WORDS: HAZEL SHEFFIELD
PHOTOS: MICHAEL OTERO
ILLUSTRATION: WILL HUTSON
casiokids_verdensstorsteland
Verdens Storste Land – Casiokids
Norway’s Casiokids are supposed to be HAPPY. They make energetic, infectious electro-pop with casio keyboards (who’d have thought it?), and sing exclusively in Norwegian. In their live shows they’re surrounded by props, paper-mâché heads and shadow puppets with big grins plastered on their gig-faces. Their blog is called ‘happyjokes’. They have funny hair. But when Platform caught up with the band as they lunched in Hoxton recently, we were pretty surprised to find them miserable as sin.
“We’re just happy through the music. It’s just like a boxer might be getting out all of his aggression during matches and his training, and then outside he might be normal – it’s the same with us, we get all of our happiness out on stage and get rid of it and then we’re grumpy!”
Casiokids were spawned from the same Bergen scene that brackets Royksopp, Annie, The Whitest Boy Alive. Despite ranging in age from 19 to 35, each member is bound by a passion for slick, sugared electro-pop with help from cousin Casio – the only instrument they could afford at the time.
Their grumbling subsides as food arrives and talk turns to their mascot monkey. “We bought them in Newcastle,” Ketic explains, “you know we made him a little fez in Glasgow at an afterparty, we actually made one out of some cardboard. And then we lost him in Texas – I think he was stolen.” Ketic’s pretty gutted about the monkey. Bassist Kjetil chips in with “it’s ok – now we’ve discovered our inner monkey!” and I change the subject, unsure if that’s a euphemism and veering away from a discussion of Scando dick.
On a related subject, I ask about the ladies. Five cheerful, handsome pop-stars – don’t they get flooded with fanmail? “Actually we did get one fanmail, once, last week, after our biggest gig – it was at a festival in Norway and 15,000 people were there…” Ketic says after racking his brain over his walnut salad.
“I think the most special thing we did was when we played this festival in Paris and we made the playground into musical instruments by connecting sounds to the toys, so while we were playing the kids could join in,” Fredrik continues, before going on to explain that their next project will be barbeque-based. “We’re going to play the hammock like a double bass!” Omar exclaims, suddenly cheerful again. We’re not sure about the inner monkeys, but as their name suggests, there’s definitely an inner child lurking in this keyboard-centric electro-troupe – just as long as you catch them on a good day.
