Introducing…. Ask Carol
Click Roll Boom: Tell me about how you got started
Ask Carol: Well, we met at something called Folkehøyskole here in Norway. It's sort of a gap year between high school and college, where you have classes but no grades. After that we spent some years studying and talking about maybe some day starting a band, but it never happened. Then we moved to different cities, but some time later we ended up in the same city, Oslo, and that's when we actually started to play and make music together. After a while we did our first ever concert, and since nobody knew that we made music—no family, no friends—we decided to do our first concert in South Korea. The rest is history, as they say.
CRB: How would you describe your sound, and how has it evolved since you first started?
AC: The most obvious change was when we went from a four piece to being a duo. It was actually during covid, when we got stuck in lockdown and had some involuntary time off, that we decided to go all in on the duo format. That's when we started developing the sound we have today, with Carol playing lead guitar, singing, trombone and percussion, and looping both guitar, vocals and trombone, and me, Ask, playing drums, guitar and synth. People often say they are surprised at how big and loud we sound while being just two people.
CRB: Who or what have been some of your biggest influences, musically and beyond?
AC: Both of us started out as guitarists. Therefore, Jimi Hendrix has been one of our mutual influences. His extraordinary guitar playing and cool sound is awesome. Outside of music, we may be influenced by everything from a good movie or TV show, to the trips and adventures we have had.
CRB: What does your songwriting process typically look like – is it a more individual or collaborative effort?
AC: Oh, it can happen in so many different ways! It is both individual and collaborative, in the sense that everything we make, we make together, but we very often sit and work on it separately. That way we get the benefit of collaborating, but also capture the creative flow when it comes—which may be any time during a day, although often late at night. You get a different flow of creativity when you're with other people than when you're by yourself. Varying it gives a broader spectrum of ways to be creative.
CRB: How do you approach experimenting with new sounds or ideas when creating music?
AC: That is one of the most fun parts! We like to do it first by ourselves, to get a feel for where we want it to take us, then together to get a feel for where it goes in that setting. It's also a question of time: by each working individually, we can experiment on twice as much. Carol may experiment with different guitar effects and pedals, while Ask experiments with different drum grooves. Then we put it together, and experiment some more.
CRB: What’s been one of the most memorable moments in your journey so far?
AC: There's been so many! From the amphitheater concert in Manila, in the Philippines, on Valentine’s Day—which we thought would be only a small gathering but ended up being nearly 1500 people—to the first time playing the legendary SXSW festival that we had dreamed of since we were little.
CRB: How do you prepare for live shows, and what do you aim to bring to your performances?
AC: Our live shows are about high energy and intimate moments. It's a journey, from soft to loud and rough. We have been to many concerts where every song sounds the same—we don't want that at all. Since we're only two people, and have a lot of gear (to achieve our huge and dynamic sound), the most important preparation for live shows is to set up and make sure all the gear works properly.
CRB: How do you balance creative expression with staying connected to your audience?
AC: It's hard to find a good balance, since the tools we use to stay connected are the same platforms that suck out our time and energy with their endless feeds of meaningless content and ads. You cannot avoid it, even when all you wanna do is just reply to a comment from a fan. But it has also given us a lot, those social medias. This is one of the reasons we have started to think more about focusing on our email list, and moving more of the contact with fans over to email. But that has its downsides too. So there's no easy answer—you just gotta experiment and learn by doing.
CRB: What do you hope listeners take away from your work?
AC: That's up to each listener. All our songs can be interpreted many different ways. But our hope is that it can mean something to someone, make them feel something, maybe help them go through their day, or maybe it puts words to feelings they find hard to describe. Or maybe it just makes them feel good, a good vibe. Ask Carol is about much more than just the music, too—we do drawings, artworks, animations, design our merch ourselves, and of course our videos. It's the Ask Carol world, and hopefully some people will enjoy taking a peek into it.
CRB: What does the future hold for you – any plans or goals you’re excited about?
AC: Oh yeah, we have a lot of exciting plans coming up! First of all, our album release is this Friday (at the time of writing), November 7th! This will be our second album, and we are super excited to show you all what we've been working on! Apart from that, we are ending this Europe and Norway tour that's been going on since March, with one show in London on November 8th, and a couple of shows all the way north of Norway. After that it's finally time for a little break from touring, to focus on creating new material, write new songs and record more stuff!
