Q: Hey, can you tell us a bit about where you come from, and what made you want to start a career in music?
A: So, the band consists of mostly Norwegians. Almost all the members are from different parts of Norway, so we sort of linked up when we started studying at LIPA (The Liverpool Institute of Performing Art). Our former bass player is from Portugal though and he’s still involved in the project but more behind the scenes right now. I think all of us really never imagined doing anything but music. Recording songs and playing them live is the greatest feeling there is.
Q: Did you have any formal training, or are you self-taught?
A: When you start realizing you want to do music there is an element of teaching yourself, but all of us have since studied music, so we’ve been chasing this dream for a while.
Q: Who were your first and strongest musical influences, and why the name ‘DC15’?
A: We sort of come from different styles of music to be honest but the lead singer and our producer draws a lot of inspiration from The 1975, The Wombats and One Direction funnily enough. DC15 is the name of the student accommodation some of us lived at while we studied at LIPA. That’s sort of where we started out, and we couldn’t come up with anything more compelling when we were brainstorming band names in our living room. So we decided to stick with it.
Q: You have just released your new single, ‘Runaway’. Is there a story behind it?
A: Well, the lead singer and producer come from small towns and have always felt a pull towards bigger places with more culture. Runaway is essentially about getting out from a small town and running away from your insecurities by moving to a big city, but everything catches up eventually. You can’t really run away from yourself when that’s where the problems are. The grass isn’t always greener on the other side is a fitting description for this song.
Q: Can we expect a new EP or even an album from you in the near future?
A: We’re going to release some more singles early in 2023 that might accumulate into an EP eventually. We’ve always wanted to do a bigger release like an EP or a mini album when we get some more traction.
Q: What do you feel are the key elements in your music that should resonate with listeners, and how would you personally describe your sound?
A: Lyrically we explore what it’s like to be young adults, studying, partying and looking for love in different potential phases and places. If we were to describe our music by a genre it would probably be synthpop or synthwave. It’s sort of nostalgic, we draw a lot of inspiration from 80’s pop with the way we use synths in our music. Bands like Living In A Box, Alphaville, Genesis and Talk Talk come to mind. Though our stuff is more analog.
Q: Do you feel that your music is giving you back just as much fulfillment as the amount of work you are putting into it, or are you expecting something more?
A: Right now we’re sort of in the starting phase with it and we’re all enjoying ourselves immensely! We just did a little festival tour in the North of Norway which was really cool. We obviously have bigger and better things on the horizon. We just generally love playing live shows as much as possible, so as long as we get to that we’re very much fulfilled.
Q: Could you describe your creative processes? How do usually start, and go about shaping ideas into a completed song?
A: It varies, but most of the songs are a collaboration between the lead singer and our producer/synth player. Elias (the producer) will usually come up with something cool musically and Simen (the singer) will topline it by making a melody and writing lyrics. Everyone is involved in the selection process of what songs are going to be played. It’s important that everyone believes in and enjoy the music when we’re performing. It’s an open forum, very democratic.
Q: What has been the most difficult thing you’ve had to endure in your life or music career so far?
A: That would have to be Covid. We were all scattered during that time and we couldn’t play live shows anymore so that was though for us. We did have a lot of time to develop our sound and write songs for the project though so it wasn’t all bad!
Q: On the contrary, what would you consider a successful, proud or significant point in your life or music career so far?
A: Two things. We had our graduation show at LIPA where we really got to experience what it’s like to play live with great production on a big stage. That was really fun! We also did a show in Norway in Hammerfest where the lead singer is from and we got a grant from the owners of the live venue for £5000. That’s a kind of valuation that really hit on our heart strings. We were extremely moved and grateful for that!
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