after the New Year when we start playing again which will be in January / February.

You played at the Eurovision Song Contest. Do you feel the audience have changed after that?

Leari: We noticed that really young people as well as old people are more open minded towards The Ark.

Ola: But actually in Germany it hasn’t changed at all. It’s very much the same as it was before. Maybe some new faces but very much of the faces we recognised. So I don’t think we scared away anyone.

Leari: It was a fun thing to do, some kind of new experience. And it was a really good spot playing in front of so many people.

But what I heard that Finnish people and Swedish people don’t get along quite well. Is that true?

Ola: No. I think that we get along very well. We never had a problem to get along with Finnish people, and Finnish people always appreciated our band and we always liked going there. Maybe I can’t speak for Swedish and Finnish people in general but the relationship between us – our band – and Finnish people has always been very warm. I’ve always been fond of Finland like the architecture, loads of good music especially orchestral music, and I like Finnish people. They are great… but also strange in some ways which I really like.

How long did the recording for the album „Prayer For The Weekend“ take?

Ola: It was the shortest one we’ve ever done. We recorded it within a half year. And out of that 2 ½ month was in the studio. And during that time we also participated the Eurovision Song Contest for Sweden and we did a lot of other stuff. So it was the most intense and effective recording.

Did anything extraordinary happen while recording?

Leari: Yes we recorded some extraordinarily good songs.

(Laughter)

Ola: We had a very good working discipline this time.

Leari: One funny thing was that before we released the album in shops we sold platinum in Sweden. We’ve done that with previous albums but that was the first time we sold platinum on presales.

Ola: So the album went platinum on the first day.

Leari: Yes we had a good start. And that was good for us and for our self-confidence of the album before going on tour.

Why is it that „Uriel“ was released many years after you wrote the song?

Ola: Well I always thought that this was one of the best songs I ever wrote. I wrote it by the age of 16. I just thought the day that this song is going to be on an album has got to be in a good context… on an album where it acutally fits together with other stuff. And actually I never thought it fit on the other albums, so I saved it for another situation. And now for this album – you know we always have one or two slow songs on our albums and I liked the idea of having a really really minimalistic song. Like only guitar and piano cause the rest of the album was quite bombastic. So it was time now for that song. I had no other reason, really. I think this album was the best context so far for the song.

Did it bother you in the past when people didn’t understand the extraordinary way of The Ark? Of how you behave and how you dress?

Ola: No I think one of the reasons why we have always been so extraordinary was also that we liked the idea of being hot and we liked to provoke the general taste, because we didn’t want to be parked on the general taste or opinion. So we wanted to mock and provoke. But of course especially the first nine years before we released our first album - before we had any proper success – I think that it sometimes was a bit irritating that people didn’t get what we were about.
But that all changed when we had our breakthrough in 2000. People realised that we need this kind of extraordinary or spectacular circus and it was actually combined with good songs as well.

You grew up in a religious family. Did this have any influence on your music?

Ola: Absolutely. Church music is used in two different ways like as I do for rejoicing or it’s for “Andacht”. And I think these two things are important for me as I’m writing songs. And also I want the songs to be either filled with Andacht or it should be rejoiceful and cheerful like praising. So I think though I have a totally different kind of religion than my mother and my father, I still regard myself as a very religious person. I live after my own personal religion.
And I also use a lot of religious metaphors in my writing. And I constantly refer to religion and Christianity, like making paraphrases like “In Lust We Trust” or “Deliver Us From Free Will”. I try to make use of this heritage while making something of my own out of it.

Did you ever think about doing your own musical?

Ola: Yes.

Just writing a musical, acting in a musical or both of it?

Ola: I’ve already been in a musical before. I used to work as a musical actor. So I don’t know about that… if I would be a musical actor again then I guess it has to be something that I’ve written on my own. But well it’s pretty much like we are in a musical. It’s very much like a musical. Our life is like a mixture between a reality show and an opera.

Where would you say your largest audience is these days beside Sweden?

Ola: Finland. Italy.

Why do you think Italy?

Ola: Cause our music sounds like pizza.

(Laughter)

Ola: No. We are the closest thing to the opera in popmusic. And Italians are not very impressed by European or American popmusic. They have their own music. But they liked us and I think it’s because we had sort of theatrical dramatic. Outputs that they like.

What was the most embaressing thing that ever happened on stage?

Leari: The most embarassing? I have no clue actually.

Ola: Our stage show is more about creating embarassing situations. So I think when it is embarassing I think we have achieved something. Embarassing situations are very intersting. If you’re sort of embraced and just find yourself standing taller than the embarassing situation it can be very interesting. It’s very hard to chose one. Every show contains at least one of those situations. I like situations where for example I’m losing the thread and don’t know what I sing. And the situation gets more and more embarassing and then when the audience thinks we’ve totally lost we can just start a song and go on. The embarassing of the situation before so enhances the professionality and the impact of when things are not going as they should. I think it’s very important for a show to be really good. It can’t be all good. It must be a bit bad also.

Leari: Yes absolutely. It’s not so important to think about the things that could go wrong. You have to be more open minded about these things. If something happens on stage you won’t die. If you play a wrong note or something like that you can always take it to another level. You can do something more dramatic or powerful out of that situation.
So that can be from the bad situation you can always take it to a better one.

That’s right… take the best out of an embarassing situation.

Then Leari fills out his Shortcut before we have to come to an end. 15 minutes went quite fast while talking to the smart guys from The Ark.
We’d like to thank Ola Salo and Leari for giving us some of their time. We’d also like to thank the team of Netinfect who made the interview happen.