I'm so stoked about this blog post that I'm creating. Guess what? I'm super lucky because I got to interview ... IKO! I know, I know a now familiar name, especially to the Twilight Saga FANDOM. Come on. Heart of Stone. Who wouldn't know and love that song included in the Breaking Dawn Part 2 soundtrack?
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| This photo was attached on the email that was sent to me! :) |
After the official release of the track listing for the soundtrack, I immediately followed all the artists' twitter accounts. Hey. I would not want to miss a chance to get noticed by them. A fangirl's gonna do, what a fangirl's gotta do!
Anyways, wondering how I scored this interview? THE POWER OF TWITTER! Just this December, I think during the first or second day of Christmas vacation, I tweeted @ikomusic if I could do an interview with them. Testing my luck there. As you can see, it ended up positively. Because when I checked my twitter account in the morning I saw a tweet coming from that account and yeah. Thus, causing me to fangirl really hard. *jumping up and down* *yelling around the house* and all those kinds of stuff.
Well, enough with that. Let's just start with the interview already.
Here it goes.
Get to know more about Iko
Q: To get started with, can you at least tell us more about your band?
A: We are Iko from Devon, UK. Founded on myself and Neil Reed as writing partners. We write songs about heartbreak and have recently been on the Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 2 soundtrack.
Q: How did you get started?
A: Neil and I met when teenagers who have been in other bands, but Iko was started by us after our first band dissolved. We were working long hours doing temporary jobs and this inspired our first album 'I Am Zero'. We wrote an album over about 4/5 months and recorded it in 10 days.
Q: How did you come up with the name, Iko?
A: We wanted something simply and sad to fit the mood of our first album so Iko, which is Japanese for 'orphan' or 'one outside/an outsider' felt appropriate.
Q: Who do you consider as your musical inspiration/s?
A: The first band I ever loved were The Smashing Pumpkins. But we have a variety of influences. Neil grew up classically trained so things like Rachmaninoff have influenced his piano playing, and for me it was Radiohead, Death Cab for Cutie, The Cure that made me want to write songs and make records.
Q: What makes you different from all the other musicians?
A: Well maybe the mixture of classical and popular is reasonably unusual. But people say my voice sounds unique, and a little like a woman so I suppose it's that.
Q: Name at least one musician you'd like to work with in the future.
A: I'd love to sing with Bjork. I think she's amazing.
The Twilight Saga and the song Heart of Stone
Q: Were you already a fan or have already read the book even before being linked to it?
A: Yes we already loved the saga before we were even involved. We'd both seen them all. Just made it extra exciting to then have our song chosen. I read the book before writing the words because I wanted the lyrics to be strongly influenced by Stephenie's words.
