Kohla’s Fantasy: Dress up, Andy Warhol, Personas, and Being Happy (interview)

A good song or a fascinating painting can stand by itself; it doesn’t need anything else to captivate an audience. But the pieces we take to our heart, share with others and let infiltrate our thoughts during downtime require something more. An artist with a story, who believes not only in what they do, but in why they do it, will always connect with an audience. We’re programmed to seek out things we like and love, so when we find them, they often mean more than the sum of their parts. 

‘Pop art is about liking things’, said Andy Warhol, and we like Kohla. SNACK caught up with the artist to discuss her second album, loneliness, love, personas and art projects.

When we spoke about Romance, your debut album, just before it came out, you said the biggest feeling you had at that time was relief. With Fantasy out in early November, what’s your biggest emotion this time?

It still feels like a weight has been lifted off, so it’s a relief. There’s so much that goes into a project like this, and it’s been a good couple of years putting everything together. So I’m just happy that it’s going to be out in the world and people can enjoy it. So I guess my feeling is happiness.

Romance, the title sounds really positive, but it was almost telling the story of romance as being sold to girls as a delusion. Can you tell us the story of Fantasy?

Part of it was that I quite liked how, thematically, romance and fantasy are genres of film and literature, so there’s a link there. And I think also, when you look at the lyrics of the album, living in a fantasy can also be a coping mechanism. It can make things feel more beautiful.

You’ve stated yourself it’s a time capsule of a period you’ve mostly blacked out. So why is this a story you need to tell at this point?

I write from my own experiences. That’s all I know how to do. At a time where I really wasn’t able to do very much – I was bedbound for some time because of my illness as well, and I wasn’t really able to socialise – what I had around me was my little home studio and my piano. So using that time in my life to actually just make music was something that I found healing.

Now that the album’s complete, does it give you a different kind of view of what you went through at the time?

I think so. I think it romanticises and makes things feel a little bit prettier than what they were. But I think it’s a lovely thing to make art out of your life, and sometimes it’s nice to look through things with rose-tinted glasses. Definitely more so than looking back and just feeling traumatised by that experience.

There’s songs about loneliness and falling in love. How do you get those to sit together?

It fell under the common theme of a fantasy, and falling in love and fantasising about someone was a coping mechanism for me going through my illness. So everything was so very connected.

You do your own artwork, and you’ve been making homemade videos as well. Do you also see a song?

Yeah. I think it probably goes back to me in art school, where I studied painting. I was a visual artist before doing Kohla and producing everything. So music and visuals are really hand-in-hand for me. The films that I cut up for the music videos were what I watched during my endometriosis surgery recovery. So everything is tied in.

I noticed in your social media posts you tag Lizzy Grant and Lana Del Rey. How easily do you separate Kohla from the everyday person that your friends and family know you as?

I would say that Kohla is a persona. It makes it more creative for me to write in, to heighten my experiences. I think she’s a cooler version of me. The visuals are so stylised with Kohla. I’m doing this interview in my pyjamas, and my big granny glasses. I would probably say I’m quite nerdy, and I like reading. I do a lot of research for every project that I do. So I think with all of the research and the hobbies that I have as Rachel, I can then create a wonderful, magical cocktail and produce Kohla from that.

You think maybe five, ten years down the line, the different things will come together and you’ll just be one person by that point?

I actually really enjoy having the two more separate. I love the dress-up for Kohla. I love the character she is, and it gives me more time to be experimental and creative. For each project as well, I take Kohla and I place her in a new era, a new time, a new surrounding. So for Fantasy, it was more like the 1800s. I was taking a lot of the visuals in Georgian cottages and that kind of thing.

Is there maybe an influence on you that would possibly surprise people?

My influences are just as much from visual art as they are from music. So I would take just as much from films like Little Women and Pride & Prejudice as I do from Frank Ocean. I’ve always said that my biggest artistic influence is Andy Warhol, for the way that he just changed culture and made the spectator think about themselves. So I think Kohla to me is more of an art project than even a music project.

Any message you’d like to leave with us?

I hope people enjoy it. I hope that, although it’s maybe a little bit different to a lot of the music out at the moment, they can still feel connected to it. Art should make people happy. If we ever start thinking making people happy is a bad goal in life, then we’ve taken a wrong turn.

Fantasy is out on 6th November

Main photo credit: Molly Thomson