Thank you very much for the opportunity to make this interview with you. I know that you are in the middle of your tour right now. If I'm not mistaking, you're in Italy right now?

Florian: Yes correct we are in Italy right Now!

Cool. So my stalker abilities are on point. So how do you feel? It's already past the middle of the tour, and do you feel a little bit homesick already? How is it going so far?

Florian: No, not homesick, I'd say. But we're having a day off, and it's sorely needed so, but we're ready to go again tomorrow.

Katrine: Noooo!

Florian: Yes, The tour is fantastic so far, yeah!

Jogeir: it's dangerous with rest day, because then you realize how tired you are, and I'm like, oh, I want to sleep more and but

Katrine: all the pains in your body starts to come back,

That was, actually, was my next question. What are you guys doing on your free time? So you're obviously making interviews. But what do you enjoy doing while on tour and having a free time?

Florian: To see the places we actually visit, and not just the venue, but to see the city.

Katrine: And sleep!

Yeah, that's good. Not too many people understand how hard is to be on tour. As you said, you're constantly feeling tired and you're on the road most of the time. What are the pros and cons for a band being on the road?

Florian: That's probably different for all of us.

Jogeir: For me, you work so hard for so long, just doing all the logistics, planning, preparing the set, doing all the paperwork, and then making sure that it's just financially a possibility to do this tour. So you plan this in months and months, and it's just the thing you are doing it for is the hour, hour and a half on stage, and being able to play in front of fans. You have to make sure while on tour, to enjoy those moments, because we've done it so much that we're doing like eight or nine shows in a row. So even the things that you love can drain away your energy, and it can become too much. So just remind yourself that I've been working so hard for this, and this is, this is why I'm doing this. So the high points are the concerts and the cons are, all the things you have to do in order to sign the concert.

Katrine: Yeah, there's a lot of admin work and stuff that goes on that, and that's 90% of the work I would say.

Florian: Doing all that work in the moving bus while it's rocking all over the place, trying to type out on the keyboard and communicate with people like you, or the venues and promoters and also the fans.

Katrine: I'm doing all the marketing from the bus while I'm in the van, just like posting on Instagram and YouTube and Facebook rolled around, yeah, I haven't gotten carsick yet. I think it's something, I think it might just be, like a state of mind getting car sick, I'm not sure, because I don't get car sick when I'm on tour, but I get sick at home.

Florian: Yeah, speaking of sick, I've been ill for most of the tour. I got this cold when I was on the doorway, I would just rest today and tomorrow and it would be fine, but we haven't had the time to rest, and it's been very physical this whole thing, so it takes forever to get well when you actually get sick. And this happens every tour. So that's my big con for every tour. But then when you get on stage, with all the adrenaline and all the fun, so you don't feel it until after, then you start collapse, and on the next day have to do it again.

Do you have any routines before tour? I mean, I interviewed a lot of musicians, and usually they say, “Well, we quit drinking before the tour”, or some even start drinking before the tour, just to be ready. But do you have any routines just to prepare yourself? Because on tour, even the food is different, every day you're on different place, and it's hard for your bodies to adapt.

Katrine: I wish we did, but…Well we do actually. The routine is to work on the technical stuff. Set list and make it flow seamlessly into each other. And then obviously do there's this thing called “Carnet” that you need to show border control of everything that you've brought with you on the tour, every list of instruments and every bag.

Florian: So yeah, we work on that logistics. But as for taking care of ourselves or preparing, like, our minds.

Katrine: I wish!

Florian: Yeah, we didn't. Don't have time, because it's all the other stuff we have to take care of.

Katrine: Oscar was like, “We need rest before the tour. It's very important that we prioritize our mental health”. And we were like like… “Yes, we all agree to that”…, and then not do it?

Actually this to understand each other It's a part of the routine, because you have to get along each other well. So you know, not kill each other during the tour.

Katrine: We are dependent on each other's well-being.

Jogeir: We know each other quite well now. So the music is the most important thing. And then when you get on the road, it’s going to take some days to get into the routine anyways. Like, you can't really prepare for how you going to sleep in a new van, can't really prepare for that new venue that you never played before.

Katrine: But while on the tour we don't really drink that much. It's a very old school way of looking at musicians that they drink a lot and just party a lot.

Florian: I guess, with the people we've toured with, the kind of bands that we are similar to, there's less of this rock and roll, drinking, drugs.

Katrine: it would be irresponsible as well. It's like you're there to do a job and I think it would be impossible to reach the top level also, if you're going to just waste it on being an idiot.

Florian: I've been hungover on stage once, and I'm never doing that again.

Katrine: just not worth it.

You will be visiting Bulgaria for the third time right now. And this will be your first headlining show, because you came WARDRUNA and then with LEPROUS (Gallery here). What should the fans expect from your headlining show? Is it going to be something more special?

Jogeir: I think it will be hard for us because it was so special with the support gigs. Both in Plovdiv, at the theater there, and in Sofia with Leprous are two of our favorite shows ever. So so it's going to be hard to just top the energy, but we're going to bring this time an especially designed lights show and a longer set that we have tailored to a full concert. So you, you're going to get the full Kalandra experience

Florian: We are doing it our way, instead of adjusting to other, people's needs. Yeah.

You for coming also with a new album, which is called “A frame of mind”, which was released just some weeks ago. How are the friends accepting it so far?

Florian: Really Well, yeah! It's really been great. I've seen no negative comments on either Instagram or YouTube or anywhere, if,

Katrine: I mean, it's not negative. It's just that, it could be better, sort of how it flows, it goes very up and down in mood, which is classic us, really, yeah, and it could be more coherent, perhaps

Florian: We are our worst critics, though. I mean, it's been going selling and streaming very well and good reviews all over so, but that being said, now that the album is released we know we could do better, and we will on the next album. But everyone's very happy, yeah,

All the songs are based on true emotions, your own emotions and experience. Can we say that in some way, the album is some sort of a redemption for you?

Author note. I totally Fucked up here: Reconciliation or Healing process was the word I was looking for

Jogeir: What do you mean by redemption?

I mean by expressing your feelings and emotions you are sort of making a confession maybe redemption was the wrong word.

Florian: Well, redemption would be the wrong word, there's nothing to redeem. We haven't done anything wrong.

Katrine: I have always expressed my emotions regardless. It's just how I choose, choose to live my life. It's the only thing that is true. But there's no redemption in that. I will just continue to do it for the next

Florian: But it is, maybe what you're trying to get at. It is very much a healing process and a good thing for us to get those emotions out there, tell the emotional truths.

Jogeir: We come at best way for us to create music that resonates with us is to be honest with ourselves and the ideas of the songs. And if we are honest in that creation process, then there's probably going to be people that resonate with us all. Like, if we've we've done a good job and being honest, like, it's probably someone out there that has felt the same or touched by the music, in a way

Katrine: I feel like when someone's being very honest about how they feel, whether it's us or someone else, it gives a space for other people to also be in their authentic selves. Because it does not leave a space for people to continue to hide. If we hid behind our own emotions, we would offer a space where other people could continue to hide, continue to be inauthentic in a way.

As you said, your music is quite deep and honest, and it's really easy for the listener to feel this emotion while listening. But how difficult is for you guys to perform this music every night. I mean, it's one to record it and to, you know, to write this song or music, but it's different to express it every night

Katrine: Sometimes it's very hard. Sometimes I'm very emotional, and especially if I'm like, around my cycle, then it's very, very tricky. But yeah, for example, the state of the world can be very emotional for me to think and borders as well. But most of the time, I do think of it a bit like a job I have to do.

Florian: I think it's very much affected by the crowds and obviously our own moods, but if the crowd is receptive, and also gives back, like we've seen in Bulgaria before, it does get harder, but in a good way. We had a few gigs on this tour where I think we all gotten a bit emotional, Because the crowd was so into it. Yeah.

Jogeir: Emotions are scary. I think it's good to be able to go into what the song is about. While on stage and feel it. Make it honest, make it real for yourself and the audience. And you can't sort of go back to the original idea, but you can find new perceptions and new meanings for yourself by one stage, just things change.

Yeah, I actually spoke last week with a band from France called KLONE, and they explained really interesting about their music. They rediscovered the music by trying to perform it in different ways, with different emotions. So, you know, playing acoustically, adding new instruments, or slowing down the songs, and it brings totally different emotions. Is it like this for you? Do you rediscover some new things about the songs that you have already done?

Jogeir: I can speak for myself, that like whenever I play there's I always try to rediscover something where, whether it's sort of like putting emphasis on something different this time, or try something different, or feel something different, or look into myself, or look out to the audience. We haven't changed the songs so much. We've done some acoustic versions that are online, but we have to try to reimagine the music.

Speaking about rediscovering your music, you actually did a soundtrack for a game. How different was that experience from making a regular in your style, I can imagine that was a little bit different experience than usually.

Florian: Very different from the first album. Not just the way we went about writing the music and itself. But going into this, this third album “Frame of mind”, we did apply a lot of the things we learned doing that soundtrack.

Katrine: With gaming music, you don't really want to steal the focus away from the game. You don't want the player to necessarily pay attention to the music. You want to make the player play the game better.

Florian: It's a supporting role.

Katrine: Yeah, it's a supporting role is to describe the atmosphere of the game. That's my purpose. And so you sort of put your hedge, into that frame of mind, if you like.

Jogeir: In a way, it was easier. I think I remember we did write most of the basic sketches for the songs quite fast, because we were sort of given, a script like recipe. They needed sort of this, in that mood, and for this, in this part.

That was actually what I wanted to ask. Did you have the full freedom about it? Or it was actually scripted. Because your music is can sometimes can go in its own direction, which maybe not be the direction of the game that they wanted. So do you guys had some sort of a script how to do it?

Florian: I got a brief just describing moods and feelings that they needed, and then we could operate, kind of as we want to do, within that framework.

Jogeir: Yeah, it was like: Тhis song is going to be played in the sunset in the winter, in the rain, so it's sort of putting yourself in morning fog, Morning rain, and then trying to paint that emotion with music. And that was it didn't take us too long to do it. So maybe we should start putting giving ourselves some briefs next albums, yes, like limit all the options, but it was a interesting process.

Do you think you can come back to this again and maybe do it again for some other project, for a movie, for example?

Florian: Yeah, sure. That would be fun Doing games or movies or other medias as something I think we'd all like to do.

Katrine: Yeah, I also think it's sort of the way the future of music might be, sort of like making it a more visual experience, rather than just a sonic experience.

Let me, take you back to where actually all started, because you are a Norwegian/Swedish band, but you were formed in UK, if I'm not mistaking. How did that all start?

Katrine: I started the band in the spring of 2011. Because I studied music and I wanted to start a band

So I asked J to join, and then we asked Florian. And after a while… I'm just like quickly summing it up, because we have to go back 13 years. And then in 2018 we asked Oscar and that’s it

What about the name? How did it came up with this name Kalandra?

Katrine: Well, at first. It was just called Katrine Stenbekk, band (ha-ha). Terrible… And then I thought of the Norwegian word “Lerke”, which is like Lark. It means Lark like a songbird. And then we thought that's going to be hard for English people to pronounce, or like even people from all over the world are going to struggle with the word “Larke”. So then we tried Skylark, which felt a bit too 90s Heavy Metal, I don't know. And someone else was also called that already.

Italian power metal band.

Katrine: Oh, Well, there you go. And then, we looked up Latin words for different songbirds. And we looked at the word Calandra with the C, depending on where in the world you are pronouncing. It's either with a K or a C. In Norwegian, it's “K” - Kalandra Lark. And then we thought, that's a nice name. It rolls nicely off the tongue when you say it. And we also think that music in general is very much inspired by in the nature and and the animal world. So why not use a songbird as name of the band?

Jogeir: I think also it was resonated with us being away from home, and like the lark travels for the seasons. It travels all the way down south and back.

Going, going on tour also.

Jogeir: Exactly! There is also an island called Kalandra, in Greece…

That’s was my next question, actually, because I'm half Greek and I have been in this small village called Kalandra, and it's really beautiful, with amazing beaches. And you should go there sometimes.

Jogeir: Oh realy we should do that definitely! There is also a word in Hungarian “Kaland” It means adventure, to go on an adventure. Which is really beautiful as well. So you can choose

A lot of people nowadays using AI, including me right now, you know, recording this interview, but a lot of people are using it in their arts. I mean, even not speaking just for the artworks, but even for writing lyrics and even for music itself. What's your opinion about the using of artificial intelligence, and do you think we should keep it away from the music in order to keep this real human emotion in it?

Jogeir: I think it's impossible to keep it away. It's too good of a tool to not use. So you have to embrace it anyway, but I hope that there are still humans using the tools for the benefits of creating great art and not replacing great artists.

Katrine: Yeah, I don't think that you can necessarily fake your way up in any industry, really, I don't think that you can fake it. You have to, at some point, have some knowledge and skill to be able to do to make a livelihood and a profession out of it. But obviously, we have also been influenced and inspired by AI in the sense that our frame of mind artwork, for example, it's painted by hand, but the way that it's looking is sort of how AI would try to make Nature become almost human like, in a way. And I think it's so fascinating how AI tries to interpret humanity and also tries to interpret nature and try to make it human in a way. And it's this like weird, bizarre symbiosis of man versus nature, which has always been something that we sing about in our songs. It's man versus nature, or becoming one with Mother Earth. So it's not something that I want to shy away from. I think it's good to embrace, but obviously it's, just a tool to help.

Florian: As long as you use it as a tool. People will and people won't. But I'm not too scared about the future, because what many people say now, at least what's most likely is it's going to end up eating its own tail, because it can't create. It can only interpret. Yeah, so if AI starts making a billion songs per year, then AI is going to start to learn from its own songs, and it will start to deteriorate from there. So it needs real, creative human input to be able to evolve. So yeah, we're always it's going to need humans still anyway that creates art.

Katrine: And I will also add the fact that we, as humans, we need other humans to connect. You can use AI for a lot of things but we all have a desire to connect with one another and I don’t think we should undermined that fact.

Jogeir: A good example is the game we made music for. I think the game industry will use, and hey already started to replace voice actors, script writers, and music creators in a lot of games. But I don’t think someone without knowledge of music, using AI will create the music better. He could probably reach something with musicians using AI as a tool. But Just a game creator wanting some sort of mood and typing “I want something Kalandra-ish”… They won’t reach what we did, because even we didn’t know what it was before we played it.

What the future holds for you. What are your plans after this tour? New song, new album… interesting tours?

Katrine: No we cannot say! (Laughs)

Jogeir: We just announced two shows in Athens and Istanbul so we are looking forward to that. And there is always new music on the way. So yes that’s it.

Can you just leave a message to our readers who will also look forward to your show?

Florian: Yes! Please come to the show in Sofia and if you cannot make it yourself, Share ur music to a friend and maybe they will like it and come. We are so much looking forward to come to Bulgaria again.

Author: Nikola Petras