7000apart are a duo consisting of Amelie & Jon, a married couple producing pop ditties such as their latest track, No Is A Nice Word. If you liked the track and want to find out more, read on below!

By Jane Howkins

You recently released a song titled No Is A Nice Word, which we reviewed. What can you tell us about the song?

Yeah, No is a Nice Word is a song we wrote on a balcony in Sweden with one of our favourite co-writers, Jade El, in about 20 minutes. It’s a song that is really about that moment before breaking up with someone where you realize that nothing is going right in your relationship. It doesn’t have to be about a romantic relationship at all, but really just about setting up boundaries in your relationships in life. Consent is important in every aspect of life and “no” doesn’t have to be a mean word to tell someone.

How has the reception been so far, and where can No Is A Nice Word be purchased?

We are completely independent artists at this time, so even though we, of course, hope for a larger reception on our releases we realise that we are definitely the new kids on the block. You can purchase or stream No is a Nice Word anywhere that you can find music online. Otherwise, it’ll be a song you can purchase on our physical album Feel Your Feelings – Side A which is coming out on October 7th.

You’re a married couple. How does that work with the songwriting and performing?

For sure. Being a married couple and working in the music industry can have its challenges, but it also has a lot of benefits. For songwriting we work in a few different ways at this point. One way is Jon typically starts songs and then Amelie edits them. The second main way we write songs is by working with a co-writer. We love having a third person in the room that can really tie our styles and thoughts together. We perform as a duo regularly, but then we also bring in other musicians on bass and drums to make our sound more full live. We actually are playing 140 shows in 2022 and just passed show number 100. It’s been a really fun year!

Has the pandemic hindered your work much?

Absolutely. We lost a lot of momentum going into 2020 as we had just released our debut album in 2019, been on Sweden’s Got Talent in February 2020, and had nearly 60 shows cancelled during the middle of our first U.S. tour. Momentum is definitely something hard to gain in the music industry, especially as independent artists. That being said, we pivoted hard into live-streaming and we started writing all the songs for our second album, Feel Your Feelings, during the pandemic, found an incredible producer to help bring those songs to life, and have found a new sense of momentum now that things are opening up again.

Do you plan to release any singles in the near future?

Yes! We have realized that the way that streaming services care about new releases is by doing releases regularly. So, we have 14 songs coming from our second album being released primarily as singles to Spotify. The cool thing with the way the industry is now is you can release songs from your album, see which ones your fans really connect with and then promote those specific songs to potential new fans as your main singles. So, it takes a bit of pressure off of us guessing which songs people might like best because our fans will let us know.

Do you have plans to release an album or EP anytime soon?

I suppose we’ve mentioned it in some of our answers above, but yes. We are releasing our second album Feel Your Feelings which is divided into 2 parts Feel Your Feelings – Side A, which is coming out on October 7th, 2022. Then the second half of the album Feel Your Feelings – Side B and the full project will be released in 2023. The album is filled with the most honest and vulnerable songs we’ve ever written and is really our attempt to help to destigmatise taking care of our mental health as a society. It’s okay to take care of yourself and it’s okay to feel your feelings, whatever they might be.

Your music is poppy but also has indie pop elements. What/who influences you most as an artist? What have you been listening to recently?

We definitely have a lot of different influences which impacts our style quite a lot. It’s nice because since we aren’t signed to a label, we can do whatever we want. We don’t have to make the same song with the same tempo and slightly different lyrics for our project. We can make whatever inspires us and then fit it into a pop production style. We have influences from Paramore & Evanescence to Switchfoot, Twenty One Pilots, Ben Platt, Adele, Ed Sheeran and countless more. We try to stay caught up with new pop releases and especially with songwriters that inspire us like girl in red, Julia Michaels, Ryan Tedder, Billie Eilish. Then we also like to listen to a lot of more legacy artists who we’ve not really heard their complete discographies before. Lately, we’ve listened to The Cranberries, Ace of Bace, and Abba.

Where are you based? What is the music scene like in your part of the world?

This is a weird question which we don’t really have one answer for. We primarily are based in Green Bay, Wisconsin in the U.S. and then in Stockholm, Sweden. The music scenes are dramatically different between those two places. In Stockholm there is a huge pop scene with a thriving music industry focused on production, songwriting, and international touring artists. Then in Green Bay it is truly filled with incredibly talented unground musicians who are absolutely grinding at their craft through live shows, but who don’t have a lot of industry support.

Do you have any tour dates lined up for the UK?

Not yet. We really want to in the next upcoming year though, as we have a lot of fans from the U.K. from live-streaming.

Any last words for the fans?

Feel your feelings.