Review Fix Exclusive: Ask Carol’s Ask T. Borgen Talks ‘Gonna Do It’ And More

Review Fix chats with Ask Carol’s Ask T. Borgen, who discusses the band’s origin, goals and plans for 2020.

Review Fix: How did the project start?

Ask T. Borgen: We, Ask and Carol, the two members of Ask Carol, became friends right after high school, when studying music in southern Norway. We were always talking about starting a band, but it would take about 7 years before we finally went through with the idea. The summer of 2015 we stayed at a cabin in the Norwegian mountains, with no electricity and no water, far away from people and civilization, only a few sheep outside the windows. That’s where our first songs were made, and where the seed to what would become Ask Carol started. One more year went by before we started for real, and Ask Carol was officially born, in 2016. Our first concert ever was at a small blues club in Seoul, South Korea, called Strange Fruit. At that point, Carol was already a somewhat known guitarist-for-hire in the Oslo music scene, and had never ever sung in front of people before, or at all for that matter. That’s why we wanted to try out our music and hold our first concerts far away from our hometown.

After thinking hard and long about the band name, with many pretty good suggestions, we ended up with the simple band name Ask Carol, the first names of our two members, Ask and Carol, put together. Ask is a real Norwegian name, coming from Norse Mythology, the Viking religion; Ask was the first human being, created by the God Odin, out of a piece of Ash-wood. You can read all about that story here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ask_and_Embla

Review Fix: What’s your creative process like?

Borgen: We write songs together, and we also produce together. More often than not, they tend to be about going your own way and doing things without caring what others think, the haters and stuff. Usually, we don’t think too much about exactly what the songs should be about, and instead let it come to us naturally.

Review Fix: What’s your standout song? How was it written?

Borgen: One of our first songs, which has become kind of our theme song, is «Gonna Do It». It’s not necessarily our best song, but up until now, it has always been the last song in our live set. It was also the first song we released ever, and the first we ever wrote together. It was an idea Carol for a chorus, and a guitar riff idea from Ask, put together, and through a lot of changes it ended up being «Gonna Do It». That was our thoughts at the time, and it still is.

Review Fix: What are your goals for 2020?

Borgen: Our main goals for 2020 is to 1) release our debut album, on both vinyl and CD (and of course digital) and 2) Do our first US tour.

Of course, we’re gonna do a lot of other stuff, but that’s our two big, and most important, goals.

Review Fix: How do you want your music to affect people?

Borgen: If our music could be on the soundtrack to people’s lives, mean something to them, help them through a difficult time. Make them forget the stress and worries of everyday life. That would make us happy.

Review Fix: What’s next?

Borgen: Next up is a short tour in the Philippines in February, and a new single to be released in Feb/March.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14230 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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