The Obelisk Questionnaire: King of Sweden
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.
Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.
Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.
The Obelisk Questionnaire: Sampsa Nelimarkka, Janne Savela & Erkka Heinilä of King of Sweden
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
Janne: Hit things. Search new ways to hit and new things to hit. I started to do it out of curiosity about rhythm and sounds.
The whole band: We do progressive rock with a smell of 60’s and 70’s prog rock. The roots of starting to do this are in the first memories of hearing that ecstatically beautiful music from late ’60s and early ’70s. It gave birth to the desire of making as amazing music if possible. The other root is the musical sessions we had together a very long time ago.
Describe your first musical memory.
Janne: It involves kazoo, Swedish folk music and lots of trying.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
The whole band: Playing improvised music in a warehouse with an aluminum barrel of beer and a tape recorder in 2009. We might still have the tape somewhere.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
Sampsa: At moments of getting tired of all music in the world. Luckily there haven’t been many.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
Sampsa: To both honesty and growth. Honest progression includes changing. You have to be ready to change as you progress. “To every thing there is a season and a time to every purpose” – this quote is included in one of our songs too.
How do you define success?
Sampsa: Doing what you want to do and being good at it. Although I think one should avoid too strict definitions of success. Victory can be a loss and so on. Success is always a part of life itself and life is weird. If you have too strict definition of success, you might miss to see it.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
Janne: A video of reef stonefish catching other fish.
Sampsa: A documentary about a guy who collected his belly button fluff. I’m usually not sensitive to this kind of stuff but this was too much.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
Erkka: The most wonderful mathematical proof for the theorem so beautiful that it cannot fit the interview.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
Erkka: To cease function!
Sampsa: To create beauty and to express things that cannot be expressed in other ways.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
Christmas.
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