"Just me sitting at home alone": an interview with PoPo

Until Darrin Lee, of the ever-praiseworthy Subjangle Records, revealed the name of Lars Harefjord, practically nothing was known about the musical project PoPo, a Swedish one-man band that summarized its biography with these words: “Sad songs, cheap sounds, monotonous drum beats and pictures of the PoPo” (where “popo” is to be understood as a not very flattering nickname for the police, as explained below). Now I can add this precious information, directly from Lars: “I live in Stockholm and prefer small beds to big ones”.

Lars is part of the super interesting punk band Bleak Streak and previously also played in the Ditches, who were on tour in Italy just last month (I missed them), together with Hakan, from Bergamo. Under the name PoPo, he has been publishing songs on his Bandcamp since 2021. His music ranges from the most jangling bedroom pop to the most impetuous and rough lo-fi slacker rock. Sometimes the songs are just a minute, sometimes they have a more open structure, he loves to digress and get lost in the noise. The new A Compilation About Bleakness collects practically all of his works in 2 CDs for over seventy rich minutes of music.
Since there is almost nothing about PoPo on the internet, and Lars is not present on social media, I thought a little interview was necessary.

I discovered PoPo only last July, with the super catchy single Kids, and I immediately put it in my summer mixtape. I tried to find out more info about the band, but it seems like you never say much, apart from what your songs already say. Do you like to surround this project with mystery?

In one sense I would say that PoPo is a very uninteresting project. It’s just me sitting at home alone, feeling sad and kind of misunderstood by the world and writing songs about being a loser.

On the other hand I think I would dare to say that I’m very conceptual and intuition driven, which I think makes it kind of playful and fun... at least for me, and maybe… hopefully… the few people that pick up on the concepts and details going on. This guy Niek who writes on this blog Addtowantlist has picked up on a lot of my mannerisms, which I really appreciate. As has Darrin Lee who writes on JanglePopHub and also runs Subjangle that released this recent compilation of mine. Him mentioning my name in relation to Tony Molina, even though I’ve never really tried to sound like him, was the most gratifying comment I gotten so far. Molinas first album Dissed And Dismissed is one of my all time favourites.

I know it's not a very original question but I have to ask: where does this name PoPo, not exactly "google friendly", come from?

The name PoPo comes from the first two letters of power and pop and is also hinting at the brittish slang term originally referring to motorcycle police (always coming in pairs, police-police = popo), hence every track/album cover I’ve ever done featuring police officers. 

It’s a sarcastic reference, because I don’t really like them. Hence me covering the Rowdies song A.C.A.B. and coming up with an acronym motivating having the letters ACAB on the cover of my compilation. Also felt kind of bad boy-ish having a record like that released on kind of a jangle pop label. And I never get to be the bad boy because I’m a tiny, polite boy with glasses.

Yes, it seems that - in addition to Tony Molina - there are also various other influences in this collection and, in general, in your music, from Elliott Smith to Alex G or early Car Seat Headrest, to name just some of the first names that come to mind listening to the compilation, but there is also an indiepop sensibility mixed with a fairly punk approach.

I’m very much a musical fanboy that happens to play music. It feels like other people make music and know what they’re doing while I have serious imposter syndrome and it feels like I’m playing in the sense of the word that refers to what a kid is doing, just winging shit on intuition for my own amusement. At the same time I have never really given a fuck about whether people like my stuff or not. I do my thing and if they do like it it makes me superhappy and if they don’t they just don’t get me and can go listen to other stuff. I’m not really a crowd pleaser. It’s been like that in all my bands which have caused some frictions in those that have had bigger aspirations. I guess I just want to be true to what I like in a way and I’m very reluctant to compromise. I could probably label my music as C86 and have a lot more people discovering it but I never thought of my music as C86 and I dont have a relation with that label eventhough I’ve listened to a lot of bands that would probably be labeled as such… but to me it doesn’t ring true to call my music C86… it seems like kind of a commercial afterthought. And I don’t abide to the logic of the market.

Tell me more about your musical background. Since you have worked on various projects, and have been part of several bands, which artists have influenced you the most?

So I have sort of always had this lo-fi thing going on regarding music I do by myself. Hiding behind the grit. First in a probably not very good project that has dissapeared from the face of the earth called Frankie Four-Eyes. Then in a one man emo-project called Crying Death (because who calls themself emo and have band mates?). 

Regarding the punk thing I come from the hardcore punk scene. And leading up to PoPo I was playing in this garage punk band (Ditches) and one time when everybody but me were drunk and high on shrooms (because I was a straight edge kid and then just never started drinking or that other stuff) I managed to trick them into recording a song that had more of a Teenage Fanclub-vibe to it (because they’re one of my all time favorite bands and also I wanted to shake things up a bit). And then it dawned on me that I could do things like that, basically whatever I feel like in the moment, whatever comes to mind by myself in my tiny appartment. I mean I had already done it two times before. And that is PoPo, I guess.

Other bands worth mentioning might be Guided by voices, The Radio Dept., P.S. Eliot, Dinosaur Jr., early Jens Lekman... but also more recent ones like the first Snail Mail-EP, 2nd Grade, Ex-Vöid, Wednesday and Barlow / Ex Pilots.

This unconventional approach of yours goes beyond music, but concerns your very “being an artist” and your relationship with the public. For example, when I bought one of your records on Bandcamp, I was surprised by the fact that I received a message from you immediately afterwards, right on that platform, which is not designed to be primarily social, but has a lot of potential to rethink the relationships between those who make music and those who consume it today.

Relating to being superhappy about people actually liking my music I have made a point personally thanking everyone who has payed money for my music on bandcamp. Always trying to look up what they listen to, if we have favourite bands in common, where they come from and writing them something uniqe based on that… It might seem stalker-ish but my intent is to make them feel seen aswell, as I have felt when they wasted money on my crappy, sloppy, budget music. This has become tricker with the Subjangle-release though as my compilation can be bought as part of a 4 album bundle and I don’t want to be presumptious and assume that people wanted my release specifically out of the four ones.