Aino Jawo and Caroline Hjelt of Icona Pop took the stage Wednesday night at the Colonial Life Arena. Before the show, they sat down with The Daily Gamecock to share some of their favorite experiences as a duo. One thing is clear: these two musicians were meant to perform together.
The Daily Gamecock: When and why did you start playing together?
Aino: We met back in 2008, which is a couple of years now. We go way back now. I think I was heartbroken and Caroline was ... you were really frustrated with your music situation and a lot of other stuff. So when we met each other, we were kind of both pretty down. And when we met each other we got so much good energy from each other, so we were like, “Hey, should we try this?” And we started to write, and the day after we met, we wrote a whole song.
Caroline: Yeah, and it felt so easy … You know, writing with new people ... you put yourself out there in a pretty vulnerable situation, but when we started, it was so natural we just started writing. And we realized that our musical language and our way of expressing ourselves went very [well] together. So, it was really cool.
Aino: We were like “Hey, it was really natural." ... If you would have asked us, like, eight years ago, “Hey, so do you ever want to start a pop duo with Caroline?” I would have probably laughed because I was like, “I don’t know Caroline!” And now, since that day we’ve been hanging like an old couple all the time together. I would have never come this far without Caroline.
Caroline: No, I cannot imagine doing this all by [myself], because even though it’s so much fun, you’re so fortunate to be able to travel, meet your fans, be able to do what you love and then do that full time. But if you do it alone, it’s a lot of pressure on just that one person — alone time, traveling — and I think it’s so great that we have each other.
TDG: How did you come up with the name “Icona Pop”?
Aino: Well, actually it was Caroline’s mom. (Laughs)
Caroline: Yeah, and she’s very proud today. She was at dinner with her Italian friends and they were talking about what we were doing, and she’s like Caroline ... they have this new band, and she was like “Yeah, they’re working really harden" And they were like “Oh, so they’re gonna be the next pop icons,” but they said it in Italian, which is "icona pop."
Aino: And the thing was, we were searching for a name for ages. Like, we couldn’t find a name that we felt for, and it’s so important that you feel for a name because that’s what you’re gonna live with for a long time. So, she sent us different kind of names and [they were] a lot of good names, but “Icona Pop” felt directly like “Yeah, we’re gonna be the next pop icons!” You know? But, it’s fun when we go to Italy, people actually know and say things like “pop icons” and we’re like “cocky b******s.”
TDG: What was your music education like? (Aino and Caroline went to the same music school in Stockholm.)
Caroline: I mean, that school is, according to me, such a great music school because you learn a lot but it’s also a lot up to you too. If you’re hungry to learn, there is so much opportunity, but it’s not so strict to learn to find your way. There’s no right, no wrong when it comes to music. And in a lot of music schools ... they can be pretty pretentious and like, “Well, that’s not good enough for that classical piece" or "Blah, blah, blah" or "Pop music is dirty” or whatever, but in that music school they were just embracing all kinds of music.
Aino: Yeah, that was really cool. It’s really rare, but I really enjoyed my time in that school ... I wish I could do that school once more. You know, when I was at that age I only thought about music and not studying, which was my problem. So, I was always in the studio working because they had studios where you could go and record stuff. But that was an amazing school, definitely. (To Caroline) But I didn’t know you at that time—
Caroline: No, we were in different grades and—
Aino: I was one year older than her, so I didn’t know the younger ones.
Caroline: I think it was such an amazing time and opportunity. I’m very happy. I mean, I wish we could give other people opportunities to go to a school like that, where it’s just all about the love for the music, and even the teachers that teach math are playing in cover bands. It's just the love for the music. You have music for your main subject, that’s why you go to the school, and then you choose like maybe you go there for singing or guitar or whatever ... otherwise you might study the whole history, languages, psych for different — I don’t know what you call it here, we never went to college.
We don’t have college, that’s like a totally new thing for us! We only see it in like movies. We’re like, “Whoa! We’re in a college now!” So, we like to go to a lot of college parties. We want to go to like — what do you call it? — a frat party? Yeah, people can tape us up on the roof, and it’ll be an experience like on TV!
TDG: What do you want people to think of when they hear Icona Pop?
Aino: Of course, I want people to feel a lot of feelings because that’s what we do. We make music that can sound happy a lot of times, but we kind of disguise a lot of heartbreak stories with happy melodies, so I think that’s a really good combination. So, you won’t go to a concert and be depressed — it will kind of be empowering instead. I want people to feel girl power, happiness, and good teamwork. ... When we're onstage, we always will talk a lot to the crowd because we feel that we always have the concert together. So, we become one with the crowd, which we feel is the best moment in the whole concert.
Caroline: I think it is very important that the crowd feels empowered to like whatever they go through because I think people relate to our songs in different ways. They take the songs and the meaning of the songs and put them in their lives, and sometimes it’s sad, it’s breakup, but sometimes it’s getting out of something and getting into something better. We sing a lot about our friendship, and I think people can really feel that because for us, it’s important that people feel that everything is OK. Everyone is welcome to dance with us.
TDG: What is your most embarrassing on stage experience?
Aino: Oh, wow. There should be a lot.
Caroline: I had one not too long ago, [when] I fell between the speaker and the stage with my whole leg. So, it’s the whole leg, and there was just a lot of haste on stage, and I was walking out to the crowd ... and then I just vroof, disappeared! And I was like, “Sh*t, I’m stuck,” and I wanted to cry a little bit because it hurt like f**k, but then I was like, "OK, no one can still see me because I’m all in this haze kind of thing." I was like crawling up the stage again and like, “OK, let’s do this,” but it was pretty embarrassing.
Aino: I was in shock because you totally disappeared. I was like, “Where’s Caroline?”
Caroline: I got this huge nasty bruise, and Aino made a face out of it. She drew a face on it. (Laughs)
Aino: Yeah, we were like "This looks really horrible, so we should make it even worse."
TDG: What sets you apart from other pop groups?
Caroline: We always say we’re more rock stars than other pop groups.
Aino: And we are. It feels like a lot of pop stars ... people can’t really relate to them, but we’re kind of like normal women doing our thing, and I think maybe we feel a little more human than other pop stars. And also in the music as well, I think our music sounds ... pretty Swedish in a way, like the melodies and the shouty choirs and all that. But I think pop music is a weird mix between all music genres. Like, our crowd is so weird because it can be a baby that’s two years old to a grandpa that listens to our music, and that’s kind of a really cool ... I don’t know, a pop revolution maybe, I would say — in a pop war.
Caroline: We’re not perfect. But when it comes to what we want to give our fans, we want our stage performance to be perfect. We want to give our everything to our fans, so that when we put out a record ... we are such control freaks — everything needs to be how we want it to be, but then I think when it comes to who we are: just two normal girls doing what we love, two best friends. And I think a lot of people can relate to that story, you know?
TDG: What can fans expect from your next album?
Aino: I mean, we’ll always have our “Icona Pop” sound, but we’ve been through so much this year, so much amazing stuff, but also a little bit dramatic stuff, so we have so much to tell. And I think we were rookies last year, but I think this album is gonna be ... Wow, this album is gonna be the whole journey we did last year. And it’s of course going to be pop. But then we’re trying to kind of mix it up to make pop in new ways, basically.
Caroline: I mean, I think as artists you always try to grow. And it would be ... almost impossible to make an album that sounded exactly like the last one because when we write it’s almost like we’re writing our diary, and we go to different places, and we get influenced by, like, a tribe from blah blah blah, or that cool sound at a club somewhere in Berlin, and then everything that we’ve been through mixed together into the studio. So, I’m pretty excited!
Aino: I think we’re going to go to a lot of writing sessions in December, and then the album's coming out early next year. We’re super excited! Yeah, it’s gonna be cool. It feels really good.