Interview with Karina Brandt Rasmussen

Interview with Karina Brandt Rasmussen - 1. November 2021

Biography of Karina Brandt Rasmussen + fun fact My name is Karina Brandt Rasmussen, I am 50 years old and the mother of Katrine who is 15 and Laura who is nearly 13 years old. I live in Sønderborg on the island of Als, in the southernmost part of Denmark, half an hour from the border to Germany. Music has a very important place in my life, probably the most important place right after my family. I handle different instruments myself and grew up in a musical family and have sung in a choir for many years. My interest in working with music started in 1999 when Irish Westlife was the support band on Boyzone's Europe tour. We were a couple of mature fans who started a fan club to gather and connect fans all over the world. At that point the internet had started to become something everyone had. Very quickly it became clear that a national fan club was not enough, so we expanded to international and within two months, we had 10,000 members worldwide. In the end we ended up with 36,000 members, spread across 45 countries with branches in 30 of those countries. Some of the departments were nominated their countries’ official fan clubs as well. For me personally, life got in the way and I had to step out of the fan club and let others run it, but one of my friends from that time and I, agreed two years ago that it would be funny to make something like that again. Just two weeks later, I was part of the KEiiNO Fan Group administration, and from there it grew. I used the experience I had with WFU (Westlife Fans United) to get the KEiiNO Fan Group going, told my co-admins about how it worked in 1999, and before long we were well underway. The jobs and tasks were divided between us, and because I was the one with the most time on hand and the most experience, I became the one who generally stands for most things. In May 2020, I started the news site, KEiiNO NEWS, which contains everything that is not on KEiiNO's own website, such as articles translated from Norwegian to English, the lyrics to the songs, fan art, fan stories, and much more. When I am not working with music, I am an independent artist, designer and publisher. I have a publishing company called My Inner Movie Publishing, which is still under development. As an artist, I work with making artist dolls, such as portrait dolls. Among other things, I have Made Fred Buljo and Tom Hugo as children, with help from their mothers who have lent me pictures, etc. And I am now working on a portrait doll of Alexandra Rotan as approximately One-year-old. Otherwise, I make dolls as therapy dolls for the disabled, people with anxiety, people with dementia, but also people who can’t or are not allowed having children. Then they find a good replacement in a realistic doll, like a band-aid on the wound. As a designer, I work with designing baby- and children's clothes, both knit and sew. I sell mostly to the USA so there is not much to find here in the Nordics of what I have made, but the dolls I make are almost always dressed in something I have designed. There is also some advertising in it. Fun fact: I love to prank people, especially my daughters and their dad. But only do funny pranks, never pranks that would hurt others. Some years ago I had a large mannequin doll that was dressed as a pirate, and for Christmas as Santa Claus. He always scared people even though they knew he was standing there. Let's start the interview. Have you grown up in a music family or weren't your parents interested in music? I am from a very musical family where music and singing have always played an important role. My father played the Violin, my mother the organ and accordion, I myself got a mini piano for Christmas as a two-year-old and could after three days play "little Peter Edderkop" - a Danish children's song. Later I learned to play guitar, organ and flute, and I got the opportunity to take over an old accordion and learned to play a little on it too. There was musicians in other parts of my family too, my dad’s sister and her husband were performers and we have a Eurovision performer in the family too. He participated with his band in Eurovision 1987 for Denmark. Why do you love music as much as you do? To me, music is what feelings sound like. It touches different emotions in me, some music makes me sad, some happy, something encourages a little aggression or anxiety, if I for some reason am agitated, some types of music calms me down. Music often goes straight to my heart and depending on the feeling the individual piece of music gives me, then either I like it or not. Therefore, my taste in music is also quite varied, as I do not depend on genre or artist as such, but on the melody and sound of the instruments first and foremost, then the singer's voice and the song's lyrics. If everything goes up in a higher unit for me, then it's something I'll listen to a lot. Throughout my life I have also sung and played various instruments myself and it gives so much to the quality of life to sing and play, especially when it is with others. So how long have you been listening to music, and what genre(s) do you like? I have listened to music since before I was born. Being born into a musical family, music was a daily thing while my mum was pregnant with my brother and me. After birth, I wasn’t able to sleep unless the radio was running with some sort of music. I like a lot of varied music but electropop and EDM is probably the music I like best. I watch Eurovision every year and almost all national MGP finals. How long have you followed Eurovision and/or Melodi Grand Prix? The earliest Melodi Grand Prix and Eurovision I remember watching was back in 1980. Denmark was represented by Bamses Venner, which I clearly remember and my other memory of that year was Papa Penguin by Sophie et Magaly. Since then I followed MGP and Eurovision more or less every year. What is your favourite song(s) from Eurovision and Melodi Grand Prix? You can name 1 to 5 songs. Can you explain why you chose this song/these songs as your favourite songs from ESC and MGP? Oh boy, what a question, how much time and space do you have available? With so many years of watching I have so many songs from Eurovision I love. My top favourite is Spirit in the Sky with KEiiNO, straight followed by Nocturne by Secret Garden. I followed Secret Garden ever since they won Eurovision. Other songs from Eurovision I really love is Estonia’s Verona from 2017 with Koit and Laura, Denmark’s Higher Ground with Rasmussen from 2018. This year’s Fallen Angel with Tix was fantastic but I was and am more in love with KEiiNO’s Monument, which struck my chords harder. Noway’s contribution in 1996, Den Vilda, is one I really love and still often listen to. It is constructed differently than most songs, which is something I really love - a trait a lot of KEiiNO’s music also has. As a last one (I could go on and on) I absolutely HAVE to mention Sweden’s 1984, Herrey’s with Diggi Loo Diggi Ley, which hit me rockhard. I was 13 years old and felt like struck by lightning when I saw them on stage. They were my first idols ever. Do you have any thoughts about Eurovision Song Contest 2022 Season? I think something we will see more of in 2022 season is more rocksongs in national language. Italy’s contribution this year knocked people over and I think that because other countries also want to win, they try to follow the example of what the audience wants - something more modern but in national language that represents the country. I think we will also see more punk and face-paint, both in 2022 and in the future in general, as it seems to please the audience. If you have any more Eurovision or music related things to tell me, feel free to tell as much as you want. I’m sorry I can’t think of anything right now, but please feel free to ask additional questions Okay thank you so much for the amazing interview Karina. And thank you also for using some of your time to talk with me. You are welcome and thank you for your interest