The Collective’s Flower Moon Festival is a one-day festival, fully run by Chapman students, aiming to highlight bands from all genres and styles. In this interview series, death of the rabbit discusses the festival and music releases with some of Flower Moon’s lineup. Tickets are on sale now here.
DEATH OF A RABBIT: You just released two singles this past month, “Window” and “Bygone.” How has the reception been?
SEV: It’s been genuinely mind blowing. I’ve been making music for over a decade now and I’ve been releasing under various aliases on and off over the years, but this is the first time that I’ve really poured this much effort and dedication into it. It’s wild to just see the fruits of my labor come to be, but yeah the reception has just been crazy. I’m so grateful, it’s just been wonderful.
DOAR: You mentioned releasing stuff under different projects and bouncing around different aliases. How does it feel for this name to be like, this is you basically?
SEV: It’s a good point and it is something that I have thought about. I think the reason that I went with it is because obviously I’ve gone through so many names and aliases over the years. This one I’m stuck with. It is what it is, it’s my name. So I think that’s part of the reason that I chose to really go for it. But I don’t know, I think it just works. It’s pretty unique so it sticks possibly. I don’t know, there’s not much thought, to be honest.
DOAR: I didn’t know if it felt very vulnerable at any point, to have your name be it.
SEV: It does. And I think there are a lot of components of this project that feel more vulnerable than I’ve ever been with my music. It’s me, it’s my name, my face, my voice. You know, singing on my records isn’t something that I’m honestly still not super comfortable with because my background is EDM, electronic music. I’m not a very good singer. Singing on my records took a lot of time to get used to and comfortable with, and I’m still not all the way there. That’s a very vulnerable part of it for me. I think also being the face of it, like appearing in the videos. Again, I’ve always just been a producer behind the scenes, working on a project with other people, or in a band, I’m not the front man, you know? It’s a solo project and so me-centric. As an introvert, I don’t love that all the time, but I understand that I have to do it and I do enjoy it to a certain extent.
DOAR: The music videos, I really enjoyed both of them. It seems like there is a mixed media aspect in “Windows.” How often do you incorporate different art forms into your music? And how do you feel about artists doing that, in general?
SEV: For me, incorporating a bunch of visual components of things is extremely important to me. It’s as important as the music is because I think that’s what builds the brand. As an artist, you can have this great music, but if you don’t really have equally good visuals and a visual identity, then the music, to me at least, feels kind of lost. I do want to shout out the videos, album, art, everything, it’s all my creative director Charlie Jesper. He’s one of the greatest minds working right now, and it’s been such an insane blessing to be able to work with him so closely on all these projects. He’s one component of this team that I now have working around this stuff.
With the “Window” video, he was super into this mixed media editing. He was like, “Man, I saw this crazy stuff and I really want to replicate it.” And we had this footage of us from Vancouver and we didn’t really know what to do with it. But Charlie took extra video at the battle of the bands performance and we wanted to find a way to splice it. Charlie went for this crazy mixed media thing, and it was nuts.
DOAR: Shout out Charlie, for real. I love a good mixed media moment. Battle of the Bands, give us a rundown! How were you feeling and everything?
SEV: That was a crazy night for many reasons. First and foremost, the preparation leading up to it was nuts. Basically, I converted my living room into a rehearsal space for about a month. I’m a lighting designer by trade and I had my light set up as well. Spent a couple of weeks programming everything to the backing track and then myself and my dear friend Madison G, who’s all over the record, is also on stage with me. She’s an electric presence and we were rehearsing and getting super hyped.
Everything’s going to plan, and right before our set, the cops come and they say they got a noise complaint and the person who called it in said that they wanted to press charges. First of all, that is so unbelievably lame. But I was like, no way, we spent so much time preparing this, so this isn’t getting shut down. So after negotiating with the cops, they felt kind of bad that they had to tell us, but they were like if you move it inside the noise may not permeate the neighborhood enough to where it would be an issue, but if we get another call, we legally have to put somebody under arrest. So it was a gamble. I honestly cared about it so much where I was like, put my name down and arrest me. I’m a tall white man, if anybody can be arrested, it’ll be me.
So we scrambled, moved everything inside. We had to put a 45 minute delay on the show. I was worried everyone was going to leave. It was a mess. We had to move all the equipment and everything, but the crowd stayed, which I was just astonished by. The room was packed. But I will say that both Madison and I, the headspace that we were in after moving everything and the police stuff, it was just so stressful. And then we had to immediately go out and play this set. That’s not an ideal situation at all. Our mental state at that moment was interesting. And it was a bit shaky, but I think we did a good job. I mean, we took it home.
We are just super excited to have the opportunity to play the music again, and do the show again being in a better headspace at a legitimate venue. It’s so exciting for us, but battle of the bands couldn’t have been a crazier learning experience for all of us. It was just nuts.
DOAR: It was all worth it though! Speaking of the festival, what are you most excited about for the festival?
SEV: There are so many things that are exciting. I mean, we get to play a longer set, we played like twenty minutes at Battle of the Bands and we are bumping it up to thirty. It’s my first festival booking, which is pretty significant for me, at least opening for George Clanton and Locust. Those are artists that I am very fond of and look up to. And like I said, a legit venue, not just a house show, it’s just smooth sailing. No idea what the crowd’s going to be like and never been to the venue, although I’ve heard of it. Just super hype!
DOAR: How are you going to bring the visuals to life on stage?
SEV: I will be bringing the same lighting that we used for the Battle of the Band to the Observatory and setting it up on stage. And then, of course, the house lighting grig, I’m going to be in contact with them to whatever capacity I’m able to be, the house staff and tech that’s running the show. I think it will look really great, I’m super excited.
Check out Sev Karlsson’s new EP here!
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