Violet Days hails all the way from Stockholm, Sweden, and is the collaborative project between Lina Hansson and Kris Eriksson. The duo has made quite an impact in the music world with their songwriting and production work with some of the biggest names in the music industry. Their early releases have received millions of plays on Spotify and other streaming platforms, with their single, “Your Girl” raking up over 13 million streams on Spotify alone. Their debut EP, “Made in My Head” is coming soon, with the lead single “Somber” setting the tone, and is the perfect blend of electronic production with alternative pop. We are so excited to get the chance to talk with Violet Days today and hear more about whom they are individuals and artists.
Unheard Gems: Welcome to Unheard Gems! I’ve been listening to your music since “Screaming Colors”, in 2015, and I have loved watching you grow since then. How are you guys today?
Violet Days: Thank you! So cool that you have been with us since then! We are doing well. :) Just finished up the EP Made In My Head that will come out in October; super excited about that.
Unheard Gems: Just for our readers to get a little bit of background on you as a duo, can you tell us a bit about how you both respectively started out in music and then the origin story of “Violet Days”?
Violet Days:I think we both grew up knowing that we wanted to pursue music. I grew up in a musical family and started writing my own songs when I was around 13 years old. I was very into Avril Lavigne and The Sounds back then, and eventually Paramore, I sang in a Modern Rock / Metal band in high school and then eventually found my way back to pop music.
Kris was always a guitar player; a huge Michael Jackson and Beach boys fan.
I knew Kris’ brother Fredrik before I knew Kris; they both showed up to one of our first shows and a few weeks after I started looking for a new guitar player, Kris reached out and the rest is history. :) We instantly connected over everything.
Unheard Gems: As a follow up, why “Violet Days”? What was the process of choosing a name, branding, sound, etc like and were there any challenges along the way just starting out? How have you seen yourselves grow since you started?
Violet Days: One of the hardest things to do is pick a name for something that you're going to have to stand for and live with for (hopefully) a long time. There was definitely a struggle finding it- I really wanted the name to mean something for me. I started thinking about what names I have in my family and I thought about my Grandmother’s name, Viola. I have always loved that name, so that inspired me to call myself Violet, too, and I added Days so that it would feel like a First and a Last name. I also really liked the idea of an alter ego persona, so that´s how Violet Days was born.
Violet Days has gone through a lot of phases over the years- trying out different sounds to finally find the right direction of music we wanted to do; It´s fun looking back and listening to the first releases up to the recent ones. I think they all still work together and you can hear that it´s us, but you can hear how we slightly changed throughout the years; We´re always trying to renew ourselves to avoid releasing the same songs over and over, and keep things interesting.
Unheard Gems: You have been working on new music for your upcoming EP “Made in My Head”, what has that writing and recording process been like for this EP? What were some of the key inspirations for this EP?
Violet Days:We had most of the songs when we decided to create this EP, weirdly enough all the songs really worked together and tell a story. The songs are all divided
into different little “chapters”; each song sets the scene for the next, and so on. We wanted to create a lot of visual content to support the story. We drew some inspiration from a 60´s Swedish comic book I had at home, creating our own characters to tell the story taking place in a comic-book, romantic world.
The visuals have definitely taken the most time to create! We worked with our friend Gustaf Redmo on that; he is an amazing animator and painter. He made our vision come to life in the characters and it´s been an amazing collaboration there.
Unheard Gems: Your leading single for the EP was “Somber” ft morgxn, how did you pick that song to be the first release from the EP. How did you choose to collaborate with morgxn and what was that process like? (He is an incredible artist but also a long flight from where you are based in Sweden).
Violet Days: We wrote “Somber” on one of our trips to LA last year, we were paired with Morgxn that day,
There was instantly a great vibe between us all and this song pretty much slipped out of us.
It felt right to start of with “Somber” to introduce the visuals and concept, also it was great to start with a collaboration so we could reach both Morgxn´s and our fans.
Unheard Gems: “Just a Little” was the second single and it moves away from the softness of “Somber” to be more edgy. What is the story behind “Just a Little” and can we expect more of the edgy side or softer side of Violet Days in your EP?
Violet Days: We wrote “Just a little” together with a good friend, we started the day with a long conversation about how it is so easy to fall for things that´s not good for you, and you rather choose to have more drama in your life than nothing at all, cause things stays exciting that way.
From that conversation “Just a little” was written, and we had a lot to write about that day haha. You can definitely expect the mix of edgy and soft on the EP.
Unheard Gems: Moving away from your music directly, you have worked with a lot of other artists including Phoebe Ryan & The Chainsmokers (whose hit song “Paris” you co-wrote), what is your writing process like working with another artist on their music and is it different than when you work on a song for yourself? Also any favorite collaboration or any dream ones for the future?
Violet Days: It's usually very different writing for Violet Days versus writing for other artists; Sometimes it's easier to be the person to write someone else's story than to write your own. It usually feels more complicated to finish something that is for us because it's a very emotional process and everything needs to feel relatable to me, especially in the lyrics. It can take time to get it right but it's always worth it.
Some of our dream collaborations would be Kevin Parker of Tame Impala, Chris Martin and Lorde.
Unheard Gems: I have a less serious question as we get toward the end of our interview, what are your favorite memories of each other in this duo, funny moments, emotional, or just a random fond memory from the past four years you’ve been working together as “Violet Days”?
Violet Days: Haham that's a tricky one. The funniest and most random moment was definitely at SXSW this year. Me, Kris and our drummer, Fredric, had one day off and wanted to do something typical and local in Austin.
We got recommended to go to this “Chicken shit bingo” thing. A LOT of people bought their tickets to the bingo, we all gathered around a cage with two chickens running around on a numbered floor that was covered in food and the number the chicken took a shit on was the winning number- it was hilarious and the craziest thing was that the chicken went on My Golden Ticket number and I won 300$ for it, haha. We met some really nice people there and ended up buying everybody drinks for the money!
Unheard Gems: If you could recommend to us another artist you think deserves more recognition in the music industry that would you recommend?
Violet Days: JP Saxe- I love his songs. Also, Lennon Stella- I'm excited to hear what she comes up with next.
Unheard Gems: Lastly, for all of our reader, where can they find you and your music?
Violet Days: You can find links to everything at www.violetdays.com
Instagram : @Violetdaysofficial
Check out the newest singles and music videos from Violet Days Here:
"Just A Little" - https://youtu.be/fS2JtWgam0I
"Somber" - https://youtu.be/SGBIhHY9YUA