Getting To Know Highasakite

After releasing two great albums, Norwegian group Highasakite are back and have delivered one of our favorite singles of 2016, ‘Someone Who’ll Get It’. Like all great things Nordic, Highasakite deliver a slice of dark melodic pop that’s rather addictive.
With their third LP ‘Camp Echo’ due to be released this May, lead singer Ingrid Helene Håvik took some time out to talk to us about favorite movies, issues that infuriate her, and what we can expect from the upcoming album.

 

Your new single ‘Someone Who’ll Get It’ is already one of our favorite tunes of 2016. It has quite an androgynous feel to it?

I don’t think about being either a man or a woman while singing or composing. I’m not concerned whether I sound feminine enough, and I don’t try to be masculine. I think ultimately, it’s a song about loneliness.

What can you tell us about your upcoming LP in terms of guests, producer, sound, style of music? We’re excited to hear it.

We have the same producer as on [debut LP] ‘Silent Treatment’, Kåre Vestrheim. We wanted to have a more electronic sound to it and I think we managed that. We wanted it to be outgoing and a bit aggressive. We just wanted to make music we would like to listen to ourselves, and we did. We have travelled so much together the last few years and it was quite easy to agree on the sound we wanted to achieve.

There is a lot of drama in your sound. Good expressive drama that is. What movies tick your boxes?

Melancholia, The Road, American Horror Story, True Romance.

We are a magazine that explores important issues from around the world. What concerns you about the world?

Everything – racism, fugitives that are being treated like they have no right to seek a better life without fear and death, the fur industry, that we treat our nature and animals without love or respect, terrorism, ignorance.

What is something we do not know about your band or you? Surprise us.

Øystein likes to do magic. But we have never seen it. He refuses to show us.

From the video Someone Who’ll Get It

Your name came from an Elton John song, but did you know that ‘high as a kite’ in its original form is a phrase that dates back many centuries and was actually linked to the over consumption of alcohol. What addictions do you or your band members have?

I did not know that, no. We don’t have any addictions. We are trying to lay off the alcohol, and we are never under influence when we play a show. We go to the gym together on tour, but that’s hardly an addiction.

You’ve been around since 2012, what have you learnt about the music industry in that time that has surprised or shocked you?

We have learned that it is hard work, and that we need each other to face it all; to create, and to face the good and the bad.