By Weronika Pérez Borjas
The first time I saw them was a lazy summer evening in Stockholm. The only alternative for the night seemed to be drinking badly made-caipirinhas in a tiki-styled bar and trying hard to imagine that the palms that surrounded us were not so painfully plastic. I finally kicked myself into gear and changed location, entering a random club. Dark beats and high vocals quickly took me far away from the dullness. The sound was created by Adele Kosman and Marcus Borrman, who called themselves For BDK – for body, drugs and kicks – and that summer night gave me all that in one condensed pill.
One year later, For BDK have released their first album, as well as touring Sweden with Silvana Imam and Europe with JJ. Their newest single *My Tears* has just been released, giving a taste of what can be expected from their next EP. Adele Kosman tells us about their musical evolution.
Your appearing was quite a mystery to me. I feel like two beautiful alien creatures suddenly dropped from a spaceship onto the Swedish music scene. Where do you come from, where are you heading to?
We were kind of like two outcasts who randomly met at a club almost exactly three years ago. It didn’t take us long to get on the vibe and a few days later we met to record our first song. It was more of a joke that suddenly got real. Two or three months later we did our first gig at Sommar in Stockholm and recorded *The Fear of Missing out* with Armand Mirpour. We made tonnes of music and grew on Facebook and Sound Cloud.
Then the story got an unexpected twist. I was actually studying maths in London and feeling quite miserable about school and living in a dirty dorm. One day I got an email from Warner Music and thought it was just another spam email. But then I read it again with Marcus and simply freaked out. They wanted to offer us a contract for our first album!
Did you have a background in music?
Not much. By the time we met I had been singing for perhaps three years. Almost by accident I sang at a school performance and it was a lot of fun. Then I sang together with Klara from First Aid Kit who was in my class. I joined an indie pop band and a gospel choir.
What does your creative process look like?
In the beginning I would write almost all the lyrics and Marcus did the beats. But since we have known each other for a lot longer now, we‘ve begun trying out new things. I started to produce and Marcus writes, we switch the roles and work even closer. We have also started to be more playful and open for all kinds of pop inspirations. We make pop in our own way.
What have you learned after releasing your first album?
It was a great experience to tour both in Sweden and in Europe and perform for international crowds. Our concert in Paris was especially outstanding in terms of having a professional sound and a very cool audience. We have also matured and decided to take away a lot of things around our concept and crystalize it. We don’t call our music “drugbeat” anymore. It was just a fun name, but we want to simplify everything that would just steal attention from the core of our music. It feels irrelevant to label it.
Why did you choose *My Tears* as a first single promoting the upcoming EP?
It was a natural transition since it was the first song we finished after we’ve released the album. We put a lot of love into it. It also feels like a good opening for the other songs that will be out on the EP. It is like a middle point between the album and the new release.
One of your first songs, *New Ways of Digging Deeper*, sounds almost like a haiku.
I haven’t ever thought about a specific structure while writing. I start with a line and then develop the structure. *New Ways of Digging Deeper* is a kind of a clear feeling of despair when a relationship is really tearing you apart. Everything has been written about it before and the only thing I tried was to put new words into it.
So what is the ‘’new way of digging deeper’’ for you – in music, in emotional life, and in the way of looking at things?
In that song it was a very negative way of digging deeper. But otherwise perhaps just experience, forcing yourself outside of your box. That’s the most difficult thing for a musician or an artist.
