Interview: Christoffer of Rocca.

When Scott (the “Interview Show”) joined the Winnie fold, I felt inspired to try to interview some of my favorite artists.. . first up: Christoffer, 1/2 of the freshest band right now: Rocca.

I discovered Rocca a while back care of BigStereo. Rocca has a refreshing and unique take on electronic music and their songs are all very addictive. Delving deeper into Rocca led me to Christoffer- the man behind the Rocca sound and part time vocalist. His Lykke Li remix has become a fast favorite of mine- dig this up, amazing.

Rocca - Fire (Highly Recommended)

Rocca - Give me Anything (Highly Recommended)

Christoffer agreed to take some time out of his schedule to let me ask him a few questions and he has been nice enough to share some new music with Winnie Cooper (see above and below):

I must say that information on your group Rocca is quite limited. So who is Rocca? and how did rocca 1 and rocca 2 connect?

Rocca is me, Christoffer B, and Julia V. We sometimes argue about who is Rocca 1, haha. We met at a club in stockholm through mutual friends. A friend of mine was DJ’ing that night and played a track I had made. Julia liked it and we discovered that we both made music. We just clicked from there and the rest is history.

The vocals and the music pair up perfectly on all of your tracks.. Could you tell us about the process you undergo when making a new track?

I think we have a pretty unorthodox way of writing songs. At least until now. So far we have started with a semi-rough instrumental track I’ve made. Then Julia disappears for a couple of days and returns with some lyrics she’s recorded. Then we sit down together and arranges the instrumental track with the lyrics. Many times we completely throw away the original instrumental track and make new stuff when we add the lyrics, just keeping the melodies and harmonies. Just because you get new energy when the lyrics are added and you feel that the old instrumental track didn’t do the lyrics justice. But I guess, in the future, we will be writing more songs together from scratch.

From your sound and the imagery you convey, it seems like you are presenting a distinct image. Could you help describe what this is?

We have actually not yet really settled on what the Rocca image is. Many think that we’re just another 80’s influenced band. But this 80’s thing just happened cause I had a strong urge to make that kind of music at the time. But as you will hear from the stuff we will release in the future we will expand our musical horizon to explore new territories in the sonic world.

Growing up, what did you listen to? and what are the tracks you find yourself listening the most lately?

I started as many others with Michael Jackson. He was the king! I remember that I really enjoyed the Moonwalk movie. Then I moved on to the Techno scene in early 90’s, beginning with breakbeat like early Prodigy stuff for example and then moving to detroit techno, Jeff Mills, Joey Beltram etc. It wasn’t until early ‘00 that I started to going back to more pop oriented music, like early 80’s funk and soul, I love it!

I think one of my all time favorites in all categories is “She can’t love you” with Chemise. You can’t deny that track.

Nowadays I listen a lot to r’n'b like Cassie and Keyshia Cole, and the old man Bruce Springsteen, he’s cool. And a million other artists ;)

It’s hard to imagine what it’s really like in Sweden for people in North America. From all of the talent your country produces, I am developing a picture in my mind of Sweden- cold, crisp, bright skies, clean, full of artists and athletes finely tuning their skills, an eagle call in the distance. Can you tell us what it’s like where you are from and how it has contributed your music?

It’s very clean here and, yes, sometimes cold. But it’s not so cold that we have polar bears on the streets as some people seems to believe. I think the climate could be one reason why the swedes produces so much music. I mean, if you live in a place where it’s very hot you get very lazy and only feel like hangin’ in the shade.

A couple personal questions: What do you think Sweden’s chances are in the Euro2008? Elizabeth Shue or Lea Thomson?

We all know what happened to the swedes by now. The question is, how far will Russia go? I hope they’ll win.

Elizabeth Shue, of course. I love Karate kid, the first one. It has some great scenes. Actually, when I come to think of it, I like most of the classic 80’s movies.

Agreed, Elizabeth Shue is top shelf..

Christoffer - Lets Wait a Track (Winnie’s Crushing)

Be sure to do as I do and bookmark Rocca and Christoffer’s myspace pages to be the first to hear their latest jams as they are released.