ED2011 Interviews ED2011 Music ED2011 Week1 Edition

Fork: Have some Pink Noise

By | Published on Friday 12 August 2011

Fork are an a a capella ensemble from Finland that look set to take Edinburgh (and the world…?) by storm. We tipped them in our preview edition, you may recall.
A ThreeWeeks reviewer subsequently checked out their show ‘Pink Noise’ and called it “hilarious and breathtaking”, while praising their flawless vocals. So we decided to throw some questions in their direction. Jonte Ramsten answered.

CM: How and when did your group come together? What performance background do you all come from?
JR: Fork was originally formed in 1996 when three of us were  in acting school, the Theatre Academy of Helsinki. The fourth one was studying at the police academy. It started off as a joke, just a way to have fun and do music together. We all worked at our original professions for a couple of years and had Fork as a side project until 2004, when we thought we’d try being full time musicians for a while. And we haven’t steered off that road yet.

CM: What kind of songs do you perform in your act? How do you choose each song? How long does it take to get each song ready for performing?
JR: We mostly do covers. Anything from Led Zeppelin to Rihanna. Pop and rock music. The songs are chosen through democratic elections. And that’s the hard part. If someone vetoes we forget it. Since we use A LOT of technical equipment to achieve our sound, it takes quite a while to get a song ready for the public. From a few days up to a week. Sometimes we work on a song for a week only to find out that it doesn’t work. And we never use sheet music, which makes the process even slower, but all the better.

CM: What made you decide to come to the Edinburgh Festival? Do you think you’ll come back here?
JR: The money, the fame, the glory and the single malt whisky. I’m not sure we’ll ever leave.

CM: Are you planning to take the show elsewhere in the world?
JR: The world is not enough. Our goal is to conquer it.

CM: We really like the costumes you are wearing in your publicity shot. Do you wear them in the show? Who makes them?
JR: We do actually. And some other cool stuff too. We work with the famous Finnish stylist Minttu Vesala who designs all our clothes.

CM: Are you seeing other shows whilst you are in Edinburgh?
JR: Of course. So far we’ve been too exhausted after each show that we really haven’t had energy to go and see anything. But we will. Some dance performances, stand-up and other a cappella acts are on our wish list.

Pink Noise performed at Assembly George Square during Fringe 2011. 



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