The Brain Behind the Storm

A CITY PAPER interview with the leader singer of the Latvian band BrainStorm, Renars Kaupers.

More than one local band has dreamed about it, but virtually none has actually succeeded in breaking into pop music markets beyond Baltic borders—except, that is, Latvia’s BrainStorm. In recent years, it’s had a string of hits, including My Star and Maybe, which was at or near No. 1 on charts from Sweden to Poland to Indonesia. Their admirers reportedly include REM’s Michael Stipe and Bob Dylan. And they were recently the warm-up band for no less than Depeche Mode and The Cranberries.

The heart and soul (the brain) behind the Beatlesque band is their lanky, mop-topped lead singer Renars Kaupers. “I’m on my windowsill, my legs dangling on the roof,” he explained as CITY PAPER interviewed him recently by telephone. One on one, the 27-year-old displays the same carefree, fun-loving air that’s helped make the group a hit.

BrainStorm’s first big break came in 2000 when it represented Latvia at the Eurovision Song Contest finals in Israel. They came in third, but critics heralded them as the best entrant in the competition. “They were the cream of the contest,” said Jonathan King, editor of the London-based music industry newspaper Tip Sheet. “They enjoy themselves, they smile on stage, and the lead singer has such charisma, such star quality.” He likened Kaupers—dubbed spaghetti legs for his trademark wobbly prance on stage—to “a younger, prettier Beck,” the American alternative-rocker.

CITY PAPER: How big a boost to your career was Eurovision in 2000?
It was a great boost. Without Eurovision, it would have been hard to make our first breakthrough. Two years before, we’d tried to make it farther West, but were unsuccessful—totally. We did some clubs in Western Europe before Eurovision. But comparing before and after Eurovision is like comparing a fly to an elephant.

CITY PAPER: There are music industry people who deride Eurovision. Do you feel pressure to downplay its role in your career?
No, not at all. I mean, who cares that British pop star Robbie Williams was in the boy band Take That. People remember that link for a while. But if you prove you’re a real artist, then no body will care where you came from—from Take That or Eurovision or wherever.

CITY PAPER: What do you think it is people like about your music?
I think it’s a strange kind of happy sadness in our songs. You know, when people ask what inspired us, we often listed lots of bands with big names. But lately, I’ve been thinking that the beginning of our inspiration was music from mostly Russian-produced cartoons that were shown in Latvia when we were kids. I got a CD of some of those songs recently and have been listening. Those cartoon writers during the Soviet era wrote great songs! They had that kind of sad, kind of happy quality—like our music.
I’m glad we grew up with this music and not with soundtracks to Pokemon. I don’t find the soul in most songs today. There’s more money than soul in them.

CITY PAPER: Some say BrainStorm has a Beatles sound. Did they influence you early on?
Until I was 14, I wasn’t much interested in music. But in 1988, I heard the Depeche Mode album, Music for the Masses. That was the first time I thought, ‘Wow, this is something!’ It sounded so different from everything I’d heard. From that moment, I started to enjoy and understand music more. But the Beatles are definitely among those bands that influenced us.

CITY PAPER: As far as making it abroad, are there any advantages in being from a small country some people may not have heard of?
At the beginning, we thought it was mainly a disadvantage. People somehow don’t believe in things they don’t know. If they don’t know something, if they don’t know where you’re from, they’re suspicious. But now we see that it’s okay. Anyway, our country not being known is a great opportunity for us to carry Latvia’s name to the world. Every concert or festival we go to, we are usually the first people from Latvia to take part. So it’s a chance to tell people about our country for the first time. It’s nice to be able to break some of the stereotypes about Latvia and Latvians.

CITY PAPER: Do you think more Baltic bands will make it abroad in the future?
It will always be extremely hard. Only if you’re lucky enough to have a kind of trampoline, like Eurovision, can you break through. It’s often a question of money. It’s so expensive for record companies to promote new bands and many have been losing more and more money.
At the same time, the Baltics and the whole of Eastern Europe have potential. I think when it comes to pop music, Western Europe is, well, a little tired of themselves. The East can inject some fresh blood into the scene.

CITY PAPER: There’s been talk that you might be one of the TV hosts for the Eurovision final in Riga in 2003, and that the co-host could be Marija Naumova, who won the contest in Tallinn this year. Could this happen?
Yes. I have had some talks with the Eurovision organizers about this and I am positive about it. I would be happy to put on a good show with Marija. It’s not 100 percent, but I think it will happen, yes. (Editor’s Note: Several months after this interview, Kaupers and Naumova were selected as the 2003 Eurovision hosts.)

CITY PAPER: You’re quite positive. It’s not just a crazy idea out there.
It’s not a crazy idea. Latvia hosting the Eurovision finals is also a possibility to change something in this contest, to make it more exciting. Everything’s in your hands, nobody will push you to do something very stereotypical. You can add some new blood to Eurovision.
I think people who vote for the songs in the local contest should be open-minded too. Most times, people think when they vote, ‘I think this song fits for Eurovision and this might not fit for Eurovision. But I think if people would be more open-minded, the contest would be more interesting. Now you can predict the kinds of songs that will appear. Most songs sound like typical Eurovision songs. But maybe times are changing.

CITY PAPER: What are your future goals? Will you strive to make it in the U.S. and Britain?
Oh, that’s the hardest thing—Britain and America. But we never lose hope. We never doubted we would make it this far; the question was when.
At the same time, we don’t worry about whether we will break into the U.S. and British markets. It has to be done in a logical way. An American producer several years ago told us to first make it big in Latvia, then spread your popularity nearby like a spider’s web. That means Lithuania, Estonia, Finland, Sweden, Poland…. Now I look at a map and see he was right. We are spreading the net farther and farther. It’s still some way to England, though, and still farther to America.

CITY PAPER: Will it be important to you later in life that you did or didn’t make it big in the U.S. and UK?
When we were teens, we would have said we wanted to be big everywhere. Now, we’re enjoying life. We don’t think as much about conquering the world. You can’t force it. If it happens, it happens.

BrainStorm’s official site is at www.brainstorm.lv