Talent: a Storm is Brewing

By Stephen Jones

Miike Snow have become one of 2009's biggest buzz bands without the need for big marketing budgets or promotion schedules. Music Week looks at a snowball that is becoming an avalanche

By Stephen Jones

CLAIMING TO HAVE "EASILY THE MOST BLAGGED RECORD AT SONY" might be an unusual boast for a major-label MD, but for Columbia's Mike Smith it is simply further evidence that with Miike Snow he has something rare and wonderful on his hands: an act that is capable of creating a buzz without mass marketing.

The Swedish trio's eponymous debut album of intelligently constructed pop has been gaining worthy word-of-mouth praise after a soft release which the label intends to build on over the next 12 months.

Smith describes signing Miike Snow as "one of those rare moments" and did not hesitate to ink a deal after being approached with the finished record by manager Ian Montone, whose fellow charges The White Stripes Smith had signed in his former role at EMI Music Publishing.

"It's one of my favourite records of the year," enthuses Smith. "In terms of new acts I have put so much of my heart and soul into them. It was the first time Ian had been in touch in a while and I instantly felt a personal connection with the record. It's very powerful and compelling music.

"It sounded like something ILR and Radio 1 would get but also sounded like someone doing something completely different to what anyone else was doing. So I jumped on a plane to Sweden."

It was only after hearing the record that Smith discovered the trio's identities: Pontus Winnberg and Christian Carlsson are better known as Swedish songwriting team Bloodshy & Avant, whose credits include producing Britney Spears' Grammy-Award-winning hit Toxic as well as writing hits for the likes of Madonna, Kelis and Jennifer Lopez. Completing the trio is US songwriter Andrew Wyatt, whose recent work includes writing Daniel Merriweather material with Mark Ronson.

To Smith's relief the trio have been accepted as a "rock'n'roll band, as well as producers, comparable with MGMT". He adds, "There were initial concerns people would just talk about their CV but I am delighted people have taken them in the right way and the critical appraisal has them as an incredibly cool band. The issue now is breaking them like any other new band."

To this end the next move in Columbia's ongoing strategy will be the release of new single Silvia in January and a UK tour in the new year which follows strong reviews of performances across the US and Europe.

Carlsson explains that with backgrounds as DJs and in punk, electro and new wave bands since the age of 16, performing live came long before their success as producers. He says, "The live side has been extremely important and is getting more and more so, because we really like it. It's going to play a huge role. We don't use any computers or pre-recorded stuff. We bring about 500 kilos of gear on stage: sequencers, drum machines, synths, a piano and live drums.

"It took a long time to build these songs live and not use anything pre-recorded. The songs have been developing on tour. Every show is different. We have open arrangements for each song and sometimes a song can be extremely long - 12 minutes or more."

There should be no question therefore, that Miike Snow - whose name is an amalgamation of the names of an engineer the trio worked with and Japanese film director Takashi Miike - is a real band with a real future and not merely a producer's vanity side-project.

"For me and Pontus, being producers fell into our lap and that is something we got to know, but being in a band is like home to us, says Carlsson.

Reflecting on the addition of Andrew Wyatt, Carlsson says that it was a long struggle before they found the right person. They met in a penthouse suite in New York's Studio 54 back in 2004.

"I was in session doing beats for a lot of different things I was working on and Andrew was the session after me, so he heard my stuff, I heard his, and we kept in contact," says Carlsson. "He came to Sweden and we tried to write music together. We didn't know what for but it was fairly instant that we realised he was thinking about and doing music the same way as us."

Carlsson, who in contrast to the classically-trained Winnberg describes himself as "a punk rocker who fell in love with club music", stresses it is completely different writing for the band compared with writing to A&R briefs for established pop stars.

He explains: "When you write for other people you have to listen to their music and fit in, whereas now we don't have any boundaries or rules. We do the music we want to do.

"We arrange the songs and structure them exactly as we want [them] to be. We don't think about radio or any format. We just make the music we have always wanted to make, which gives you so much more.

"We always wrote so many great songs which couldn't fit on other records because they stood out, so people had to choose to take the song and reinvent the artist. You know, Toxic didn't fit either. We were never good at fitting in. Now we can do our own thing, we can show our best."

The album was written and recorded in just three weeks, with the trio using Winnberg and Carlsson's new studio, built in a disused Stockholm fire station.

In keeping with the easy and natural recording process, the campaign for the album so far has largely been about word-of-mouth praise and personal discovery, something the hit-making producer duo are a little unaccustomed to.

"I really like it. I definitely prefer it this way, you have to win people over, people don't know about you and then they go to see a show and feel and hear you make music; I think it's very cool," says Carlsson, who adds that the main problem is not convincing people it is a real band, but convincing them it is not just one artist called Miike Snow.

Columbia product manager David Adcock explains that support has not just come from tastemakers such as NME or Radio 1's Zane Lowe, Nick Grimshaw and Annie Mac, but other avenues.

"The main thing has been the blogs. You look at The Hype Machine, Elbows or any blog aggregator and Miike Snow are bobbing around all the top 10s. Net-savvy people have done the championing and other artists have been Tweeting or saying in interviews themselves this is their favourite record of the year. It's music fanatics' favourite record - everyone wants to be the one who tells their friends about it," he says.

Adcock describes the band's appearance on Later... with Jools Holland as completing the first part in the jigsaw puzzle and cites comparisons with campaigns for Passion Pit and Friendly Fires. "When everyone finally got to see them live, one person's record suddenly became everyone's favourite record," he says.

"The job's been done as far as tastemakers, but tastemakers alone never sell records. Stage two is touring and establishing the band - that's what's next," he adds.

Cast list Management: Ian Montone, Monotone Inc Press: Michael Cleary, Columbia Marketing: David Adcock, Columbia TV: Samantha Sewell, Columbia National Radio: Sam Potts, Columbia Regional Radio: Gary Hobson and Grant Crain, Columbia New Media: Laura Kirkpatrick, Columbia

A service of YellowBrix, Inc.