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Swedish electro goddess KARIN PARK is a rare phenomenon. She has distinctive killer recorded and live vocals. She has a killer look. She has killer lyrics that push the boundaries of imagination and sensation. She and brother David give killer live performances. To match her high-level professionalism, she demonstrates sincere appreciation for her fans and colleagues, and profound consideration for other artists, having been a critical voice of support in our pussy riot commemoration concerts. One could argue that it is her upbringing in Japan that may have sparked her imagination and professional ethic, but one could also argue that it is simply her natural charm and energy which she has successfully projected into her work. Either way, the music world is a better place for having Karin Park.

No stranger to the music industry, Karin is onto her fourth album with 2012’s “Highwire Poetry.” Needless to say, it’s one of those albums that stays with you. Having supported the likes of Gary Numan, SBTRKT and Azari & III, she’s also due to support Toronto’s Dragonette in Zurich in April and we’re hoping to see a lot more of her in 2013.

We meet up with Karin on the terrace of the Hoxton Square Bar & Kitchen, the London venue where she was preparing to give a live performance and where just the day before she brought down the roof with a pounding DJ set at our FREE PUSSY RIOT LONDON CONCERT. After reminiscing over the previous day’s activities, we move on to talk her love of music, creative evolution, and Japan.

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How did you get into music?  What was your first love of music?

I grew up in church – my parents are Christians – so the first music I ever heard was us singing ourselves. There were always people playing and singing in our house, but it wasn’t until I was 12 when I heard Depeche Mode that I had a musical “love” – something that I really, really loved. Of course I listened to singers like Whitney Houston, like all girl singers do really, but it wasn’t until I was 16 that I started to make my own songs and actually found my voice. I could’ve sounded like anyone else before that. I was quite technically good and was singing all the time, but it wasn’t until I found my own voice that I discovered that side.

So, did you never sing solo in church?

I sang solo as often as I could – I hated when the others were singing at the same time as me. I didn’t take singing lessons, because if you did then you had to sing in the choir. I wanted to sing solo. I had my first performance when I was 4, so the singing part came really early, and then as I got older I realized that I could actually write songs. Writing just started to mean so much more to me. I decided that I wanted to go deep and not sing anyone else’s songs – I just wanted to do my own thing.

Why did it mean so much to you?

Because I discovered that my voice can be something much more original, and instead of just singing the song I could live inside of the song in the music, which is a completely different sensation when you’re onstage. I can never get into a song in the same way as when I’m creating it myself, because it has to come from the heart.

What were you writing about?

It was just what I was thinking about or frustrated with at the time – quite childish, I guess, and it’s still quite childish in a way, because it’s about basic human feeling. I can’t decide what a song’s going to be about – it’s just what I really care about at the time. When you try to write, you just open up to something and you just have to roll with it. Sometimes I’m like, “I don’t want to write about this – it’s stupid!” but I know this song is going to be, because that’s what I really feel.

What were you creating your melodies on?

When I lived in my one bedroom flat when I was 16, I just had a guitar and I wrote songs on that. In the beginning, I didn’t really care about what my sound was, I just wrote with whatever I had at hand. I didn’t know everything from the beginning – I just did whatever I felt at the time and didn’t think too much about it, and I hate the sound of acoustic guitar but that’s what I had then. I felt really lucky that people liked my songs. So, I was like, “Hang on, let’s do stuff I want to listen to.” Then I started to care more about the sound, so I developed it slowly.

So, you were developing your tastes over time and figuring out what you wanted to create?

Yeah, I’m much more into rhythm and bass. When I heard Kelis’ album “Tasty,” I realised I could have so much fun with rhythms. I didn’t want to do the same thing, she’s soul and I kind of liked electronic music – so I did a lot of research to try to find my exact sound.

So many musicians say they block out other people’s music when they’re creating, but you were looking for inspiration?

Yeah, I’ll just steal from everyone and make it into my own thing! [laughs].

So, your career evolved in Norway?

Yeah, I’m Swedish but I moved to Norway when I was 20 and I’ve had my whole career in Norway. I lived in Bergen – you know, Kings of Convenience, Annie… all those guys are part of that scene.

I love a lot of Scandinavian electro, alternative bands. Why do you think there’s so much edgy music coming out of that part of the world?

Climate and nature – there’s not much to do there. You can’t go to the beach 6 months of the year, and you have a lot of time… In Bergen, it rains 250 days of the year, so the studio is the best place to be. Musicians there are hardworking and they build off each other to create a scene.

When you were in Bergen, did you have a sense of that creative intensity? Was it easy to build a network there?

Yeah, because there’s a lot of open honesty there. A lot of musicians come from Bergen. Everyone knows each other – they have open mics, they have studios in the same houses, they meet each other all the time, you can meet artists everywhere in cafe’s… But, I don’t live there now. I live in Sweden, together with Kjetil (Kjetil Nernes, lead singer of noise-rock band Årabrot) in an old church in the countryside where I’m originally from, and also part time in Norway – I split my time between the two. But, most of the time, I’m here in London. I’m everywhere!

So, you spend a lot of time in London for your music?

Yeah, I have my label here. We’re doing a lot of promotion and shoots lately. Also, I like the fact that there are so many different subcultures here, and so many different people who are into their individual thing and are very nerdy in their field. You don’t have that in Scandinavia because there aren’t enough people – there’d be one person in every genre. But here, it’s like people are into the weirdest stuff – they’re used to hearing alternative music and make references to all these different street things, all the different types of dubstep, drum and bass… so not only those genres, but the small genres within the genres. And I just love the melting pot of different cultures. Where I live in the church, it’s like only Swedish people there – they don’t know much about the world I live in, so I want to take all this experience to Sweden and try to educate them about it.

And your brother David plays with you now – how did that partnership come about?

We didn’t really know each other that well when we were growing up. He took care of me when we were really small of course, but when we got older, we didn’t really hang out much – we didn’t live in the same city so we didn’t see each other. When I lost my drummer from my old band, I called David because he is a light and sound engineer who can do a little bit of everything. I asked him, “Do you want to try? We might argue all the time, but let’s try for two weeks and see what happens.” It worked really well, so I said to him, “Let’s try for a couple of months.” He was used to deciding all sorts of stuff, so I made it clear to him from the beginning that I was the boss, and I think that’s what makes our balance really good because he knows that I have the final say. Our tastes gradually got closer – we both like a heavy sound and he listens to a lot of metal, as well as jazz and country and other stuff.

It’s cool that you found a point of overlap…

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So I get the impression that you are very comfortable thinking outside the box – have you always been creative like that?

Yes, I think I’ve always been open-minded. We moved to Japan when I was 7 years old – my mum and dad took the whole family and just moved to the other side of the world when no-one in my family had been outside Sweden before. They were just like, “Ok kids, we’re going!” It was a really brave thing to do. My sister was 1 year old when we went. She was so disappointed that she didn’t remember any of it that she moved back there, and my younger brother did as well – but after the Fukushima incident, he moved back home because he has children. We speak Japanese in my family…

Japan has a very distinctive culture. Would you ever want to go back there?

Yeah, definitely. Japan has a lot of soul. I have a really strong connection with Japan, and I understand the Japanese culture. Actually, when I went to China I was like “What?!” – Sweden and Japan are much more alike than China and Japan…

So you didn’t have much exposure to pop culture or role models when you were growing up, but how did that affect you?

I always felt that I had to lock down my personality. I felt that maybe I was a little too wild sometimes. Especially when I came home from Japan, I was completely different from anyone else and people looked at me as a very different thing. It wasn’t easy, so I just tried to blend in. I didn’t try to shout it out loud, but just tried to “be.” I didn’t know how exactly to do it – I just tried to be normal. I didn’t understand that clothes say something about you. I thought, “Can’t I just wear whatever I want? Why does everyone have to care?” In the end, I was wondering, “What makes me so different from everyone else? We don’t look that different. We aren’t that different… Well, we look different I guess…” And then I thought, “Oh! Just wear the same things as other people!” That was the result of not knowing any bands. When you grow up, there are so many fashion codes. You don’t realize they’re there, but they exist. And if you didn’t grow up with any codes, you don’t know them. I definitely didn’t know anything about that.

So, your childhood in Japan was really liberating…

In Japan, we lived almost in the jungle. We were 30 people in a missionary village, completely isolated from other people. We watched a little bit of TV, but not much. We had to find out our own things. I felt very free when I was there, running around in the woods – I felt like a beast. And then I felt completely locked in when I came home because I realized I couldn’t do what I’d been doing. I moved back to a small countryside school. So, it wasn’t about trying to lead fashion, it was just about making people think I wasn’t crazy. That’s all I wanted… people to love me. My family was encouraging, but everyone else was like, “What are you doing?” So, I had the music which saved me – that was the only positive thing. Then I moved to Stockholm when I was 15 to live alone, and that was just perfect because I could do want I wanted. It took me a long time before I realized that maybe it’s actually a good thing to be different…

Yeah, I guess it’s about building your own self-confidence, isn’t it? There’s still way too much pressure on girls and women to conform to fashion stereotypes. You mentioned that it takes a while for audiences even in London to get used to your short hair look onstage…

Yeah, it’s weird… but I don’t know if I’d have it any other way either, because it’s quite nice. I like that now…

You’ve evolved your music quite a lot over the years. Did it ever scare you to experiment and switch direction? Or were you pretty confident with that process?

Well, in 2007, I had a kind of musical identity crisis. I knew what I wanted and I knew that I didn’t want to do the thing I had done, but I didn’t quite know how to attack a new record. Then I was misdiagnosed with cancer. They called me and said that I had a really aggressive type of cancer in the uterus. I asked if I was going to survive and they said, “Uh, we don’t know what to say – can you just come in?” You’re not really supposed to tell people they have cancer on the phone. From that message, I felt I got a clear view suddenly, because all the stupid things in life like what perfume you’re going to wear kind of disappears and only the most important things are left. So, instead of being depressed about it, I started to think very clearly really fast. When I arrived at the doctor’s, it turned out that they thought it was going to develop into cancer but if I had an operation I’d be fine. So, I did that, and that was part an emotional period after being depressed for a while. So, getting that sort of thing actually just straightened me out completely, then I kind of knew: “Ok, now I know this is what I’m going to do – I’m going to work with these rhythms, I’m going to dance on stage, I want to move around, I want to be alive.” You don’t really think when you go to the doctor that that’s the way it’s going to go. It made me quite fearless I think: if I’m going to die, it’s not really a big problem, I’ve had a good life, I’ve done a lot of cool stuff, it’s not such a bad thing, my mum’s going to be sad but I’m going to be fine… So, if I ever get that message again, I know how I would react.

In terms of knowing what you want as an artist and in your life?

Yeah, I’m happy about that. I told the doctor I wrote a song about it, because they were shocked that someone told me on the phone, but I said, “It’s fine – but just don’t ever do it again.”

How are you feeling now about where you’re at, after that journey?

I feel I get to do cool stuff right now and I meet a lot of cool people who I admire who like the album. I go out into the world and get to eat these nice foods from all these different countries. It’s very exciting and I’m very grateful. I have been to the States but would like to go to Poland, Estonia, Romania… In Western media, you never really hear what’s really going on in East Europe…

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If you could talk to yourself when you were growing up, what advice would you give to yourself? Or to other young musicians now?

I just want to say to people, “Do stuff!” Instead of watching TV, there are so many things to do. Your imagination is the most important tool. I look at the world sometimes and how people live. It’s so easy to paint yourself into a little corner: “I must do this in my life…” so you can’t really don’t do anything. But, you can do everything – that’s what I think about every day. You can actually do it. Don’t be lazy, just do it.

Yeah, talking about not putting limitations on things, when I think about yesterday’s Pussy Riot concert, we prepared that in 3 weeks which seems crazy now…

I really admire that you did it. You actually did it!

Thanks to you guys, of course. I did it out of frustration – I just couldn’t bear watching my own country’s music community do nothing. We needed more action, we needed artists to stand up together and protect ethics.

If people go out there and do stuff, it’s because we need it. It’s important not to blame the men who live now, because they are also a victim of the patriarchal system. When I look at a lot of men now, there is hope, but I think the whole patriarchal system needs to be broken down a bit. Men go out and do stuff. But I think women aren’t encouraged to go out there and do stuff because they don’t have as many role models – but that’s what we need.

Yes, it’s important for women to have strong role models – whether it’s a singer, politician, mother, sister…

And, even if you don’t have a political agenda, you can do something. You have to do what you want to – do something!

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