UK TO LA,CARINA ROUND CHATS ABOUT HER LATEST ALBUM,TOUR AND MORE!

What is your name? Carina Round

 

What is your genre of music?

 Alternative

 

Give us a little bio about you.

 I am from Wolverhampton, UK. I live in Los Angeles. I have a solo career but I am also a member of Puscifer (with Maynard Keenan), have a project called Early Winters and sometimes I also sing with Tears For Fears.

 

What made you go in to music?

 It was the biggest source of joy and expression in my life when I was a child and ever since

 

Are you a signed?

 No. I am independent.

 

Your brand new album ‘Deranged To Divine’ is due out on July 29th, what an you tell us about it?

  Its a retrospective called “Deranged To Divine” spanning over the last 15 years.

 I released the album partly because I knew i was going to be traveling through the UK and EU with Puscifer this summer and the response to our latest album has been so great. It’s picked up a lot of new people and I wanted to release something that would be a cohesive yet eclectic, experimental and very personal introduction to my solo work for people who have never heard it before.

 

 

Tell us more about some of the tracks on the album.

 When choosing the songs I actually used a close friend for help. I started by simply listening through my entire catalogue and taking note of the songs that to me felt most “necessary”. The songs that had a definitiveness that was expressed by a congruence between the melody and the lyric, generally were the songs that I ended up including. There are two songs that, following that logic, should be on the album but in the end I just couldn’t make them flow in the sequence. Those were “Pick Up The Phone” and “Do You”, which contains the lyric that “deranged to divine” is taken from. In a way, I think those two songs stand alone so well as their own complete little narrative universes that once they are taken out of the context of the album (Tigermending) and EP (Things You Should Know) that they come from it was very hard for me to find a place for them amid all the other songs from different records. 

 Overall I made a conscious effort not to worry about being objective. I could have gotten a consensus from friends and fans and built the song list from that. But really I wanted the retrospective to be my own personal introduction to my work, for someone who has never heard me before. I didn’t want it to be balanced or have all the “favorites”. More than anything I wanted it to encompass the most eclectic examples of moments in my career where I’ve had a breakthrough and achieved something with a song or recording that was unexpected. “Message To Apollo”, “Backseat”, and “Mother’s Pride” for instance share nothing in common thematically or mood-wise but the feeling I had while writing and then when they were completed was almost exactly the same: that in spite of whatever ambition or focus I initially had going into the process something inspired happened out of my control and the result was better than anything I could have consciously willed into existence.  

 There are also a couple of songs on there simply because they have never been released before and I wanted long time fans that bought the record to be getting something that don’t already have.  

 

 

You are going out on tour in August, what city are you most excited to visit?

 I’m excited to be in Birmingham and see old friends.

 

Whats the most exciting thing about going on tour?

 Aside from playing music every night, getting to absorb different cultures and experience the best of things. For instance, Pizza in Italy. Coffee at Tim Wendelboe in Oslo, Sprouts in Brussels…

 

 

Tell us more about your support ‘ She Makes War’

 She is a solo artist based in Bristol. She makes melancholy grungey rock music. Her new album came out in April and is called Direction Of Travel. 

 

Do you play any instruments?

 Yes. My main instrument, aside from my throat, is guitar. I like to write on Piano sometimes. In Puscifer I also play mandolin, Banjitar and whatever else is needed. 

 

Who are your influences?

Ever-changing.

 

How do you get inspiration to write songs?

 For the most part I draw from my own experiences. I’m a very emotional writer so it’s difficult for me to, say, read a synopsis and make up a song for it. Unless I have an emotional response to someone else experiences, then I can draw from that and arrange a song based on emotional reaction. That’s where the initial inspiration comes from, and then once that’s in place I can approach it more cerebrally in the later parts of crafting it.

 

Where do you see yourself now in 5 Years?

 Hopefully, in one of a few home studios with the love of my life making the best music I’ve ever made. 

 

When you’re not doing music, what do you do?

 A few friends and I have a 24 hour lemons racing team. When time and schedules allow we like to get together and do that, which is rare. 

Since I never had a TV in my life really I recently discovered the idea of Watching Without Gulit, so I got Hulu and my aim is to watch the entire criterion Collection as soon as possible. Yoga, Reading, Touring.

 

What was the song you listened to most that influenced you to go more in to the music scene?

 There was no one song really and going into the music scene wasn’t really a choice or conscious decision. It just happened naturally. 

 

What’s the best advice you have ever been given?

 It’s ok to say no if you are truly uncomfortable (the bad kind of uncomfortable). Seems obvious but can be easy to forget when you are surrounded by a lot of people trying to convince you otherwise.

 

What advice would you give to aspiring musicians not about the industry and just as an artist?

 Find purpose. Focus. Work harder. Derive joy.

 

What quote or saying do you always stick by?

 “What fresh hell is this.”

 

When you are at a gig, what are 5 things you cannot forget?

 I just got off tour and according to my gig bag, plectrums, sports bra, make up, merch and to warm up and down.

 

Do you have social media accounts so your fans can follow you?

 www.facebook.com/carinaround

www.twitter.com/carinaround

www.instagram.com/carinaround

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