Interview | Tyra Örnberg

London-via-Sweden band Junodef (pictured above) feature the talents of our Bass alumna Tyra Örnberg, a talented songwriter and performer who has spent the summer on the road with Warp Records' Mount Kimbie.

Her live commitments with the electronic band have seen her travel all over Europe with the group, including a brilliant slot at the Glastonbury Festival in June.

Meanwhile, Tyra's endeavours with the art-rock of Junodef, alongside long-term musical partner Karin Grönkvist, led to the band acquiring a dedicated following. 

Having recently headlined the Lexingon in London, one of the capital's best small venues, we caught up with Tyra to learn more about life on the road and her music-making with Junodef...

What started you off on your musical journey? Was there a person or record that kickstarted everything for you? 

I started playing in bands in Sweden when I was 13, with my closest friend Karin (who I now have Junodef with), and our main influences then were Swedish punk bands like Ebba Grön, Tant Strul and Masshysteri.

Me and Karin have since played together in various bands and musical projects and we have kept on evolving musically together.

It's pretty special having that kind of bond with someone, we understand each other musically so well and push each other's songwriting."

We also push each other to just keep working and grinding to get to where we want to be.

What led you to study at ICMP? What were you looking to get from your studies?  

I think my main reason to start studying at ICMP was to get into the music community.

When moving countries you leave a lot of that behind you, so it felt like an important first step to start building that again over here in London. Another reason was that I'm terrible at practicing bass, so studying it would be a way to force me to actually practice and become better. And it worked. 

So I guess the most important thing I learned must be that it's important to practice if you want to get better!

How did you orientate yourself in the industry after you completed your studies? 

I think I mainly focused on Junodef and writing, releasing and promoting our music and all that business.

That's always been the main focus, and then the opportunities to play bass for other artists have come through the contacts and community we have made through the band.

How did Junodef get together and what are the ambitions with the project? 

Me and Karin started Junodef in 2015 when our band before that broke up, and our ambition was to have a space to write music with complete creative freedom, and let the music set the tone of the band, and let the rest follow.

So because of that we find it generally hard to label Junodef with a genre, because the music has taken so many turns and new directions over the years, and even now our live sets have a pretty wide spectrum of sounds and genres baked into them.

Of course we would love to someday be able to earn money from the band, so that we can devote as much time as possible to it without having to have full time jobs too.

But I know as long as we're able to continue to progress with Junodef, both musically and career wise, the band will hold our hearts and our ambitions, whatever shape it takes.

How does the creative process work? 

My writing usually starts with some kind of piano or organ improvisation, until I find something I like and start building tracks in Ableton, and from there it can move in any direction, either stay in sad and slow piano land, or I just extract the chords or melody lines and turn it to something completely different.

I usually wait until I have something that's at least an 80 percent finished song before bringing it to Karin for guitars and various wise inputs. And we make the finishing touches together. And Karin does the same thing with her songs, bringing them to me for any last additions.

What have been the highlights with playing with Mount Kimbie? 

Highlights with the band have been getting to hang out with the lovely people that make up the band and the crew.

Of course, all the gigs have been an incredible experience, but the days off on tour, or the short detours on festival show days, have been the most fun. On the US tour in the spring we went on loads of beautiful hikes and saw a rattlesnake, we also went to a gorgeous country music pub and did some two step dancing.

Just this last weekend, we popped out from the festival site just outside of Rome for some central walks in the city and delicious pasta.

Have there been any favourite gigs Glastonbury aside? And will you be continuing to perform with them? 

Yeah, the Green Man Festival show was great, and such a beautiful festival site, and I saw the moon rising behind the food stands from the stage as we we're playing, that was pretty epic.

Yeah, I hope I can continue to play shows with them for as long as they'll have me. We're almost done with shows for now but hoping for some more next year.

Do you have any advice for musicians on navigating the industry? Any tips or wisdom you wish you'd known?

I think be kind and humble is a good one.

Making actual good friends in the industry is loads better than a list of networked contacts you don't really know. If you're kind and helpful to the people around you there's a good chance that will come back to you."

Also don't compromise on your own integrity or mental health, it's easy to lose yourself in what other people think is the best way to go about things. Instead, remind yourself to do things in a way that benefits your creativity and wellbeing.

What's next for you and your various musical projects? 

Me and Karin are writing songs full speed for Junodef, so hopefully we're gearing up towards an album at some point.

But we're not rushing it, just focusing on writing as much as we can, and taking the time to make sure that we're doing things the right way.

We just got our own little studio space for writing, and that has been such a fun project!

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Watch the video to 'Justice' from Junodef's EP 'Catastrophical'.