Tom, Axel, Melker and Gustav are all now 22 years old and are the embodiment of DIY. They write, record, and produce themselves. They make films, design clothes, and even book their own shows. They explore. Their fans becomes their friends. It feels like indie pop has moved onto indie dance and the feeling is that a new community is coming now slowly together with bands like Tame Impala, Foxygen, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, and Jungle, to which Ruby Empress is often compared. But there’s also a quite distinctive unique DNA to Ruby Empress. You will clearly hear Ruby Empress’ love of retro grooves from the Californian west coast in the 70s and their fascination with a lot of electronic sounds from the past: ELO, Supertramp, Earth Wind & Fire, Doobie Brothers and Steely Dan comes to mind. Ruby calls it escapism deluxe.
Hey Tom, we’re happy to be speaking with you today. Will you tell us a little about the journey you all had to take in order to establish Ruby Empress?
Hello, pleasure is all mine. It’s actually great that you chased me out of the studio. It’s right by the harbor of the city of Gothenburg in Sweden. The harbor is almost like our extended, outdoor studio compound. Industrial, beautiful in its decay, like a film set. In every wreck there’s a new story, odd characters lurking around, kids skating, smoking and finding asylum. We’re finishing up our forthcoming EP now. I’ll be eating lunch by the sea while we talk: hard bread, salmon and a beer named “What’s better than roses on your piano” from Beerbliotek. Fuck me!
Oh journey… yes of course, but it’s been more of a mental journey, floating back into the magic age of twelve to fifteen when you were so receptive and vulnerable. For me it was an age when there was almost no difference between yourself and pop culture, you just lived it and didn’t question it, you just naturally knew what you liked and didn’t like and what you needed to consume. Bubble gum, music, games, shoes, gadgets. You automatically knew things, didn’t have to ask, you didn’t know you were supposed to ask. And there was no point to it, no business idea behind that you were aware of, no back story, just pleasure and wow. OK, you couldn’t afford all the soccer cards you wanted back then, but once you got all you wanted you felt emptiness anyway, so in the end the shortage was the trick. There was always a shortage. A longing. So it’s a journey back to those shimmering days.
We believe your first single “Deluca” is the start of a bright career for you. What is the importance of this song for you all?
Thanks (blowing a kiss your way now)! Actually we’ve never seen “Deluca” as anything better or more important than the rest of what we do. We love “Deluca” because of the way it came out and shows what Ruby Empress is about: finding beauty, breaking up formats, excelling on our instruments, telling stories with multiple meanings, and combining summer chill with the blue notes – I guess… Most people have only heard “Deluca”, and no other Ruby Empress songs, so this is a bit weird…
Your sound has been compared to the likes of Tame Impala and BØRNS, two of the most dynamic and vibrant artists of 2016. How would you all describe your style? Will you be continuing down the experimental realm of psychedelic/indie/pop?
It’s funny, for us it’s a huge difference between Tame Impala and BØRNS. Musically we’re usually compared to Foxygen, M83 and Unknown Mortal Orchestra but we think more about ELO, Supertramp, 10cc, Genesis, Pink Floyd or The Beatles. But then in the early hours when you’re rolling in the deep getting into classical music, we get lost in Robert Wyatt, Frank Aappa, Zeppelin, early electronic music, Piero Ulimiani, Wu-Tang Clan, Isaac Hayes… well you get it, then you just understand that it’s the approach that matters, and that’s what you can hear on a record. The finished track is a result of the approach and where you come from. If you have certain roots it sounds one way, if you have other roots it will sound different.
But regardless, we try not to bother because then this development will be dead before it started. Then it will be “indiepop” where everyone in the end just wants to make the same song, or should we say the same “product”, or the same “scared little product” desperate for radio attention, major label kind of videos or whatever. Let’s try to keep the page blank for a while and just see where it takes us, #psychedelicdance, #boogiepsyche #filmmusic we don’t know.
You’ve stated in the past that you’re trying to keep up momentum with the release of films, mixtapes, and youtube content. Tell us a little about the use of the short films on your Instagram.
It’s not for the sake of keeping up momentum. It’s a necessity. We just want to explore and share. It’s like, you don’t consume only music so why produce only music? We’re not just ears, we’re eyes too. Art, or things that inspire, comes in all forms, for example pictures, paintings, fabrics, buildings, bodies, historic persons and science. So the only issue here is that we’ve had too little time to make films and artwork, and we think we won’t have more time going forward, so we look for the right artists to work with, and it takes time to find. But we’re on it.
The films on Instagram are just some comments on the pop culture we live in, it’s not our grand opera…yet. The animal clips are like, you know America’s Funniest Home Videos but slightly off, and uploaded on Insta instead of Youtube. Like celebrating low key. And then we had one space left and we gave it to Eric Burdon because he had a band called The Animals and we were listening to his song “Spill The Wine” that particular day. Future clips will be about the necessity for us to play with more than notes on the piano, for example images, symbols, ideas and tools that are pop culture. We just want to play and have fun.
You’ve described your music as a parallel universe inspired by art. You believe that music is a shuttle into a beautiful otherworldly place. What do all think it is about “Deluca” that gives your listeners a seat to Ruby Wonderland?
That’s not for us to say really but we believe that everyone is made by art, and that we all can and need to access, consume and produce art not to go mad. Through the desire for conformity humanity is always on the verge to go mad or be vicious towards themselves and others. Without artistic minds we wouldn’t have the inventions that now enable 7 billion people to live on this planet at the same time, but still, most people tell each other and their kids that it’s much better to make money than art. Most kids get approvals and cheers only if there’s financial potential down the road. If artists make money they’re celebrated freaks. So we hope to be part of a movement away from that conformity. Our Wonderland is a place where poor freaks matter too and where new ways of thinking and living are OK.
We’ve noticed that the intersection of visual art and music is of importance for you. What sorts of stories do you wish to express to your audience through the combination of these mediums?
Oh, the stories can be about anything. As said before it’s more about the approach, the poems, films and the artwork should evoke a reaction, a recognition, awe or pleasure, something lasting, something enhancing your life. We like to get poems, artwork and videos from our fans too.
Are there times when you feel doubtful? Do you feel that a little bit of doubt can be rewarding in the long run?
The worst thing ever is fundamentalism, so for us there’s no humanity or sense of self when there’s no doubt at all. Having said that, you also need to believe and have confidence in what you do. That’s why we invented Ruby Empress. She’ll give us courage. She’s an empress, so she’s beyond everything, she does not act on trends, is not scared, she’s strange too and she likes us a lot. We get confidence from her. You can say she keeps us grounded and rushes us on to new fields at the same time.
What are some immediate goals that you’d like to achieve by the end of this year?
Fortunately, we’re not in the annual report business. We’d like to make music, perform, make visuals, artwork, films, travel, and most of all, meet people and our fans, collaborate with other artists, explore how we can survive, feel things and have fun. There’s nothing magical with the end of the year. We’re creating things, it’s not like a car factory.
Having said all this, we’d like to write one or two amazing songs that will live for a very long time, get a billion streams and then do the same thing at least three times again and again. The same with everything else we do. We don’t have any ambition of being overly strange or artsy just to escape popularity, just to be praised by some stupid hipsters. We would love recognition and success. But we also don’t work as escort services for fat record execs compromising ourselves or what we believe in.
Being that you all are from Sweden, who are some other relatively unknown artists from that area that you feel others should know about?
We will put up some playlists on Spotify soon, so we hope that this might be a way for us to promote some new fine Scandinavian artists. In the meantime please check out the excellent Spotify profile Nordic Playlist – with lots and lots of playlists: https://open.spotify.com/user/nordicplaylist.
To close out, what are some words of encouragement or wisdom that you’d like to pass on to our readers?
- You’re beautiful, you’re funny, you’re worth it. If you haven’t found out yet, start today and improve your friends lives.
- One day you will die, but all the others will live – think about it.
- Consume 50 %, produce 50 %.
- Practice.
Peace & love,
Tom Serner and Ruby Empress
The Launch 