You’re in desperate need of some groovy vibes and a serious boost of energy level? We have something great ready for you today to help: a premiere of the new single and video clip by FAVOR – “Call My Name”.
The music delivered by FAVOR in the new single is joyful and light, without any agenda. That’s what we all need sometimes. It’s really hard to stand still while hearing the melody of “Call My Name” and that shows the power of FAVOR‘s music. The groovy beat, along with the melodic vocals make a sweet combination. However, there is a sort of a roughness underneath the skin of “Call My Name”, which gives the song character.
The video clip to “Call My Name” is made by Asbjørn Rosenlund and is a part of the story started in the clip to the previous FAVOR single “GIRL (You Got Me Good)”. While watching, you feel like an audience to a theatre play, which makes the whole experience somehow more cosy and intimate. Some parts of the lyrics are presented literally, some get a new context, the song is like a soundtrack to the scene on the “stage” and makes you want to enter it on your own to have a closer look.
We had a little chat with FAVOR about the idea behind the video clip, as well as about his inspirations. Read the interview below and enjoy “Call My Name”, while looking forward to hearing more from FAVOR.
You got quite a big attention from the very beginning, being praised by international and Danish blog, Danish Radio and playing support before a big gig of the Norwegian singer Sigrid. All that right after going into the world as FAVOR. Was it a big surprise for you? Looking back to you think it was helpful or stressful? Would you change anything if you could go back in time?
FAVOR: FAVOR has been all about going back to some of the music that I’ve been brought up with. I come out of a family where music was constantly floating out of the speakers, vinyl’s on the floor, both parents playing music, travelling and touring. My mum has always had this deep love for 80s divas – Whitney Houston, Grace Jones, Phil Collins, my dad is a 70’s folk man loving stuff like Elton John, Neil Young and those kinds of acts, and I’m a sucker for well-oiled pop music. So after having spent a few years writing stuff that I truly thought was what the music industry would like, I started writing music that I simply just like listening to. It became songs with roots in music that is very close to my heart and that I really admire. What kind of surprised me was that when I started making music solely for myself it became much more relevant for other people – it resonated I guess. So when things started taking off I tried to not think too much about it: “well, I’m doing this for myself and keep on making something that I would listen to myself has to be the only success criteria.” What tends to be very stressful about being an artist and making something that people would like to have more of is the pressure that you create for yourself. I mean, I definitely build up expectations in my head as to what I would like to achieve with a single, or where I would like to be in a year’s time or how many people I would like to come to my shows and so on.
Naturally, getting a lot of attention because of music you’ve made is amazing, but in the end, I just needed to focus on enjoying the journey instead of focusing on all these goals that you constantly create for yourself. It’s easier said than done, and I wasn’t good at enjoying the ride when it started and I’m not nearly as good at that as I want to be yet, but I’m getting there. This is exactly what my new single is about. I kept looking towards other artist and comparing myself to them. It was nuts and at one point I started being really bummed out over not having made a “Thriller-album” like Michael Jackson at the age of 24.
As an upcoming artist, you must struggle sometimes, both artistically and when it comes to surviving in the tough music business. What would you say are your biggest struggles or obstacles to overcome?
I’ve been writing music and performing live since I was 12 years old. Making music and performing songs live has always been output for thoughts, conflicts, issues and storytelling. When you start making a career out of something that has always been a thing that was as natural as hanging out with your friends or going for a walk, it can be quite difficult to suddenly act within a release strategy or plans for you as an artist. For instance, if I could I would play a concert every day, but you can’t really do that. A tour often needs to tag along with a release of an album or EP. That’s something that I struggle with, cause in reality I just wanna make music and I just wanna play it in front of a live audience. I wanna tell stories and I want people to know those stories and sing along to the words.
Where do you look for inspiration and motivation to make music?
There two aspects of inspiration that pops into my mind. Firstly, I’ve always been writing on the go, meaning that I tend to travel to find inspiration. For the upcoming releases I’ve been to Stockholm, Madrid, going to Dublin and also Greenland. That doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m writing about those places – that hardly ever happens. But I just find it inspiring to write about my own world when I’m not in it. Like taking a step back and looking at the canvas. A good friend of mine told me about a quote from a writer, I can’t remember who it was. But she said that there’s only 1 novel to write in a city, then you have to move to find the story for the next one. That idea really resonated with me.
The second aspect is the fact, that I’ve been writing music way too long on my own. But a couple of years ago – just before FAVOR started – I got together with some good friends to write music together. To make something together. That turned my world around, cause suddenly I could feel how my sense of melody or the way I wrote lyrics changed. Finally, I had other people to bounce the ball up against. That inspired me tremendously and it’s something that is a part of my songwriting DNA now. The new single is a clear result of that and it’s written and recorded with my live band – a bunch of guys that inspire me a lot! And in the end, it’s one of the beauties of being a songwriter. It’s that kick from getting together in the studio without necessarily a clear idea of what you’re doing and some hours later, there’s something there, something that wasn’t there before. It still blows my mind!
Your new song “Call Me By Name” comes out along with a video clip which is another part of the story started in “GIRL (You Got Me Good)”. Can you tell us a bit more about the idea behind the video series and the story presented there?
When I do shows I tend to tell a lot of stories when I’m on stage. I talk about how the songs are written, why they are written and just general everyday impressions. I guess that urge for storytelling is something that I take with me in all aspects of FAVOR. I spent ages thinking about how to present a new song to an audience and I really wanna make an effort for them to feel engage and entertained. I love how the music video format has changed over the past year. Just making a stand-alone 3-minute music video with an artist singing on a beach with the wind in his hair, it just doesn’t really make sense anymore. So I wanted to tell a story across several music videos. The first single from this round of release was “GIRL (You Got Me Good)” that came out in November. The song was described by a UK blog as a song about “beer fear”. I’d never heard that expression, but that’s exactly what it’s about. It’s about those hours between waking up in the morning and go “hey, what happened last night – why did she get so mad about that?” and then finally getting her on the phone and try to explain yourself. So the whole video is centred around “the call.” I see the music video for the new single “Call My Name” as a prequel. Now, I wanna show the audience what happened that day before. I wanna show the confrontation and also hint what the issue might be. A fun little thing to pay attention to is what video the girl in the video is watching.
I never wanted to tell a complicated story, I just wanted some coherence between the release of the singles. In general, consistency is important, at least it is to me. I love when I can see that an artist has thought about other aspects than necessarily just the music. But I might think too much about it though. If you check out my Instagram profile I think you’ll know what I’m talking about.
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