Old Seas / Young Mountains is a Swedish post-rock duo from Sweden, formed in 2014. Members are Linus Andersson and Adam Jacobsson, and we both play guitars and keys for the band, while I (Adam) also play the bass while writing/recording. Drums are programmed by the both of us.
Our first album, Vanishing Lights, will be out on 09/09/2016 (next friday!) and on friday (september 2nd) we will release our second single and music video called
“A Journey” from the upcoming album.Bandcamp;
https://oldseasyoungmountains.bandcamp.com/ Facebook;
https://www.facebook.com/oldseasyoungmountains/ Youtube;
https://www.youtube.com/channel/ UCyOpikfbswK4M2DL4KIU7cA Spotify;
https://open.spotify.com/artist/6vyobvZH6SfOgm0YtXBbeS
Exposed Vocals: So tell us your story. Where did you grow up? What made you decide to become an artist?
Adam: I grew up in a little town (if you could even call it that) named Mantorp located pretty much in the lower half of Sweden. Both my parents and my brother all shared a huge interest for music and bands/artists like David Bowie, Queen, Pink Floyd and ABBA (amongst many many others) were common at our house. I picked up the guitar at age 12-13 and was influenced by various metal bands. I stopped playing the guitar and switched to bass and then back and forth for many years, which taught me how to play both instruments. I think I constantly had some drive and motivation to just want to create something but I didn’t land in any” identity” in both music and playing until just 4-5 years ago maybe.
Linus: I grew up in the colder northern part of Sweden. A small town called Söderhamn that is not known for anything. But moved to the south of the country when I was 20 years for various reasons. I have always loved the music of different varieties but did not play music it until I turned 18 and I got my first acoustic guitar as a gift. It is rather late, I guess, but it really is true that you can never be too old to start practicing something.
OSYM: Old Seas / Young Mountains was formed in 2014. We played guitars in another band together before that with two more members. It was a post-hardcore band called Branches. All the four of us in that band had quite different tastes and directions so the two of us started up Old Seas / Young Mountains on the side of that for a while to take the direction we wanted to. Eventually Branches broke up as well and since then we’ve focused on nothing but OSYM.
Exposed Vocals: How did you come up with that name? What was your inspiration behind it?
Adam: Linus was the one who came up with the name back when we played in another band together, but the name wasn’t a favorite by the other members in that band so we took something else then. I think Linus can describe the name Old Seas / Young Mountains better!
Linus: The name of the band is something that I had in my head a long time but took a long time before I got a chance to use it. I got the inspiration for the name from an old H. P Lovecraft short story where he writes something like “The ocean is more ancient than the mountains.” And then I played around with the idea for a while. Maybe a little far-fetched now that I think about it.
Exposed Vocals: What do you think about online music sharing? Do you ever give your music away for free? Why?
Adam: I like the possibilities of sharing music online. I have nothing against buying someone’s music digitally (though I prefer it on vinyl), but I wouldn’t feel comfortable with asking people to pay for our music. It doesn’t cost us anything to write and record our own music, so I feel it shouldn’t cost anything for those who wish to listen to it either.
Linus: Online sharing is obviously super important today. Especially for young bands like us who do not have another channel to reach out. I have never had a plan to get rich on our music, so therefore it feels natural to give it away for free right now. Just the thought of knowing that people are listening to us feels rewarding. However, I believe in the little old-fashioned idea that hard working band should get paid for their music that they put their heart and soul into. So to summarize, I can say that I like online sharing, but not the kind that involves piracy.
Exposed Vocals: Since everyone was a start-up once, can you give any smaller or local bands or artists looking to get gigs and airplay some tips?
Adam: Sadly, we haven’t toured anything with Old Seas / Young Mountains, and I think the Swedish music scene (depending on genre) looks different than in other places, but speaking from the tiny bit of experience I have from playing in other bands many years ago, I think the best tip I can give anyone is to don’t be afraid to take on crap gigs. I had a band and we took a gig to play in front of small kids even, and we played some weird metal (I don’t know what it was), and other times we played in front of elderly people. But don’t be afraid to take on any gigs. And also, use social media to get in touch with various concert places and other bands to ask for tip or to straight up say “hey, we want to play some gigs, do you know how/when/where to go from here?”.
Linus: We have hardly any experience with this, but my advice to musicians is to dare to be bad and make mistakes. It’s probably the best way to learn something.
Exposed Vocals: Do you ever make mistakes during performances? How do you handle that?
Adam: Same here, we haven’t played live with Old Seas / Young Mountains (yet?) but from earlier experience I’d say just laugh it off and carry on. For the sake of quality, maybe some practice to not let it happen again, but I mean, it’s not like the world falls apart if you screw anything up, and most of the time the crowd won’t even notice you messed it up. But just laugh it off, we’re all humans after all!
Linus: Since we are at present only two people in the band, it has been impossible to make our music fair on a live stage. But I hope we will be able to make it possible in the future. I think we could come up with something pretty cool.
Exposed Vocals: Do you tour? Anything interesting happen on tour that you think our readers would enjoy hearing about?
OSYM: Sadly, we haven’t done any tour or even played live. We hope to make it happen one day though, whether we do it just us two with some cool show and backtracks or if we gather a full band.
Exposed Vocals: Where do you usually gather songwriting inspiration? What is your usual songwriting process?
Adam: It’s different every day, sometime you hear a song or watch a movie, or even walk outside, and you just get so many ideas, other times I almost have to force myself to come up with anything. We have a few writing sessions per month where we sit together, show some ideas or just talk about ideas until we get somewhere. Other times we write separately and send pieces or even full songs to each other and we share inputs and further improvements.
Linus: I get inspiration from everything in life. Everything from music, film, pop culture and real life events. It’s hard not to be affected by the current situation in the world with war, racism, environmental degradation and idiots in the corridors of power.
The songwriting process starts usually with one of us having a melody or guitar loop that we then put on more and more instruments and textures on. I imagine that it is like building a house. It requires a solid foundation and then build it up with layers and parts until it resembles a house. Or a song in this case.
Exposed Vocals: Do you have a band website? What online platforms do you use to share your music?
OSYM: We’re on pretty much everything. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for pictures and information, and then our music is always available on Bandcamp, Youtube, SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes for streaming and/or downloading.
Exposed Vocals: What are some really embarrassing songs that we might find on your mp3 player?
Adam: I don’t think I have any music I would be embarrassed about on my player. Sure I probably have some bands on it that I think I shouldn’t be listening to anymore (from my old metal days)… but the music that might stand out on my mp3 player from other bands probably is various soundtracks from movies but most of all old Nintendo 64 games. I like the feeling of carrying around so much nostalgia on my phone though… nothing beats the music from games like Ocarina of Time or Snowboard Kids!
Linus: Throughout my youth, I listened almost exclusively in really crappy nu-metal. So many of the bands have stayed as some kind of guilty pleasure. Every time Limp Bizkit and Korn releases new album, I always give it a few spins haha.
Exposed Vocals: If you were given half a million dollars and a year off, what would you do? How would you spend it?
Adam: I’ve never been to the US, so I’ll probably use a huge portion of the money and the time to go there and stay there for as long as possible. I’ll probably waste the money on collectibles, movie replicas and nerd stuff but also on musical equipment so I shouldn’t be handed that much money. I would probably use much of the money for good things too though.
Linus: In addition to continuing to travel much as I do so, I would probably buy far too expensive guitars and studio equipment. and probably a lot of stupid stuff like action figures and lots of geeky stuff.
Exposed Vocals: Any planned studio upgrades? What are you working with now?
OSYM: Right now we record via Apogees to our MacBooks. We’re constantly feeling for getting more stuff and right now we’re working on creating our individual pedalboards with everything we need. It surely will come handy when/if we move on to playing our music live but will also be of great use for future songs we’ll be making, instead of using various effects from programs.
Exposed Vocals: How do you find ways to promote your music? What works best for you?
OSYM: Social Media. Instagram and Twitter is the best working way for us to promote our music, Facebook too but it’s mostly just our friends there. Post-rock isn’t so popular or known here in Sweden so we try to reach outside the borders at all times.
Exposed Vocals: If you could perform anywhere and with any artists (Dead or Alive) where and who would it be with? Why?
Adam: I would love to play in the US, pretty much anywhere but NY would always be epic. Our favorite band is Thrice so playing with them would be the coolest thing ever, but I’m not sure our music would do good to open for them (Thrice is just too good!), even though we did a instrumental cover of their song “A Song for Milly Michaelson” some time ago. Touring with Caspian would be something though, and/or a show with Sigur Rós in Iceland maybe! But I would probably do anything to share a stage with Thrice.
Linus: Like Adam already said, we are the biggest Thrice fans. To tour with them would be the craziest dream for sure. It was they who made me want to start playing music from the beginning. And they also seem to be the sweetest guys.
But otherwise there are plenty of cool post-rock band that I would love to share the stage with. Caspian, Explosions in the Sky, This Will Destroy You and so on.
Exposed Vocals: So, what’s next? Any new upcoming projects that you want to talk about?
OSYM: Our project for the last maybe 7-8 months of 2016 have been to work on our first album that we’re releasing09/09/2016, so the main project after that would be to promote it and share/spread it! We also wrote songs enough for another album pretty much so we might put out an EP with songs that didn’t make it for the album but that we still think are good! On the side of that we might form a little side project to play something else for a while too.
Exposed Vocals: If you weren’t making music, what would you be doing?
Adam: Climbing walls due to boredom, I think… I would probably stop procrastinate other things too. But without making music I would probably just carry on what I’m doing on the side of it right now, but more effective maybe!
Linus: I would probably do what I already do. Work as a graphic designer full time. Whether it is design, art or music, I will probably always work with something creative as a profession.
Exposed Vocals: Do you remember buying your first album? Who was it? What was going through your head?
Adam: The first album I remember I was really looking for and hunting for was Iowa by Slipknot. Back then, I loved everything that had Slipknot in it… I was a metal kid I guess. It has changed a lot since then but I can still listen to that album and remember those days. It’s a good album still, even though I think Vol. 3 is better than Iowa today.
Linus: My first record was probably Green Day – Dookie. My older half-brother was listening to that kind of pop punk and I probably wanted to be just as cool as him. And it’s still a pretty good album, so there’s nothing to be ashamed of.
Exposed Vocals: How do you juggle the rest of your responsibilities while trying to stay ahead in your music life?
Adam: I procrastinate the boring/important stuff and play music when I want too pretty much. But luckily, since we’re not touring, we don’t have to rehearse and we can write music apart from each other and then see each other a few times per month to write together, so it isn’t that time consuming as it probably could be since it’s a hobby more than a profession for us.
Linus: Since I have a day job, this music project will always be in second place unfortunately. But it’s nice to keep it as a hobby and not as a job. It’s probably what makes music so fun for me. And it has never limited us so far.
Exposed Vocals: What should fans look forward to in 2016?
OSYM: Our first album, Vanishing Lights, out 09/09/2016, and there might be more new songs at the end of the year too to look out for!
