Folk-rock band Kalle Mattson, headlined by Carleton’s Kalle Wainio, has been declared a band poised for breakout in 2012 by Ottawa Citizen arts writer Lynn Saxberg. Wainio, a 21-year-old fourth-year music student, answered some of reporter Mei Wang’s questions by email.
The Charlatan (TC): How do you feel about being declared one of the top five Canadian bands to break out in 2012?
Kalle Wainio (KW): I think the main thing with The National Post calling us one of the top five Canadian bands to watch for in 2012, is that it is a great in terms of getting us some awesome exposure . . . It hopefully gets us on the map for more attention in the coming year as well and people keep us on their radars.
TC: What do you plan on doing after you graduate?
KW: Focus on the band mainly. It’s been a struggle to maintain university while keeping the band functioning at such a high level so it will be nice to actually have that be my primary focus.
TC: What does Kalle Mattson have planned for 2012?
KW: There’s going to be two national tours in the spring and fall along [with] multiple festival appearances, the release of a brand new EP in September as well, and in October we’re going to start recording our next full-length album and the follow up to Anchors.
TC: What are you going to be taking away from studying at Carleton that you can bring to your music?
KW: I think the main thing that I’ve come away from my degree that gets used a lot in the writing for Kalle Mattson has been arrangement and writing for other instruments. We now have a trumpet player in the band (J.F. Beauchamp) and I write [the] majority of the horn parts for him and a lot of the things I learned theory-wise comes into play while doing that. Ultimately, though, I think I just came away from Carleton being a better musician. It definitely allowed me to grow in a lot of different musical aspects. I’m really happy with my years there.
