VIDEO Superorganism: 'Internet is crucial to our existence'

From left to right, Harry, Soul, and B joins the interview after the performance at Your Summer Festival held at Paradise City, Incheon, Aug. 15./ Korea Times photo by Kim Kang-min

By Jung Hae-myoung

Video by Lee Min-young, Kim Kang-min

What is more modern than a band with members from all around the world whose work together is based online? The genesis of the pop-collective octet Superorganism ― how the band was made ― is as intriguing as its experimental sound effects and glitzy music videos.

Superorganism defines itself as a “multimedia art project,” according to Harry, guitarist, singer-songwriter and composer of the band.

The multinational band consists of members from Japan, New Zealand, Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom and South Korea. They began as a casual recording project among online friends, but developed into a more serious music project.

The band has a distinct whale logo that Emily, one-eighth of Superorganism, drew while “he was working at his day job slacking off.” The whale sums up their way of working on music. They say the whale may have been swimming around in the house's collective consciousness when the band was birthed through conversation between everyone. Emily caught the whale with his pen.

This reporter had a chat with three-eighths of Superorganism ― Harry, Soul, and B ― right after their performance at Your Summer Festival at Paradise City, Incheon. There were still remnants of excitement on their faces ― as well as glitter and face paint ― as they sat down on a sofa in the backstage tent.

Q. This is your second visit to Korea this year. After performing in Seoul this winter, how is it different performing at a festival in Incheon in summer?

Soul:

We had a really good concert in Seoul at the hall. Because that was our headline show, I would think everyone came for the band, whereas in festivals, you don't know if they are here for the band or they are here for Chvrches and later ones. So you feel like you have to win over the crowd a bit more.

B:

I really liked the challenge of a festival crowd because you are trying to convince them to stay and watch the whole set. And to see people like it more and more and get a feeling for the band is really great.

Harry:

I'd say the big difference is that when we were here in February it was really, really cold, and now it is really really hot.

And saying that, the crowd were so good, during the interactive part of the concert, everyone got down on the ground when we asked them, and that never happened before. They were really attentive.

Q. Soul, you are from South Korea, so how does it feel to perform in your own country?

Amazing. I can't speak Korean very well. I can, but I know I will make a fool of myself. But I want to say that my mom came with her childhood friends today. So these things like that that make these moments special, where all the hard work you put in gets special resonance around.

Q. The members are all from different countries. When do you really feel that you are from various cultural backgrounds?

I've always thought that differences and culture experiences are really just a positive for a band like us. On the one hand you have influence of different things that can be brought to the table. Like based from New Zealand, I've come across bunch of cool stuff that I've never heard of, being a British guy. But at the same time we have grown up with this weirdly unifying influence of the internet where we've got all the same cultural reference points in a lot of ways, because a lot of stuff that starts to bring people together online has unifying influence. The humor of the internet starts to seep through in a way that you can meet someone in Mexico and they weirdly got a similar sense of humor to you because they've got access to all the same cultural touch points. I think it's is kind of like that with this band.

We've got like a Japanese person, a couple of Australians, New Zealand, British and South Korean… yet we've grown with kind of similar musical influences we've all had access to. We've all got access to the Beatles at some point, Kanye West at some point. And all of these things start to bring you together in a way that it levels your field at some point.

Regardless of whether everyone's from a different country, that border between cultural influences is getting smaller, because of the internet. So there's less disparity between cultures. It's not that different having lots of people because everyone is unified by the internet.

I think maybe even more so age would maybe make as much of a difference in our group. Orono knows much more things that I don't know about because I'm older than her, but more so than culture I would say. She teaches a lot about internet culture and she watches YouTube a lot and I don't, so she tells me about that and different sources.

I think it comes down to the same thing though. It's the same thing like difference in terms of like age or country, these things are kind of getting weirdly smoothed out with time and globalization on the internet. It's a really weird time for humanity because these things used to be amplified ― like where you are from and how old you are ― and now it is getting totally smoothed out.

I just thought culturally that we've learnt from each other and that's food and cooking. So like Soul has made everyone else in the band bibimbap a few times. I still don't know how to make it but he can teach me how to make it. Orono made us pancakes once, so that's one of the things that we are kind of shared as a group.

Q. So would you say Superorganism might have never existed if there was no internet?

No.

No it's crucial to our existence.

I think that's just true of everyone. If you think about the things that have shaped all of us culturally, it is probably all irreparably shaped by the internet and their access to things. I always think about when I was a little kid, I remember that I'd heard of the Pixies. I remember going down to a CD shop, crazy to think about that now, trying to find a Pixies CD, but I couldn't find it anywhere and eventually found it in a library. I burnt a CD and all of those different stuff. And the amount of effort that it went to in the early 2000 to find the Pixies is now just not relevant. We are traveling the world and maybe in the 1990s it would be rarer if you've gone to a certain country and named something quite indie that people wouldn't have even heard of it. Whereas now, it's kind of like almost expected. I'm just talking about the Pixies in South Korea. I don't know, maybe if it was like the early 1990s, it might not have been as common a cultural reference, but now I just assume that if you've got certain knowledge of Superorganism you would know about the Pixies. And that thing of the internet is to blame for that in lot of ways.

Q. How did you work with Korean indie band Hyukoh?

So we are on a label called Domino Records, which is an amazing independent label, and I think Laura from Domino ― we worked with her quite a lot ― and she was like “hey have you guys heard of Hyukoh?” and I said “no.”

Then we listened to this bunch of stuff and she asked us, “wait, maybe we can organize for you guys to do a remake and we can work back and forth with those guys.” I just remember listening to their EP which was “Gang Gang Shiele” and thought “Wow these guys are amazing!” Their overall sound of it and stuff. We decided on some pretty solid ideas straight away. Oh's voice was just amazing, absolutely beautiful and you can take that from the way that the original is very guitar-based.

We saw those guys a couple of days ago in London. They've got these amazing live rock feel. I wonder if we did something to have that almost 1980s big ballad feel, if that would work. And yeah, we started working on it and eventually it came together in a way, a perfect melding of styles.

I remember Harry got in touch with the band and said to me if I've ever heard of the band.

I said “there is this band that we can make remix for in Korea,” and for some reason you straight away picked the name.

Yes, I had heard about them before, and liked their stuff. As a lyricist, I think he is really high up and respected. So yeah, I was happy to meet him and work with him.

Q. Are there any Korean artists that you would like to work with?

Shin Joong-hyun. He's like the legend from way back. There is this sample that we worked with one of his songs, but we need to get in touch with him so he can clear the sample. And so that we don't get in trouble.

Yeah, shout out to Shin Joong-hyun.

Q. How do you practice live shows like Tiny Desk concert from NPR Live?

We had a really had a funny time practicing Tiny Desk. We were on a tour in America, and we were very busy, and didn't have very much sleep for the whole tour. We were on the outskirts of D.C. and a hotel had a really creepy restaurant that kind of seemed it was abandoned. We were there at 9 p.m. and it was completely shut and dark that gave me the creeps.

We were really tired and hungry, and I remember that it was the main practice for the Tiny Desk, and we had all these strange props to make the sound effects. The child's cash register, reception bell... and it was very bizarre. Think of the contrast between that space and what we were doing (laugh) and yeah. That was the time we had one big practice, and it just came out so well. We all knew it would be great, but the way they captured sound effects and everything was amazing. So thank goodness for that practice.

Q. The band is famous for its unique working process.

The old model of people jamming in a room together is maybe slowly not as crucial to the creative process. Everyone's living in the city, and it is expensive to have practice rooms. In London it is expensive for people to come together and find the time to come and write together. It is a really streamlined process ― everyone has ideas, separately. And the thing is ideas don't come at will. They come to you when you are having a shower, or taking a poo, or doing ― you know, like when you are not thinking. I think the best thing about really good ideas is they come to you when you are not thinking about music at all. They come to you at any time. So you try to develop it and shine it up, polish it up.

To be fair, there is some stuff that we've been working on lately that originated in some jams that we had. We were in the same room and just start jamming and there is one song in particular that will probably be on the next record.

We were at Chicago when we had a few days off and a friend of ours had a little studio built in his house, so we felt very at home there. And we were around there and jamming a bunch. I remember that we just recorded different stuff and that has been the good basis for us to then start chopping it up and building new song ideas out of something that was from us being in a room together. It's not so much of classic thing; people in a room writing a song there on the spot. It's more like coming up with ideas and then eventually we will start to form a momentum or something.

Q. How much have changed since you debuted in 2018?

It's simultaneous. Everything's changed and also not a lot. I think that we personally, haven't changed that much. But what has changed is that we now know what our strengths are, what we like, what we love, what we are not that interested in. After first album that we'd done, toured around the world and stuff, it's been a big learning curve to understand what works for us and what doesn't. (Pointing at Soul for example) On a personal level I wouldn't be like “oh yeah this guy is a total rock star,” or like “before he was very down to Earth, but now he is way up.” I feel like we are the same people we were when the album came out. But we now have a better understanding of what we are good at.

Yes, I suppose being on tour, you are living in some kind of weird alternate reality where you're not going to work every day, and you have a lot of spare time. You are a bit tired. I think you have a chance to maybe grow with people in some ways ― like listening to more music, or watch more music and expand.

We watch lots of football. Me and Soul have been watching way more football. (laughs)

It has been more of a recent thing but yes. I'm slowly turning into a football fanatic with Gavin our tour manager.

A year and a half we have been to so many different countries, and over time people know the album more and more obviously, singing to all the album tracks and it has been incredible.

Planning for the next album, the band said “We have lots of guests featuring on our album from all the lovely people we met while touring.”

“Superorganism have expanded,” they said.