Photograph by Dani
Swedish songstress extroadinaire Sarah Assbring recently took time out from recording her brand new album (tentatively titled From The Valley To The Stars) to answer our 20 Questions. The usual quick fire responses these interviews normally generate were replaced with perhaps the most incisive answers to date. Ladies and gentlemen we invite you to step inside the mind of El Perro Del Mar…
1. Describe your sound in 3 words.
Pensive, escapist and happy within the monotony.
2. What would be your ideal holiday?
I’m hoping my ideal holiday will be the travel I will make to southern India in October. It’s been a dream of mine for as long as I can remember to visit India and now I’m actually about to do it. I’m just going to be travelling around, to see and experience as much as I can.
3. Whats the best cure for a hangover?
A freshly pressed juice with a lot of fruits and vegetables such as oranges, lemons, carrots and beetroots and some ginger. To drink preferably the same night right before going to bed.
4. What’s on your rider?
Absolutely no bottled water. Nuts and fruits, bread and hoummus, pencils and newspapers, herbal tea and tap water.
5. How do you get ready for a live show?
I don’t really have any specific routine that I do before a show. I just try to make sure I have some time on my own to try to focus on what goes on inside. Other than that I like to check everything into every last detail, in a completely obsessive way. That in itself is a routine, no?
6. Favourite song to play live?
‘I can’t talk about it’ has always been a favourite. I’ve also been playing a song by the Velvet Underground’s that’s called ‘I found a reason’ and it’s always a true pleasure to play that song. It’s such a beautiful song and it has the magic of always feeling new to me.
7. When was the last time you told a lie?
Oh, I’m a social coward so I tell lies all the time just to avoid too much contact with other people. I tell them so often I don’t even think about it, I guess.
8. Who would win in a fight, a stoat or a goat and why?
I guess it depends on the individual animal but I do think the stoat would win because the goat would eventually choose to flee rather than continue fighting.
9. What was the last album you bought?
‘The magic of believing’ with Dionne Warwick from 1969.
10. If you could rid the world of one song - what would it be?
All songs by Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas or just all songs by any member of the Black Eyed Peas in general.
11. Who would play you in a film based upon your life?
Stephen Fry. Can’t think of any woman that would fit the part.
12. Dead or alive. What 5 acts would you have play with you at a festival.
Ravi Shankar, Edith Piaf, Serge Gainsbourg, Miles Davis and Daft Punk.
13. Desert Island Disc? Pick only one.
Bob Marley’ ‘Survival’.
14. What’s your most memorable on the road story?
Looking back at the very beginning of El Perro Del Mar, I remember playing at a small club in a city in Sweden called Kalmar. The show was arranged by this sweet high school girl and she took such good care of me, worried about people showing up or not and so on and then when the show was over she closed up the club and then her dad came and picked us up to drive us to their home out on the island Öland which is connected to the main land by this long bridge. It was very dark and foggy and I didn’t have any clue of where I was or how I got there. I slept in her elder brother’s room that night, after having had a sandwich and tea with her parents in their kitchen, talking about life and other things. Later that night I woke up blinded by this strange light coming from the outside. I realized it was a solar eclipse which made the whole sky look metallic and sharp. I remember the whole experience as something very surreal. Standing there in the window, in this house in the middle of the night somewhere out on this wind ridden island and just thinking how bizarre and amazing it all was.
15. If your life flashed before your eyes, what would be the highlights?
Long walks with different persons around forests, endless streets in cities and other places around the world. Such walking and talking for hours in the forest with my grand father when I was a child, walks with my love in the night on a street when the city’s waking up, walks on a dry gravel road with a dear friend you haven’t seen in a long time, walks with a stranger in unknown European cities talking about life and then parting never to meet again. Memories such as those, like just taking a walk with a person talking about anything and everything, seem like the best moments when you come to think of them. And, the best thing about it is that it’s those very moment that seem not so grand or memorable that stick to your mind. Because they’re just natural and unfeigned.
16. Do you read your own reviews?
Yes, if I stumble upon any I read them, if they’re good. If they’re bad I stop reading as soon as I realize where they’re heading. Bad reviews are of no use to me.
17. Are you a morning bird or a night fox?
I’ve always been a night fox I guess but lately I’ve started to wake up early. I like it. The way you seem to get more things done in the morning.
18. If you could travel back in time where would you set the dial?
The late 18th century Europe, in particular France, just before the French Revolution broke out. I’ve always been very fascinated by periods in history where everything is at an uttermost boiling point, where the status quo of society is about to be turned upside down.
19. What three things could you not live without?
Can’t name anything specific. It’s all or nothing with me.
20. Tell us a fact about yourself we probably don’t already know.
I play alot of flute on the upcoming album.
Links
El Perro Del Mar [official site] [myspace] [journal]
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