I have decided to start doing interviews on my blog, something I have not done for ages, since back in the day of my old Kentucky Fried Afterbirth zine. First up here's a little chat with those hungry, hungry (for human flesh) hippos of Symphonic Black Metal band Bofo Kwo. This trio of terrible, teeth-gnashing trouble-makers formed in 2014 and released their debut EP "Legends of a Cannibal King" in 2017.
Click 'Play' on the player and give it a listen as you read on....
OK so I am talking to Bofo Kwo, please give me an introduction to yourselves and explain what is Bofo Kwo and should people rub special ointment on to protect themselves from it?
Ted:
I'm Bofo Kwo I scream n growl. Bofo Kwo is also the name of the band. There is no use using protection when listening to Bofo Kwo as science does not really work. We think peoples should just roll with it.
Kimmo:
I’m Wamufo. I make background noises when Bofo Kwo needs to breathe.
No ointment is going to work. We prefer amputation as a cure.
Ted:
We can take the spare parts if they needed to get rid of
Kimmo:
Limbs make the best roast.
So you are a band of cannibalistic killers, is that correct?
Ted:
Yes; it is a story about a cannibal tribe travelling the universe on various adventures. The next single takes place on another world.
I think we are getting ahead of ourselves, what has happened so far in the world of Bofo Kwo? When did the cannibal clique get together and how?
Kimmo:
I’ll let Bofo Kwo answer this as my self inflicted Amnesia is acting up again.
Ted:
The first EP tells the story how Bofo Kwo slaughters the villagers of an Island on Earth and collect their souls by consuming their flesh. When he raid the island he finds two albino twins Bomari & Wamfufo. A guy and a girl he brings them on his journey and together they live out the adventures through out the universe and collects the souls of living creatures by consuming them.
The first EP tells the story how Bofo Kwo slaughters the villagers of an Island on Earth and collect their souls by consuming their flesh. When he raid the island he finds two albino twins Bomari & Wamfufo. A guy and a girl he brings them on his journey and together they live out the adventures through out the universe and collects the souls of living creatures by consuming them.
OK so when you are not eating people you are recording music and have one EP available so far. Tell us about that release please.
Ted:
Ted:
Kimmo. I wrote some of the riffs but the music is Kimmo's expertize
Kimmo:
Yeah. Ted sent me riffs, ideas etc and I played around with those and built songs out of them. Then we send the demos back n forth until we were happy. 🤔 that’s more or less how the ep was done.
The players behind the characters don't live on an island or even in a space ship but are divided by an ocean aren't you? How did you manage to put the EP together? Have you actually ever all been in the same room together to record? Also how did you get together as a unit in the 1st place?
Kimmo:
Yeah. 😄
Ted:
I can take this one
Kimmo:
👍
You go girl!
Ted:
They travelled from the island via a portal, and that is how they get around the universe. They set up camp whenever they need. We have been in the same room recording and writing but the the EP is primarily recorded by Kimmo, except for mine and Jannes vocals. We met in Amsterdam and have played in bands together since. Right now we play in 3 different bands together so Kimmo travels for live shows etc. When we met both played in different bands I think it was 2011. Since then we done various project together but Bofo Kwo is probably the longest running. All three members live in 3 different places, Janne who plays Bomari lives in Bodö, Norway; Kimmo lives in Helsinki, and myself although Swedish lives in Haarlem close to Amsterdam.
OK cool you can tell I did sod all research and just trusted to my crap memory, I thought one of you was in America for some reason. So with the band stretched out far and wide have you had or are you planning to do some live gigs?
Ted:
Yes. We plan to start playing live next year but no dates are official. Most probably announcements will come late this year. In the meantime we are planning the live show format and stage props.
C'mon guys, live show, stage props, you have to elaborate on that some. What are you planning?
Ted:
We are hoping to create a stage image of a mix of forest tribe style and Sci Fi, both Physical for shows that has the space and Digital for shows that does clean Digital screens but it is all very much up for discussion and planning for it just started.
OK tell us more about the EP, it has a bit of a concept going on I believe, tell us about that and what influenced it. Isn't it from a book or short story, is that actually for sale somewhere?
Ted:
The concept is based on a novel written by me, it is an ongoing story about the Cannibal KING, which will have way more chapters than the original four. The E-book will be available for download next year when we release our 2 new singles. For now the 4 chapters can be requested via PM on our sites or email to our Management as a booklet. We will expand this book when we release new material early next year. I would call it an Ongoing Epic Book, comparable to the Bible 😉, or even an Ongoing Epic Tale.
Song Nr 1 - "Enduring the Smell of Burning flesh".
This is the beginning of the tale where Bofo Kwo starts at his home Island and plunders the village, kills all the people and consume their flesh
Song Nr2 - "Son of Hatred"
When Bofo Kwo slays all the people in one of the villages he finds a cave where he finds 2 albino Twins, Wamufo and Bomari,
Son of Hatred tells the story of Wamufo and how he joins Bofo Kwo
Song Nr 3 - "Black Unicorn"
This tells the Story of Wamufo's sister Bomari, (Played by Janne Winther), how she joins her first hunt with Bofo Kwo and Wamufo and consumes her first flesh.
Song Nr 4 - "Taste the Violence"
It describes the final battle where they slay all living creatures on the Island and then travels to another world out in space via a Portal.
Kimmo:
Not really much to add. I’d call it a telenovella but no tv and we’re not latino. 😕 I let ted write out his cannibal and monarch fantasies, so he handles the text-type stuff for bfk.
Not really much to add. I’d call it a telenovella but no tv and we’re not latino. 😕 I let ted write out his cannibal and monarch fantasies, so he handles the text-type stuff for bfk.
It's hard to work out the style you are going for is it Horror, is it Sci-fi? I did a 'Gods' themed show a while back on my podcast and this reads kind of like a Universe origin story. Like a cannibal tribe shaman talking about their creation myth. If it goes on to match that style it will need incest and the albino twins to kill and/or castrate Bofo Kwo and to toss his balls in the sea and all life gestates from his castrated cajones!! Is this your 1st fiction? Was it written expressly to create a band from or did the band start and you thought, "hey let's base it on this book I am writing"
Ted:
The idea was to combine the original tribe with Sci Fi influences but as I progressed it became more about Bofo Kwo initiating Wamufo and Bomari in Cannibalism, at a certain point they ran out of Victims and Consuming of the souls allowed them to travel through the Universe, you never know if Bomari and Wamufo will betray Bofo Kwo in the end.
The story was written just a few weeks before we decided to start a Metal band I just asked Kimmo if he liked the idea of having the lyrics based on the story, but it was never my intent that it would end up shaping the band image like it did. but we feel the story goes well with the landscapes we try to create musically.
It is my first story that I have taken public, in the past I have only written short stories, poems and lyrics for various music. This was my attempt to write something much stranger than I usually do and to get more into Fiction and Fantasy.
Is it horror though, is it gory, the subject matter is but I wondered if the style was. Musically you play Symphonic Black Metal but this style/concept seems more fitting for a Death Metal or Goregrind kind of band. How does the lyrical content sit with the Symphonic BM style? Are the cannibals trudging through wintery forests carrying medieval weapons?
Ted:
The concept is a fluent gore and Fantasy, as horror in a classical sense is not a huge part of it. The characters will find both weapons and tools but it will always have focus on describing the landscapes and loads of violence. The landscapes and planets they visit will be a complete fiction of my Imagination. So story wise it does not go completely with the traditional Black Metal bands but musically is another story. The problem for us is that musically we don't sit in either Black Metal, Death Metal or Symphonic Metal, we have a mix and a lot of Grunge and Rock influences, the reason we call it Symphonic Black Metal is mainly due to musically we land closer to Behemoth, Dimmu Borgir and Satyricon than for example Soilwork and In Flames. It could be that we change the description on our music in the future but for now we all agree, including management and the label that this is the best way to describe. Mine and Kimmo's goal with our music and concepts is to bring something new into the music world,. and don't make it obvious which genre we are influenced of. The goal is obviously to be mentioned in the History books for inventing a new influential Genre, as Messugah did with Djent. In the future when someone listens to Black Metal, Grunge influenced Symphonic metal with influences from Grunge and Alternative Rock, we think people will reference Bofo Kwo.
Where do the names of the band members come from? Are they all invention or do they come from somewhere else?
Ted:
I was invited to a dinner party at Unknown Entity. After dinner we watched a Documentary about a British dude living in an Island with a Cannibal tribe of 3 people. These were real cannibals and they were living in a Tree house, their names was Wamufo, Bofo Kwo and Bomari and Bofo Kwo was the tribe leader.
So they are based on real life modern cannibals in a remote area of the world
Was this in modern day or historically? I'd love it if these cannibals heard about your band and made their own band using your names! If they did make a band called Ted Egger or Kimmo Lindholm what would they be singing about? (Also what is Unknown Entity?)
Kimmo:
They’d probably be signing about the hardships of getting off the couch and how it’s awful that around when you turn 35 your mom stops paying your bills. Also about the misery of people not being interested in your favourite dinosaur. 
Ted:
It is sometime between 2006-2009. The reason we chose to imitate them was that they were not as likely to sue us as Lil Pump or Ariana Grande. However I do like the idea that they are inspired of our lives; But I guess singing about Kimmo waking up on my couch being washed by my cats, while putting on a pot of Nescafe while setting up the sound card in his Pyjamas would be pretty inspiring.
Kimmo:
Unknown Entity is secret code for lonely Netflix?
Ted:
We have chosen a legally and Gender neutral description (Unknown Entity) because it is scared the real Cannibals finds it tasty. Can it be both?
Kimmo:
Sure, the code is all!
Ted:
OK, then we agree.
So what is your favourite dinosaur and why? In your sci-fi, horror, fantasy Bofo Kwo book odyssey will your protagonists ever be riding dinosaurs into battle at any point?
Ted:
I dunno anything about dinosaurs to me they look like Weird Cats.
Kimmo:
Sure! I'm gonna have to say the mighty T-rex (it might not be the most original answer, but i just spent 15months hearing about it’s greatness compared to just about anything. According to my 3yo expert a T-Rex can eat whatever. Buildings, ships etc. but apparently not any vegetables.)but a megalodon comes in close second! Cause 20m white shark lurking in the deep sea is terrifying. 
(it might not be the most original answer, but i just spent 15months hearing about it’s greatness compared to just about anything. According to my 3yo expert a T-Rex can eat whatever. Buildings, ships etc. but apparently not any vegetables.)but a megalodon comes in close second! Cause 20m white shark lurking in the deep sea is terrifying.
Ted is the head of imagination adventure-department so he’ll decide about adventures in land before time.
Ted:
So I guess it was just decided that Kimmos character Wamufo will be riding a T-Rex at some point, maybe somewhere close to Uranus...the Future story of Bofo Kwo is undecided so all these little suggestions will be taken into account when the next 4 chapters gets created...
Kimmo:
I have filed your answer and it will be sent to Cardani&Cardani at law for further investigation.
Janne:
Hi guys! My favourite dinosaur is the pterosaurs 
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Right we pause the interview for now and turn it over to the readers. Any fans interested, this is an "interactive interview", do you have any questions you wish to ask the band? Post them in the comments and I will put them to the band and update this interview!!
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Connect with the band online via
Bandcamp
Facebook
iTunes
Spotify
YouTube
 |
| A possible future picture of Kimmo "Wamofo" riding into battle! |
Right we pause the interview for now and turn it over to the readers. Any fans interested, this is an "interactive interview", do you have any questions you wish to ask the band? Post them in the comments and I will put them to the band and update this interview!!
**********************************************
Connect with the band online via
Bandcamp
iTunes
Spotify
YouTube
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