Juni Järvi

I daresay Juni Järvi is one of the more interesting artists to emerge from the Swedish indiepop scene lately, and you really should be taking notice of him. His near-perfect popsong “If we just want to” features maracas, tambourine, ukulele, banjo, violins, and more birds chirping than you can shake a stick at. A few weeks ago he released a whopper of a single, “Looking at you is like looking at the sun“. To top that, his immaculate hair (pictured left) just might have some women faint with admiration…  But is everything really as it seems?

Indie-mp3 met Juni Järvi over a couple of virtual glasses of cognac, and talked about his new single, a forthcoming album, the virtues of stereotypes, tear-jerking movies and the pains of staring into the sun. Take a listen to “If we just want to” while you read on.

Hi Juni. Tell us a little about yourself for starters, who are you and where are you from?

Hey Magnús. I’m a popstar from Sweden, residing in Stockholm. I make remarkably wonderful pop music most of my time. When not, I record it.

You are very sure of yourself, aren’t you? But tell me, what inspired you to write music in the first place? Did you always want to be a musician?

Yeah, well. I have my ups and downs but at the end of the day I can think of no reason to doubt myself. It doesn’t mean I have a super ego. But I have a dream and I’m stupid enough to reach and grab for it. 

Anyways, I’ve always liked to sing a lot. Not on stage or in a choir or such. But I’ve been singing to myself a lot sice I was a kid. In the showers, when I’m out walking, on the busses and subway. Everywhere and anytime really. But what actually inspired me to write songs was social injustice. I started out my music career as a punk. Then I moved on to metal, drifting to the more extreme part of it just to realize it is pop I’ve been doing all along! Just in different forms, with different frames. But the melodies have always been there. I refer to much music as pop even though I guess a lot of people would label it as Hip-hop, Rock, Metal or folk music.

What punk or metal bands did you play in? Any chance of anybody having heard of them?
Yeah, sure! I’m pretty confident that at least 3 or 4 people remeber those bands.. No, it was… how should I put it.. a brief period of my musical history. Anyway the punk band was called Sladd and the doom metal band was called Amalthea.

But it wasn’t just punk and metal really.. I also managed to play some swedish folk music (on violin I might add) and classical guitar too. And since I realised that pop was the love of my life I’ve done pop music in a lot of different constellations. I used to do bit-music on the gameboy and commodore 64, power-pop in a great band called Sisu, a few DnB songs and even some euro-techno too.

You released the first single from the forthcoming album recently, “Looking at you is like looking at the sun”. Isn’t that, like, painful? Won’t you burn a hole in your retina? Or is the person you sing to such a glamorous person?

You know, it is painful! I even know of this famous Swedish guy who, this is many many years ago, lost his vision just because of starring into the sun too long. He was this amazing whisteler. Anyhow, in this case it’s a metaphor for someone being very special and brilliant.

French horn, trombones, marimba and timpani. I assume these are a few of your favorite things. Tell me something about your influences and the choice of instruments. What’s the oddest instrument you use in your songs.

Well, my debut was pretty quiet and mostly stripped down. It was grand in its simplicity. But with the new album I really wanted to make something different. I wanted to make this album big, grand and magnificent using symphonic instruments and guest musicians. I usually play most instruments myself but I realized that I had to involve other people to make my dreams come true. And it was the best decision ever! I’ve been lucky and have had the opportunity to work with very talented musicians who usually plays in big orchestras or behind big artists.

I’ve always had a weakness for girl group music from the 60’s. And I’ve also listened to a lot Swedish music from the same decade. I love the sound of the music from that era but I wasn’t really interested in copying the sound. It’s more like I want to re-create the atmosphere and feeling in that kind of music. But still, I wanted to dress the songs with symphonic instruments like strings, horns, bells and grand piano. I wanted it to be really dramatic. And I also wanted to be pretentious and use big gestures and words but still sing them like I mean it. And I do, every word is true, straight from the heart!

Odd instruments.. hmm.. I’m very fond of my ukuleles and my autoharp. I use them all the time. And I have this toy piano too. But I guess the oddest instrument on the album must be one of all those strange instruments the percussionist had in a room next to where we recorded them.

Tell me a little about your debut album, Wherever thou art, and how it relates to the new one. Are there significant changes between the way you produce them?

You know Magnús, the two albums are different in many way. First, the debut consists of 12 songs written on very different occasions and periods of time. It’s more a collection of songs I had written until that point. The only theme there is on the debut is that some songs deals with the passing of my father, hence the title.

The new album, Have I ever told you I love you, is more of a theme record with songs from the last 2-3 years. With this album I had a more clear vision of what I wanted to do. The debut was formed slowly without a certain aim together with my friend and co-producer Rasmus Siimes. We just let the music lead us forward. But I record and produce the new album myself. Rasmus is still in the picture, he listens to the songs and give me great feedback.

What’s your live show like? Can you fit all the instrumentation into a live band setup?
To be honest, I haven’t figured out how I will translate the new album to the stage yet. Though I have been performing more than half of the songs from the new album live with a live band the past years. I like to perform in front of a listening audience. I’m not a big fan of the bar/pub kind of scene. The ideal stage, for me, is an old theater or a concert hall. Where people sit down and really listen. I mean, I actually sing my heart out to the crowd and I think that they at least should be able to hear me do it.

And I like it when it’s more acoustic and less electric on stage. So a usual live setup I have is me on the ukulele and autoharp and a band playing accordion, cello, bass and a stripped down drum set (I don’t like the bass drum). I guess it’s a bit similar to the way Antony and the Jonsons  perform but you have to add a bit beach boys to it? I don’t know, it’s hard to describe.

It has already been revealed on your website that the person performing in your videos is not really you. Who is that hunk of a man?

Well, it’s actually a she. It’s a dear friend of mine who is a drag king-artist. She starred in the video to “The stars above Indian lake” from my first album too, and was also acting me on the press photos from the same album. I don’t know, I guess I like to mess with stereotypes in general and with gender stereotypes in particular. And I’ve always disliked the way bands and artists usually portraits themselves on posters, photos and covers. It was a way for me to do something different.

There are many reasons really for me choosing another person to perform/act me in different kind of media. I’ve always thought the gulf between the audience’s/listener’s perception of the artist and what the artist want to mediate with image, looks, etc to be interesting. By using another person to pretend to be me I add yet another dimension to that gulf. It’s really a visualization of that gulf.  

She had me fooled for a while! But there’s a swedish popstar, whose name temporarily escapes me, singing with you on the new album. Is that the swedish Robbie Williams?

You mean Markus Krunegård right? No, I don’t think so. No…. No. He isn’t.

“If we just want to” (from the debut album Wherever thou art) is in my top 5 list of best popsongs ever, regardless of what others think. What inspired this song and how did you write/record it?

Wow, I’m so very thrilled to hear that! The song is about two great days in my life. Things hadn’t been great for quite some time and then I had this walk with a very close friend of mine, moreover a very special person, on a beautiful spring day. And after that things started to change to the better. About a month later I celebrated my birthday. We had a picnic and went to the movies, it was a great day. So I just had to write a song about it.

Who’s releasing the new album, and when? Has Labrador’s Johan Angergard approached you yet? Wouldn’t that be a logical next step?

I’m releasing the album myself on my own label, Everlasting Records Sweden. It’s supposed to be out in stores in late august or early September. I don’t have a date set yet. I’m still working on the album. Most of it is recorded but I have to mix and what else..

Well, Labrador has had their opportunities but they couldn’t make up their mind so I decided to have full control and release it myself. Anyway, they can’t have the sole responsibility for releasing the best Swedish pop music. 

Do you really always “cry at the ending” of movies, as you state in “If we just want to”. If not, what movie really HAS made you cry?

Yes I do! I love a good happy ending. Always makes me cry. But I also cry when people die or have to give up their dreams.. You know, I cry a lot watching film. But I like it!

Makes me wonder if you’ve watched Dancer in the Dark or The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,..

Don’t get me started on Dancer in the Dark. Yes, I cried rivers!! But i don’t really like those pitch black movies. I must have hope, I want light at the end of the tunnel. I’m a bit ashamed to confess this, but I can really enjoy a romantic Hollywood movie. Not all of course. There’s a lot of bad stuff out there. But those who really manage to get past the worst kind of stereotypes, yeah, I like them. I’m a sucker for feelgood films.

Though I liked Dancer in the Dark because of the way the character Bjork played experienced music. It was so similar to how I hear music in everyday situations. The sound of the train on the rail, the different pitches from cars on the street, the sound of machines at work, etc. I don’t know if that ’s a common thing but I felt a bit like home when I saw that part of the movie.

Moving on from that, what’s your favorite swedish artist/band right now? And whom, in the whole wide world, would you most like to play with?

I just love Little Big Adventure, great pop music. Especially that Ben and Jerry’s-song he wrote, marvellous! There are a lot of great Swedish artist. I like Hello Saferide, Jenny Wilson, Lykke Li,.. There’s a lot more but I think that’ll do for now.

Hmm, tough question.. I’ve been dreaming of having Karin Dreijer, from The Knife, singing with me ever since I first heard her voice when she was singing with the band Honey is Cool. I’ve actually asked her too but I never got a reply… So I guess it won’t come true.

I assume Karin reads this blog and will get on the phone when she reads this. Thanks for your time JJ and good luck with the new album!

Juni Järvi – If we just want to
Juni Järvi – Looking at you is like looking at the sun

Myspace | Homepage | Everlasting Records

Here’s the new video for “Looking at you is like looking at the sun”: