Following on from the incredible success of their previously shared single ‘Dear Daylight’, which landed on more than 300 Spotify playlists since its release, Chicago-based outfit Koalra now return with their latest anthem-in-the-making ‘Hooked’.
With its pulsing energy and serene atmosphere, ‘Hooked’ is one of those tracks that buries itself right into your brain as soon as you hear it. Lifted from their upcoming album ‘The Wakes’, the US four-piece are set to make some serious waves on both sides of the Atlantic in the coming months.
So with their new single brightening our day throughout, we thought we’d sit down with them to find out more about their background and what they have planned for the rest of the year.
Words by Chris Bound
Discovered via http://musosoup.com
Chris) Hi guys, how are you today?
Koalra) Pretty great considering the state of the world. We are using it to our advantage and spending lots of time writing and recording new material. We would like to get out as much music as possible before the end of human existence.
For those that haven’t heard of you yet, how would you best describe your sound and who have been your biggest influences so far?
Our listeners have said we have a 90's feel in the style of Sonic Youth, Dinosaur jr, The Cure, etc. I don't hear it as much but we're down with those comparisons. Love those bands. Lately we've been listening to Moaning, Protomartyr, Idles, Motorama and tons more. We are all serious music diggers and keep up on the trendy underground stuff.
You have just released your new single ‘Hooked’. Can you tell us how that track came about?
It's one of those songs that just clicked and almost wrote itself. My wife and I own an arcade bar called Twincade (shameless promotional plug) that's located just outside of Chicago. 3/4 of Koalra work at the bar and during the COVID shutdown we spent a crazy amount of hours writing and recording in the empty quiet bar. Someone had to drink all that loney beer, right? This song and about 20 others were birthed from these sessions. If you check out our video for the song "Make Us Wanna Stop" from our last EP it was filmed inside Twincade.
And was there a particular style you were looking for when you wrote it?
Not so much however we did knowingly change the guitar tones we used for this set of songs. A little less noise and more surf goth. Our debut album was recorded in a fancy professional studio called Bricktop in Chicago and this one was all self produced so we had lots of time to find sounds and recording methods that worked best for what we were doing at the time.
Can we expect an EP or even a new album from you in the near future?
Absolutely! "Hooked" is the first single from our upcoming 14 song album called "The Wakes." It's totally done and in the bag however there is no set release date as of now but it will most likely come out at the end 2020. We are going to slow release 4 singles before we drop the album. Our second single called "Tell Me I'm Not" will be out on streaming platforms and have a new music video on Aug 14th 2020.
The coronavirus outbreak has obviously affected everyone’s plans, but what have you got in store for the rest of the year?
Current plan for the year... stay away from that virus!!
And finally, standard interview question, where do you see yourself in five years?
The vision for the band changes daily so it's tough to say. We have more ideas than we have time. Some days I would do anything to go back to the days when we barely knew how to play our instruments and creativity was forced to take the lead but most days we want to work to fine tune our writing skills and create beautiful and inspiring music. Maybe in 5 years we can find that perfect balance between the two. Ideally I see Koalra having a large ever-changing catalogue of releases, a fan base that is engaged and excited to hear from us, and a few tours under our belt... And then we might call it quits and die from exhaustion.
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