Carcosa aren’t sure if they’re a punk band. We quiz guitarist Lars to find out what happens in their world. And added cello.

P3dro: Where are you and what are you doing?

Lars: I’m in a park in Rome. I’m not sure which park. Just waiting for you to call me. Taking a walk on this beautiful evening.

P3dro: Tell us about the band. How did you get together?

Lars: We started in 2013. I’d bought a lot of microphones and a drum kit, some amps and a new guitar. I was gonna make a record like Dave Grohl did, by myself. But I didn’t know how to play drums, so I figured pretty quickly I needed to get a drummer. So, I knew Anders and called him up and asked if he wanted to be a drummer on all these tunes I’d got.

We made a song called ‘In Yellow Lights’. And then we just kept going, recorded some shit and started playing live. Then we recorded our first proper album in a studio called Ocean Sound Recordings. But after that, it was three years before our next show.

P3dro: There are now four of you, and in particular with Olea playing cello – how did that come about?

Lars: When we played our songs, they were cool and beautiful, but with just one more layer … it’s what made those songs. We’re looking forward to working more with Olea and using a lot more cello. We like this vibe that comes from ‘In Utero‘. I think it works fine. We haven’t even got to play with her live yet. But as soon as things open …

P3dro: Your album, ‘Inflated Sense of Purpose’ came out in April. What a time to release an album?

Lars: Yeah. Fuck, it was horrible. We had shows planned and I was trying to book shows in Denmark and Sweden and so on, but then everything got shut down, so here we are.

P3dro: So, when was the last time you played a gig?

Lars: August 2019, I think. We played two shows. We were just getting back into it. We’d been working on the album and I just didn’t want to postpone it any further.

We can play shows later to help the album release. Maybe it will help if people know the songs.

P3dro: Do you think you’re a punk band?

Lars: I’m not sure. It’s hard to label anything these days. I’ve heard a lot of music here in Italy which is similar to the Oslo scene. But here they call it Indie. My main inspiration for this album was the post hardcore scene from Boston and Nashville.

I think alternative rock most defines us.

P3dro: Where does the name come from?

Lars: True Detective, season one. The main reason is if you have, like a Caps Lock on, or small letters, then they will always stay on the same line.

P3dro: Yeah, you’re not the only band called Carcosa?

Lars: Yeah, I know. How the fuck do you find a name that’s not taken anymore? We’ll just go for it and hopefully we’ll get famous first.

P3dro: What do your gigs look like? What does a typical Carcosa gig look like?

Lars: Kind of a small crowd, I’d say. Usually people only know this one song we have, which is called ‘Cocaina’. It’s a stupid song, half English, half Spanish. It’s a joke song, but people love it.

We’ve played way too little in the last seven years. We should have played a lot more.

We like playing in basements, smelly inside, smoking, beers, this kind of shit. We really like the heat of the crowd, being in your face, sweating and screaming.

More like an exorcism.

Where do you get your influences from?

Lars: Exploding In Sound Records are really cool. Bad History Month are cool. Always Pixies.

P3dro: Recommend a band or an album we should be listening to right now.

Lars: If I were to advertise for a band, I would say Pile, the Green and Gray album. It should be more known. And, there’s an Italian band – I Cani. Their album is called ‘Il sorprendente album d’esordio de I Cani‘