We caught up with new kids on the block The Do...............  

Olivia, how has your Finnish heritage influenced your music?
O: I'm not sure where our music comes from geographically, but i guess the Finnish tales I was told as a kid have nourished my imagination. I feel like i still write songs as if I would write a tale, with strong characters, magic, forests, even though it might not be obvious to the listener.

You’ve such an eclectic sound.  How do you think it has evolved through the years in creating what you have now?
O: We wanted to have an album with surprises, characters, different fabrics and textures. We were not aware we were recording an album until quite late, because we were working on several other projects at the time. Now we're in the studio again, we've recorded a lot already. The sound will be better, and the songs are going to be very different from each other...

Dan, you've previously been a composer, what made you want to be in a band? How has this shaped your music?
D: I never planned or wished to be in band,  it just fell upon me. With Olivia I started writing songs, which was very new for me. I also realized I could arrange a song with a whole range of awkward sounds, break the structure, bring it to a high emotional peak. I thought songs were not very challenging, but I was wrong. When we'd finished the album we had to play the songs live, and i couldnt understand why. Moving from the comfortable studio to the unfamiliar stage environment was radical to me.  Now i can't imagine any other better way to make music. But i don't feel like we're "a band", with Olivia. It's more like an entity, a unit.

In 2008, you completed a grueling touring schedule, what are the best and worst things about touring?
D: I miss our studio!
O: I miss it as well, but i manage to write songs with my guitar in the dressing rooms or at a hotel, so i can still be a little creative on the road. I miss long walks in the woods, too.

Do you prefer doing a smaller tour, or playing at festivals?
D: Both have their own charm, but for our type of music, we prefer playing in clubs so we can play the loud tracks as well as the softer ones. At festivals you need to grab the audience with a more electric set, especially when people don't know you, so it's not always very representative of our music.

You use a wide rage of instruments on A Mouthful, how many do you use on At Last?
O: Hard to say ! "At last" is quite straightforward in its sound, mostly guitar bass drums and piano....flutes, harmonica, percussions. Yes, that's about it.

Between the two of you, how many instruments can you play? What would you say is the most outlandish one?
D: It would be pointless to count since we don't practice them, it's more about managing to make nice sounds with a harp for instance, even if you can't play it at all. Let's say we don't play the harp, we play with the harp.
O: No but Dan does play the piano, the saxophone, the clarinet, the bass and drums very decently...he's just too humble.

Your music has been exploding in popularity since your debut last year; do you think that having your music available online via sites like Myspace and iTunes has helped or hindered you in getting your music out to a wider audience?
It was great to have our myspace page when we started. The album wasnt out, everytime we'd finished a song we put it on our player, and drank champagne when we had 20 plays... It was the best way for us to keep doing the music we wanted, without anyone telling us how to do it better. And our network of myspace fans kept on growing, so we could go to the record label and say "take it or leave it". We're still reading our messages on myspace, and replying to as many as we can.

What are you listening to now? Is there anyone in particular that's caught your ear recently?
 O: Jenny Wilson's new album "Hardships" for the new stuff, and Cuban guitar pieces by Leo Brouwer.