Tella Viv are a Stockholm psych-pop trio comprised of Carl Hjelm Sandqvist, Adam Odelfelt and Benjamin Lavén. In July they self-released their debut EP From Coast 2 Coast, a blend of oddball psych fuzz and sharp pop melodies, and they’re planning to celebrate this with a gig at Cantina Real on Tuesday August 25th. Totally Stockholm caught up with the band ahead of that performance to talk pop, water and their upcoming party

First of all, can you give us a little background into the history of Tella Viv? How did the band form?

Benjamin: We formed two years ago, in a rehearsal space that we had rented from another band. We’ve been playing together forever; since the ages of thirteen, fourteen, we’ve been picking up instruments. We had a rehearsal space so we just met up, jammed a bit and played some songs.

Now, on the surface, you guys identify as a pop band. It’s the genre listed on your Facebook page, and in another interview you said that when you started the band ‘Pop was what we talked about’. But you also mentioned your interest in other genres like psych and surf-rock, and when you listen to you music you can hear that. It sounds like the adventurousness and experimentalism of these other genres has been twisted into the pop song format. Is that the kind of sound you guys look for when writing songs?

Carl: Yeah, I guess we speak of pop in bigger terms, these are genres that we sound like but it is also pop.

Adam: Garage.

Carl: DIY pop, psych rock, post-punk, future funk.

Benjamin: Yeah, psychedelic music, and we have a lot of experimentation, we we work with harmony and melody and interesting moods. You always want the pop melodies, the kind of melodies you go around humming after you finish playing, so we try and get those in there as well.

So what’s Tella Viv’s writing process like? How does a typical song come together?

Adam: It’s chaos, I can tell you that! Back in the early days, we used to just mess around with everything we could. Out of that came eight songs we were pretty happy with

Carl: We just jammed all the time, and then we recorded some songs, and kept on sending these songs to each other and worked it out from there. And for new performances we always develop the songs, we always keep on developing them. To make them more interesting, and to try and avoid falling into the classic structure all the time.

All bands are influenced by what they listen to, so I was wondering if you could give a few examples of the most-played records in the Tella Viv collection?

Benjamin: Well, in our early teens we all discovered Led Zeppelin, and that’s always been a major influence for us, a base for our music.

Adam: But if we’re talking about our current EP, I would say things like Bankrupt!, by Phoenix.

That’s a great record.

Benjamin: Yeah, it’s fantastic.

Adam: And Portamento by The Drums. We were inspired by things like that

Carl: A lot of David Bowie

Adam: Tame Impala. We had a drummer who was really into Tame Impala. So I think that sound had quite an impact on the drumming. And now when we play live I can hear the Tame Impala influence. On the drumming on the record, there’s a huge Tame Impala influence.

You’ve also put out some very strong videos for ‘Brilliance’ and ‘Ithaka’. Both have really cool, and pretty fresh concepts. Could you tell us how the ideas for those came together, and who you worked with on them?

Adam: The two videos were both a very different process. The first one was really DIY, with the four of us as it was back then. We have a friend from London, Colin Greenall, and he had this idea, the whole visual concept for the video. And he pitched it to us and we took it and ran with it.

Benjamin: Yeah, we literally ran around the woods behind our rehearsal space.

Carl: It was quite funny, because we wanted this naturalistic take on the video, and then the song happened, because we didn’t have a song in mind at the time. We just took one of the songs to go with it, and it happened to be ‘Brilliance’, which is quite naturalistic; singing about the forest and all that. It was just a coincidence. The other video, that was just the theme we decided when we started shooting. Because the song has a mythological sea theme, so we wanted water and dolphins and ships.

Adam: Yeah, water was the theme of that whole period of our lives. When we had a gig we used the same themes. We’re very fascinated by water.

The three long-standing members of the band, Carl, Adam, and Benjamin, you guys have known each other a long time. I think you said for twenty years in a previous interview. Does knowing each other so well help in a band situation? I imagine it makes you guys a pretty solid unit?

Adam: Yeah, I think it’s an asset, for sure. We all know each other pretty well by now. I think everybody has two personalities. The old friend personality: Benjamin and I are cousins, Carl is our best friend from a long way back. And then we have the Tella Viv relationship, which is very on-edge, and we want to do things and make something that’s different from the standard band thing, something that no-one else is doing.

Benjamin: It’s good, because playing with people you always have to know each other, you always have to know how you play, and how you react to different things. And because we’ve played together for so long, and we’ve known each other for so long, we can predict how we’ll play, subconsciously as well as consciously. We know each other’s personalities, and that reflects in the music.

And you’ve made a deliberate decision not to play with a designated bass player, instead taking turns with it? Why is that? Do you think it gives the band more flexibility when writing, that roles can be switched up like that?

Adam: Both yes and no. Sometimes we need a designated bass player, who we know will deliver the bass, because everybody’s got so much on their minds that we’ve got to put into the song. It helps to not just have a thousand synthesisers, and guitars that sound like synthesisers, all screaming in different directions. It’s good to have a settled bass player in there sometimes.

Carl: Songwriting-wise, it’s more interesting without a designated bass player sometimes, because then someone has to figure out something to make it sound good.

Well, you mentioned Bowie earlier on, and Bowie and Brian Eno famously made the musicians switch instruments when they were making the Lodger album, which is how they made ‘Boys Keep Swinging’. So there is a creative boost in that approach.

Carl: When we stared this band we were getting used to new instruments. Adam wasn’t necessarily the synth player and I wasn’t necessarily the singer. But then we just really wanted to do this…

Adam: So we just did it!

Carl: So we had a good amateurish approach

Adam: Yeah, a charming approach.

And you’re having a party at Cantina Real to celebrate the EP’s release on Tuesday (Aug 25th). What should attendees expect from that?

Adam: The revival of garage-rock! But with synthesisers.

Carl: An amazing party, a brilliant moment to say goodbye to use, because we’re going to be low-key for a while after it.

Benjamin: Yeah, we deliberately chose a small place, so we know it’ll get cramped and sweaty, and hot and all over the place.

Adam: Yeah, we want to have a moment with the people who want to come and see us, and party with them. It’s not an exclusive thing, but for the people who come there we’re going to make it exclusive, we’re going to go around and hug everyone. We want that, because we’re so happy that we released this EP, and we’re really happy about where we are now

And I’ve read that that art and aesthetic around the band, outside of the music, is also very important to you. Do you invest a lot of time and energy into making sure things like album artwork, posters etc are exactly how you want them?

Adam: Yeah, for sure. It’s very important to us. Sometimes I think we spend more time thinking about how to look and what kind of feelings to send out more than we play music. We spend a lot of time on what message we send out, with our graphics and our pictures, and everything like that.

Which is great for a band, because you want to be the full package.

Carl: And we’re always aiming for a concept, all the time. We know exactly who were are and what we stand for.

From a lyrical point of view, what makes you want to write songs? What inspires you?

Adam: I think Carl should answer this, he writes all the lyrics.

Carl: It’s just an urge to tell stories. Before we started this band I studied literature, and I felt they were competing with each other, literary writing and music writing, so writing lyrics is just a perfect way to combine the two. And that’s where the mythological inspiration comes from.

And finally, what are Tella Viv’s plans for the rest of 2015 and beyond?

Carl: We plan to release one more EP, and maybe a single, something that really turns people on,

Adam: We’ll probably do another video. We like making videos.

Carl: Yeah, we want to keep our connection with our fans.

Benjamin: We’re also planning on a trip, isolating ourselves in a cottage, maybe going somewhere way up north in the winter and going insane in each other’s company, and seeing what good comes from that.

Carl: Yeah, isolating ourselves in order to reach out to people all over the world.

Adam: And rebirth. All the time. Dying every moment so you can live again.

Benjamin: (laughs) And this time we’re going deeper than water, way way deeper.

Adam: Here comes the darkness!

Tella Viv, Cantina Real, Aug 25 @2000

Words: Austin Maloney