What inspired the name of the band? What are your influences and are they the same as when you started out?
I was trying to come up with something that would make sense to both the public and myself. Something that would describe me. So i was talking about that with a friend and he said “what about PK?”. It’s short for Painduv Keel (Flexible Tongue in english), which was meant to stand for the unique flow. I think I took that name in 2004 or something like that and never looked back. Now it’s just a part of me. I have thought about changing it a couple of times but there have just been random ideas.
Everything influences a person, especially a creative or a hyperemotional person. I could cry over a leaf and laugh over a death. But these emotions ain’t always to be taken directly. While I do believe everything has life in them (even objects like rocks or a mitten), a lot of those are triggers and moments when I’m not actually there. I kind of time travel to another place and relive something. That’s what affects me but people don’t see that part so they go “why are you so emotional over this lamp?”. It’s not a lamp for me, it’s a portal.
How do you approach songwriting?
I used to write with a certain theme in mind but in time that changed. Now I just write out my thoughts. Ofcourse I keep them relatively on the same subject /theme but most of my music holds quite a lot in one project. I tend to cover a couple of topics at once if not more. But that’s how life is – several things come at you at once. Life doesn’t really ask if you’re ready to take on the next one.
Everything starts with a sound. Once I hear a sound that just clicks, the words roll to the page. If an instrumental doesn’t make the words roll, I move on to the next pretty quick. In the past, I forced myself to write about a certain topic or to a certain beat but yeah, now I just move on.
Why do you write what you do?
Well it’s energy, isn’t it? Sound wise it’s the type of music I listen to. I think if you don’t want to listen to your own songs a lot, you should switch something up. Lyrics wise I guess my particular journey has been quite melancholic so it reflects. Everything does – right now I’m in the best mindset that I’ve probably ever been and the music shows that. So in that regard, I just write how it is. My discography is my blog.
How do you decide what to perform live?
With years I kind of developed a formula that works for me. The formula pretty much is: at least half the set of high energy tracks, a couple of slowe/more intimate ones that I really feel connected to, a couple of unreleased ones, couple of the most relevant ones at the time of the performance and a cover. That’s my sweet spot. I feel like that gives a pretty accurate description of me to the people that came to see me – high energy, emotional and nostalgic. Putting all of that together in a live setting is actually quite easy once you really thought the songs through. Ofcourse there’s always some technical engineering to do but overall it kind of just falls to place. And if it doesn’t fall to place even after a fair amount of attention, some tracks gets switched up until it does. Luckily I think I’m blessed with a decent ability to create a tracklist for either a live performance or an album so, a little toot to my own horn there haha.
What plans do you have for the future?
At the start of every year I jot down some goals to achieve in the next 12 months. Not only as a musician but as a person. As an artist, the next thing is always “more”. More streams, more followers, more shows, more everything. While that’s all cool, it’s not worth much before being more as an entity. So my next milestone is tomorrow. And after that the next day. And after that the next. Each one of those will be a milestone achieved because I grew another day. That goes for me as PK and me as Joseph. It’s a symbiosis.
But to be more specific – I got a few video ideas that will still see the light of day this term. Also some really cool collabs coming out. A couple of stages I’d like to perform on.