We do underestimate Los Angeles’ music scene, but maybe we said that because we haven’t seen something radical yet. As we tried to know more about the culture in Los Angeles, we stumbled in one of the new bands who are bringing up the skater’s life in Los Angeles. It’s FIDLAR.

FIDLAR are four young men based in Los Angeles, the band are consisting of Zac Carper (guitar/vocals), Brandon Schwartzel (bass), Elvis Kuehn (guitar/vocals), and Max Kuehn (drums). The band used to train at the same karate dojo training (and that is why FIDLAR is the acronym for ‘Fear In Death, Love Always Reign’, which is the four pillars of their martial arts practice, but some also said FIDLAR stands for ‘Fuck It Dog, Life’s A Risk’), but on one fine evening, Zac and Elvis met they were at Rob Schnapfs’s recording studio, they were hungover and they tried to have some jam. The jam lasted for about three hours and the boys found some connection in their musicality for rock n’ roll music, so they decided to make a band. However, everything about FIDLAR was not really starting there, the band also had some hip/hop side project in 2008.

The Los Angeles-based band are embracing the punk music of skaters’ scene, having their music being influenced with Blink 182, NOFX, and the Offspring, FIDLAR got their music into a perfection for a garage-punk band. In 2012, FIDLAR have released three EPs, ‘Don’t Try’, ‘No Waves / No Ass’, and ‘Shit We Recorded In Our Bedroom’. FIDLAR are mostly breathing a youthful which you can clearly feel in their self-titled debut album. The album itself receives a good feedback from music critics, it even got named as one of the most anticipated albums in 2013 by TIME. Songs like ‘Cheap Beer’, ‘Whore’, or ‘No Waves’ gives a sunny hook and relatable lyrics. Pitchfork’s Brandon Stousy wrote “The L.A. skate-punk band FIDLAR don’t make music you’ll grow old with, and they won’t get an “A” for originality, but that’s not really the point. While there’s a definite lineage and history here, the quartet’s self-titled debut is about today– being young, broke, drunk, ecstatic, and not worrying too much about what happens next.”. Well, maybe FIDLAR are not getting an excellent score for their originality, but we really hail them for giving us some Black Lips or Blink-182 vibes in their music.

By the end of 2012, Drenge had launched two songs, ‘I Wanna Break You in Half’, ‘Dogmeat’, and ‘People in Love Make Me Feel Yuck’. Then followed by ‘Backwaters’ and ‘Face Like a Skull’ in 2013. By listening to these songs, you can religiously feel the rock n’ roll riffs and they also describe their music as a mixture of grunge and garage punk. It’s clear that Drenger are giving some high quality of raw materials in their music. You can easily do some headbang (for those who like to do it) whenever you listen to ‘Face Like a Skull’, Drenge definitely nail it both on guitar and drums. This year, many music magazines put Drenge as one of the hits of Brighton’s Great Escape Festival 2013, and along the great start, the duo also killed their debut at Glastonbury 2013 and Latitude 2013. On August 19^th 2013, Drenge will be officially releasing their debut album.

With some idealist fundamental in the band, Drenge claim themselves don’t care about the pressure of being the Sheffield-based or even being pushed for fame. “Calm down, we’ve only put up two videos! We’ve been playing music together for nearly 10 years, we starting doing shit covers of Keane to empty village halls and barn dances, and it’s always been for fun. We’d have given up years ago if we were looking for success” Drenge told Far Out Magazine a year ago when they only put up two videos online. After a year of creating music, we are safe to say that Drenge are in it to win it.

Katie in Waxahatchee definitely sounds much quieter, her debut album which was recorded in her bedroom, ‘American Weekend’, contains of her honest and emotional lyrics wrapped by a sweet acoustic guitar. The debut was released in 2012 and it was named as the top album in 2012 by Dusted Magazine, and even Mark Hoppus of Blink 182 is a fan of her song, ‘Be Good’. Her highly praised work on the debut is followed by the second album, ‘Cerulean Salt’. The second album still sounds as good as the first one, but the materials are quiet different. Both of the albums have a different state of the emotional states, “The first record comes from this place of emotional desperation. The second record comes from an observation of being at a certain place in your life, realizing that your childhood is over and realizing where your life is going to go. It’s more of an observation of a certain point in your life. It’s raw, and sad. Both records are sad. The first record is broader than the second.” said Katie on the materials of both of the albums.

Waxahatchee is just pure, you might think most of her songs are just narrating about sad stories, but there is actually more in it. It tell about the point of view in her life, it’s just not the plain sad story that has nothing in it. Musics like Waxahatchee don’t come really often lately, that is why Guardian.com also gives an A to Waxahatchee, “No wonder she is being greeted so warmly: older critics haven’t had one of these for a while, and younger ones won’t have experienced one in real time. She reeks of 1993, does Crutchfield, and she recalls the heyday of college radio and alt rock”

Hi guys! Based on my research, you guys keep saying about how hard it is to make a living in Sweden and those stuffs. Is it actually the main reason of why Holograms were formed (as in to earn money by making music)? Or you guys want to deliver a message to the world about something that happens in Sweden?

We are four guys with no real marketable skills so for us it’s hard to get a job, youth unemployment has been pretty big since the nineties around here.

Our economic situation has definatly not been the main reason for being in a band, as in we have less money now than when we started the band. We also don’t want to be a political band in any way, our lyrics are more internal than external.

Can you tell me more about the true meanings of song “ABC city”?

It’s mainly about the area where me and Anton Strandberg lives in Stockholm called Farsta. The lyrics come from my interest in architecture and the feeling of living in a failed modernist utopian worker commune. A-B-C stands for Arbete(work), Bostad (dwelling) and Centrum (Center, basically a mall). Here’s a pic .

NME rated your album 8 out of 10, and even said that Holograms are bringing an original perspective. as I quoted them labelled you guys as “New flesh, fresh blood. Not just another punk band”. Are You surprised with their review? Or You actually have expected that people will think so?

When we started we had the ambition of doing something serious for once but we never really expected this much attention. It’s pretty much unheard of as a scandinavian band with no real music business contacts to be signed on an american label and get to do the things we’ve done in such a short time. We’re really fortunate.

Also we had no expectations on what people would think at all as we’ve been a bit isolated up here. The most important thing is that we enyoy our own songs.

So in 2012, I heard that you ran out of money and even stranded in France for more than a week! How did you guys make it through?
Yeah we did a disastrous tour in may of 2012, we bough a car for a 1000 euros that ended up braking down in a town called Nantes in france. We we’re extremely lucky that we found such helpful people, like the guys in Von Pariahs, a local band. We ended staying in this guys apartment in paris for maybe one and a half weeks, we ate one kebab a day and explored the city. We lost all our money.

It seems like your journey in music and touring was such a winding road, did you guys actually thankful for those craziness thing? was it actually such a fun thing to be experienced?

In hindsight everything we did in the past year have been amazing but some of the realities of touring and poverty have a tendency to be pretty difficult in the moment if you know what I mean.

How is the music scene in Stockholm? Is it a good place to make music or to be a musician? and Please describe Sweden in your very best sentence!

One of the better things with Stockholm as a musician is that you can get subsidised rehearsal spaces. But there are a lot of negatives too. There’s really no good places to play as a new band that isn’t totally horrible as bars and public spaces are very controlled in the sense of loudness, sanitation and being able to sell alcohol. I guess it’s fine for a lot of genres but if you want to play loud and with not that many restrictions it kind of sucks.

We have one guy who has helped us for years, Thomas Savage (and of course his partner Lotta Hallin). They put up shows on this old boat, it’s kind of a speak easy. When no one wanted to book our previous bands (and holograms) they were the only ones who let us play. If you’re in stockholm check out their store http://pushmybuttons.se/ or go to one of their gigs.

Sweden: Hearts of stone, long for the summer.

As we see now, some indie bands made it to the Grammys, has it ever crossed in your mind like “Guys, maybe we can be nominated for Grammy one day!” or Grammy is the thing that you guys dont even care?

We don’t care

When I try to google you guys, the first thing that this site suggested to me was “Tupac”, what do you guys think about it? hahaha. If it was not Holograms, what the most possible name that you would like to use?

It’s pretty funny, the whole “Tupac Hologram” came like the week after we released ABC City.

I hate to come up with band names, it’s fucking hard and everything has been taken. I’m really happy with the name we have.

So there’s a sad story behind your vintage synthesizer, KORG-MS10. Do you guys also dedicate your music to him?

I have in the band that we played together in. Sometimes I think of doing one for him but certain feelings are best kept to yourself. I don’t want to feel like I exploit his memory in any way.

To Andreas, apparently u r a huge fan of Street Fighter! Why do you like it so much? Is there any game that you think is as good as Street Fighter?

I am, I have been playing SF since I was a child. I started with Street fighter 2 for the super nintendo.

When you are really hardcore into fighting games it becomes extremely satisfying, like a sport. The competitivness and the complexity can really lead to obssession. Sometimes I miss it when I’m on tour. If I ever get to Asia I’d like to visit some arcades and play.

What do you guys expect from people who listen to your music?

Just take the music to heart.

The last question, what is your short term goal and your long term goal?

We don’t plan ahead but our short term goal is to release our next album and try to pay some rent.

Well, that’s all from them! Maybe you think that The Hives would be the only great talent from Sweden, but here comes the big contender. We are totally sure that this Stockholm’s quartet will be giving another huge hit that will surprise you!