kOGO, interview 
    hailing from sweden these 4 guys just released their full length "combat school" on mft rec. 
    (my favourity toy). nice, rockin & melodic emorock... kind of superficial, but that's what they 
    do and believe me' kogo will catch your ear! we had a nice little talk with the band., just to    
    introduce them a little bit more here... 
 

ahhhmmm, due to the mft site and your own it's quite hard to find out something about kogo. so who you are and what do you do??? - Well you're right about the hard-to-find info on our website. But we're right about to change that. We're four kids from Sweden, from Stockholm and Gävle. And yes. This means that we only rehearse twice a month. But  we're cool stuff anyways. Tola is our singer. What a guy, he's well known for his songwriting skills back in Sweden. Justin Rubin does his guitar thing. You know all the squeeky sounds and effects in our songs? That's him. Niklas Sjönnebring was brought here on earth to beat your bones apart. And that leaves us with only one guy left, Fredrik Olsen (Me). The bassplayer.

    i know you're from sweden' but you don't cover the typical scandinavian rock sound... you're
    quite more melodic. nevertheless the artist is the one who can describe his work best... so in 
    which superficial drawer can we put kogo? 

    - Hmm, that's always a good question! When we started out 5 years ago, our intention was to
    make rockmusic with all possible melodies and harmonies but still harder than all the other 
    soft/lo-fi shit bands you cross your ways with. So please, we'd like to go in drawer number 5;) 

    what's the name about... any deeper meaning?! 

    - It's all about love. Childhood memories. The rest is for the listeners to figure out.

    you just did some shows in germany not far ago' to present your new album "comabt school" 
    which was released on my favourite toy in march. so how did you feel, any experiences or 
    comments you wanna share?

    - We got in touch with a really good boyband called Close Second. They're from Holland.
    When you're on a tour the most important thing to do is to: Brush your teeth. Get in bed early.
    Stay friends all the time.

    how were the responses you got on "combat school"???

    -You mean the track from the CD or the actuall CD? Either way I think the response was     
    good. It's a marching song with a cool cd cover. What's more to say? You can't deny that 
    you get a good response with something like that in your handbag.

    back in the north you released your first EP "b-music" on your own label' called "sappysounds"
    ... is that right???

    - Thats' right.

    why you started that? didn't you have the chance to release on another platform or are you 
    pretty much into D.I.Y?!

    - We're pretty much into Do it Yourself. Still you want the feedback from someone who's not 
    in your band. When we started SappySounds, we were pretty experienced with labels and 
    publishers. This was our own chance to do something similar to a recordrelease without all the 
    strings that's attached to releasing a record.

    did you release "combat school" on sappysounds, too... or hasonly mft taken care of it??? 

    - That is a My Favourite release.

    is there still a chance to catch your old stuff... cause i didn't hear it and suppose that it is 
    propably sold out, hmmm?!

    - That's ok. You can still get "B-music". When we did it. We did it big. 3000 copies.

    anyway, "b-music" was around 2003 and after that it got a little calm around kogo... 
    what happened during this 2 years? 

    - We hated eachother. No, but we found the time to go to someones party. We worked very
    much at that time. We promoted the EP release in Finland and at the same time rehearsing the 
    Combat School tracks.

    some bands on mft records follow a straight edge, vegetarian/vegan lifestyle... what about you 
    guys... do you also support it??? 

    - No. But we love eachother anyway. 

    quite often i have to ask northern bands about the scandinavian music scene and they always 
    say it's pretty dead and noone can believe;) i mean you have so much good bands, doesn't 
    matter if well known and not so well known here... so what would you say? seems that there
    is evreryone playing in a band and there should be no real scene... still can't believe it;)

    - The Swedish music scene is good. The Swedish music ears are crap. The audience here is 
    more into shit, that we shouldn't even talk about, and that's way all the good bands/artists 
    won't get the break they deserve.

    would you tell us "the kogo future plan" if there's an existing plan???

    - That's confidential.

    so' i don't wanna waste more of your time... here's my last question: why's alcohol so expensive
    in sweden???;))) 

    - We have alcoholproblems in Sweden. Kids in their finest "let's play cowboys and indians" age,
    getting wasted on the weekends. The government took that away by making it more hard to get
    hold of. Making it more expensive. Nice talking to you. Take care and place your b-music 
    order on the MFT site. 

    text: frankie