Thomas Høffding ist eigentlich bassspielendes und singendes Mitglied bei der dänischen Disko-Band WhoMadeWho. Nun startet er als Bon Homme seine erstes Solo. Enstanden ist das Debütalbum in seinem eigenen Studio in Kopenhagen und unterwegs auf der Straße. Ab Oktober können wir uns dann auf den Release freuen. Wer nicht warten kann geht zu myspace.
You had a concert yesterday…!?
Yes
How was it?
It was okay, but everybody went to see Die Antwoord.
Oh yeah, I didn’t even know it was the same concert.
…different rooms. So they kind of left in the middle.
Who are your role models in music?
There are so many… David Bowie is pretty cool, he has survived many years of evolving and exploring new things. And John Lennon, he is my biggest singer-/ songwriter- hero. These days I am very inspired by Sebastien Tellier, when I heard his album „Sexuality” it made like (Finger schnipsen).
What were your first experiences in music?
I am a bass player. But I played all instruments, I started with a harmonica, when I was twelve, I’ve got a guitar and played piano and then I’ve got a bass and I think, bass is what I am best at.
This is what you play with WhoMade- Who?!
Basically I’m a singer and bass player. I also made 30 Schlager songs on my harmonica (lacht). But then, the last six years, I actually stopped writing songs on my guitar, I was very excited about the work as a producer. When you write a song on your guitar, you make a song, rehearse it with your band and record it – as a producer, you start with the recording…
How is your work flow when you write songs?
I think my own texts suck (lacht). So I have some people in Denmark writing texts for me. Normally, I make a jamsession: I hook up my keyboard, my drum machine and I just have fun in my studio and record whatever comes out – then I listen to it and think: I have a melody! And I pick up some lyrics from my helpers and I start singing…
What programs do you use?
Logic, and then for live, I use Ableton Live. My live show is really fun for me. I use Ableton and a control – so manly, I loop a lot: My vocal, the synth. I also altered a feathery instrument – I have a lot of fun developing it as a live instrument: So I put it in a box, and I have my controller… That I do all live – it fucks up a lot but also I think it’s nice, because I don’t want to be a f*cking laptop-playback-dumb. So sometimes it’s really good and sometimes it’s bizarre.
What instrument is it, you want to develop?
It’s like a pitch: You play it in the air, then you have the volume here and the pitch there (zeigt mit Händen in die Luft), a Sowjet instrument from the early 19th century, made for classical music. You have two outputs – I’m trying to built a box, that translates this medieval sound into a modern one.
What else do you have, like instruments?
When I get a bigger concert, I could have a lot of stuff on stage. It’s my dream, to really open my live sets… I’m always developing and programming and figuring out new funny stuff to do with it. So maybe for the audience, they just see a guy with a bald head, doing strange stuff. But for me it’s like being fortunate again, to learn new instruments.
Let’s talk about Good Boy! Creative, the film crew, that’s been hosting you since WhoMadeWho, known for their controversial videos ..!
Yes, these guys are really cool (…) I like the points, they make, e.g.: ‘Music flowing free like water!’, that’s one of my big issues – you shouldn’t tell my label but I think, releasing music, it’s such a bizarre situation – people say: „There’s the crisis and we don’t sell any records!” , but there is no crisis, I think music is doing better than ever before! I think the idea, that you have a small CD, that you pay 12€ for – that’s hilarious, even on iTunes, paying 10€ for an album, that’s also fucking stupid, because you can get exact the same thing for free. The way I see it: It’s an evolution. And yes, some recordlabel bosses they’ll lose their jobs but the music will get better. The money is gonna come from live concerts, because you can’t copy a live concert!
Interview Isabel Magritz & Moritz Stellmacher
Styling, Concept Production Haniball Saliba
Photographer Lars Borges
Hair, make-up Sofie Ühla using MAC
Links:
Sand
We
Drykorn
Theater Kunst
René Lezard
Herr von Eden
Sand
Stetson
Hugo Boss
G.Star
Camper
Haniball Saliba
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