Interview: Little Winter Discusses The Release Of Their Single “Julia”!

Danish band Little Winter have recently released the brand new single “Julia” ahead of their forthcoming album ‘Wonderlost’ that looks set to be released during March 2021.

Little Winter has kindly taken some time to speak with Fierce & Fabulous Revolution about their recent single release, along with getting to know more about the story behind the band.

Hey Little Winter, thank you so much for agreeing to this interview. Can you start by telling the readers a little about yourselves?

Little Winter: Thanks for having us! We are an upcoming indie band of five guys living in the city of Aarhus, Denmark. We play drums, bass, two guitars and three synthesizers while singing our hearts out and our asses off, sometimes just Ryan (lead singer) and sometimes all at the same time. Actually, we are six people live on stage which is a new and exciting setup that we have just started to explore!

When did you all first discover your passion for music?

Little Winter: At the beginning basically! The common denominator for us is that we discovered a love for music long before we discovered each other. In fact, each of us started playing whatever instruments lying around in our childhood homes before we started walking. We now have a lot of common bands and genres in our liking, like Mac DeMarco, Fleet Foxes, Alvvays, Gold Celeste, Beach Boys… just to name a few.

How did the idea to create the band come together?

Little Winter: It evolved from lead singer Ryan’s solo project, where two of us, drummer Nikolaj and guitarist Mirz, were part of the live band setup. Mirz and Ryan are long-time friends since high school in Holstebro, while Ryan met Nikolaj at a live venue in Aarhus called Headquarters (awesome place by the way, come and say hi to us there!). We all wanted the music to feel and sound more like a collective band-thing, especially Ryan himself. Nikolaj then invited two friends from his home town Aalborg. Martin, who he met in high school, and Daniel who he has known since they were both 6 years old and also played with in another band, Flod, for a number of years. The self-titled EP released in April 2019 marked the official beginning of Little Winter!

How would you describe your musical style to someone unfamiliar with your music?

Little Winter: Displaying a warm blanket of soothing, poppy melodies, old-school tape-fluttery production, and playful choir arrangements, Little Winter is a refreshing, contemporary take on the sincere songwriting emanating from the Californian shores with an added pinch of Scandinavian melancholy and dreamy 12-string The Byrds-esque guitar riffage.

Of course, this may or may not be the experience you get from listening to what is available on Spotify etc. at the moment. It’s an odd time for us to explain this, as we are deep in the process of finishing up and releasing our first full-length album that you haven’t heard (of course). To us, the album feels very different from the EP both in terms of genre, mood and also in the production style having a huge impact on the final product. We all really felt that we needed to bring a new sound to the table. So our goal was, and is, to create some new exciting music for the world to sing along to. We hope that we nailed it so far!

You recently released the single “Julia”. How did the idea to create this song first come together?

Little Winter: The triggering event for writing the song was a break-up between Ryan and his now ex-girlfriend Julia, happening long before Little Winter or even the aforementioned solo-project were conceived. Through the years Ryan has revisited the experience several times, thinking about their relationship and wondering what became of her. Not with a desire to engage in some storming chase across the globe or anything, but just some quiet afterthoughts in his moments of thoughtfulness. And then at some point we decided that we might as well try to turn the idea into words and music.

What does the song personally mean to each of you?

Little Winter: Though “Julia” draws on the metrics of a typical love song, it moreover salutes the warming nostalgia and remembrance of the ever-changing world around us. With a sharp eagle’s eye view of one’s maneuvering in an ever pulsating and vivid world, “Julia” encompasses all this in an anachronistic manner which feels very welcoming to the listener. It was very important for us to have these feelings reflected in the sonic universe alongside the adolescent vibes; a song that makes you think back on the things in general that you once held dear and subsequently lost and felt somber about, but in the end also okay, even elevated. As we grow, perspectives change like the rhythm of the world around us. To balance keeping in touch with your past and wilfully forgetting it is a fine art, and we wanted to put this into the spotlight because as the refrain goes: “Julia, loving you was easy // being young was the fault”.

If listeners could take one thing away from this release, what would you like it to be?

Little Winter: It is song encapsulating the mix of emotions you get from revisiting sun-bleached, sepia-coloured memories of a teenage relationship long lost. As a teenager going through the first break-up(s), it will likely feel very different from the picture that we paint in the lyrics for ‘Julia’, but as the years pass we find that it turns into a cherished set of memories, ultimately becoming a good thing. In a way. Sort of. Maybe there could be some comfort to find in ‘Julia’ in that sense?

Do you have any further releases planned that you are able to tell us about?

Little Winter: We have an entire full-length album coming up! It’s packed with both earworms, bangers and thoughtful intermezzos. The album is called “Wonderlost”, and we will release three singles in total, including ‘Julia’ (there are also rumors of a live session of the title track but who knows?). So if you like our first single, be sure to keep yourself updated in the months to come! In fact, even if you didn’t like Julia you should still check out our coming releases – Wonderlost is a colorful and diverse listening experience for sure!

Finally, is there a message that you would like to share with the readers of Fierce and Fabulous Revolution?

Little Winter: Remember to stay safe, get the best out of the situation and be loving around your dear ones in these trying times.

Also, we devote this last section for some Little Winter trivia, or as we like to call it, ”Random facts about random band members that you may or may not have heard but here it is anyways”:

One of us once wore a cast on his forearm from playing too much guitar – he does not even play guitar in Little Winter.
Ironically, the most law-abiding of us is also holding the record of being stopped by the police – 11 times since he started playing in Little Winter.

You can check out “Julia” on Spotify below.