New Ask Carol Interview!!!

How did the band come to be?
​This project started when we, Ask and Carol, the two members of Ask Carol, became friends right after high school. We were studying music in southern Norway. We were always talking about starting a band, but it would take about 7 years before we finally went through with the idea. The summer of 2015  we stayed at a cabin in the Norwegian mountains, with no electricity and no water, far away from people and civilization, only a few sheep outside the windows. That's where our first songs were made, and  where the seed to what would become Ask Carol started. One more year went by before we started for  real, and Ask Carol was officially born, in 2016. Our first concert ever was at a small blues club in Seoul,  South Korea, called Strange Fruit. At that point, Carol was already a somewhat known guitarist-for-hire in the Oslo music scene, and had never ever sung in front of people before, or at all for that matter. That's why we wanted to try out our music and hold our first concerts far away from our hometown.  

After thinking hard and long about the band name, with many pretty good suggestions, we ended up  with the simple band name Ask Carol, the first names of our two members, Ask and Carol, put together.  Ask is a real Norwegian name, coming from Norse Mythology, the Viking religion; Ask was the first human being, created by the God Odin, out of a piece of Ash-wood.

Do you have any releases coming up this year? 
Yes, we are currently working on our debut album, which will be released in the coming Fall. Before the album we’ll  have a couple of singles coming up. We’re in the studio as we speak, and can’t wait to show you guys the new  stuff :D 

What is something you want listeners to take away from your music? 
That is up to the listener. We create music, and if it makes someone feel anything, at all, that’s great. 

With everything that is going on in our world what is one cause or organization that you are passionate  about?  
There’s so much happening in the world at the moment, there is no one thing that is more important than the other.  Many things are important. The most important thing is to be a little bit engaged, and not totally ignorant or  apathetic. There are important issues like climate change, women’s rights, and there are issues which are more directly affecting us like the handling of the Covid crisis in the cultural sector. It is important to educate yourself,  and we try to keep up with what’s going on. 

What is your writing process like? 
We usually start out with the ideas separately, and then later on in the process we get together to finish up the songs. We often  do the songwriting and production process in parallel, but it  all varies very much. At the moment we are in two separate locations, so  we use the internet and the cloud to send ideas back and forth. The most  important thing is to get the initial ideas down as fast as possible, cause  those often tend to slip away if you don’t get them our of your head and  down on paper/computer/phone/recorder.  

To follow up with the last question, what inspires your sound? 
We are both inspired by so many different things. A few of our biggest common inspirations are Jimi  Hendrix and Pink Floyd, which I think you can really hear in our music. In addition to that, Ask is very  influenced by The Clash, and Carol draws inspiration from amongst others, Nirvana.  

A place that has inspired us a lot in the past has been Carol’s cabin, high in the Norwegian  mountains. There is no electricity and no water, so it’s a very old school way of life. And no  internet. That means less distraction, and room for inspiration. The inspiration might always be  there, but with all the constant impressions and distractions from the internet there is just no  room for it. That is where we wrote our first songs as Ask Carol, in that cabin. 

Any tours coming up soon? 
At the moment there are no tours planned, as the government does not allow any traveling at all. We can’t play any  concerts here either, but that might change the coming months. Hopefully. But, when the situation in the world  becomes a little better, we will definitely tour a lot! There are so many cool places we wanna go to and play.  

Anything you would like to tell our readers? 
Stay tuned for our upcoming debut album and new singles after the summer!
Meanwhile you can check out the new music video for our latest single, «Darkest Hour»: https://youtu.be/ 1O1uWrwT2_o 
Oh, and btw, if you want you can sign up for our newsletter here, and you’ll get a free download of our song «Come  Closer»: https://askcarolmusic.ck.page/comecloser