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Awdioblog: Have you played in Paris before?

Jeppe Kjellberg: Yes, I guess, I don’t even know how many times, like, past 10 now.. Social Club, Paris Paris a couple of Times

Tomas Barfod: Le Baron

JK: Are you sure?

TB: Yeh I’m sure, You were not with us at that time, we played in Le Baron

JK: and Le Triptyque, and there’s one more I forgot

TB maybe not ten but

JK yeh but some of them we played more than once

Awdio: So you have a French fan base?

TB we don’t even know actually

JK: and Club Pulp

Awdio: A long time ago then?

JK: Yah, that was fun!

TB I don’t know if we still have (a fan base) but we used to, it’s a while since we released the last album, but I guess there’s gonna be a fan base again.
I’m not sure that we’re going to pull a big crowd.

JK: Tonight?

TB: Yeh

JK: We’ll see

TB: There’s some places like Berlin and Barcelona, we go so often, so we always have a crowd. But I don’t know about Paris.

Awdio: Any memories that stick out with the Parisians?

TB: I guess er, it’s a memory but it’s mostly about you (Jeppe) and I wasn’t even there! But you have to tell it.

JK: It was at Paris Paris, we ended up there after playing a long tour, we had about ten gigs all over France. There was a lot of press, it was great, and the concert went well, we were a bit nervous before and it went really well, and after the show I was so enthusiastic that after the gig, I wanted to get back in on stage and the drum kit was kind of in a room behind the real stage, so there’s this little loft that I didn’t see, and I was standing on top of the drums hhherrr hello Paris, then jumping towards the stage but then slamming my head towards the ceiling and falling into the drums, and then bouncing all over in a movement like this, you can’t hear that on tape of course (rolls into the floor) and rolling all over the stage with the drums ending on my stomach and Kali the replacement drummer he’s just jumping on top of me and playing the bass drum on my stomach while I’m getting a head concussion! I was so angry with myself, and people thought it was on purpose!

Awdio: How did you guys meet?

TB: Copenhagen is a fairly small city, so we knew each other from different environments, and me just talked about it, in when was that? In 2003? We thought it would be fun to make this kind of DJ concept of a live trio. And then we sort of just made a quick session in Thomas’ studio and sent it to Gomma records in Germany and they instantly loved it.

Awdio: So that was it? The first label you sent something to?

TB: Yeh

JK: Actually, I think we sent to maybe like 7 labels and a lot of them came back, so we did something right. But we wanted to be with Gomma, they were the coolest label.

Awdio: So do you think it was something to do with timing? You were doing the right thing at the right time?

TB: Yeh, definitely.

JK: When we started doing this disco combination with club and doing live music that you could dance to, there was only a few other people doing it, like DFA and Rapture. Not so many else.

Awdio: I suppose people were just getting really bored with watching DJs play onstage.

TB: So, it kind of hit right on the spot, and then we found a really good live you know that really worked for the dance floor. We had a good team together. So I guessed we played a couple of gigs in Copenhagen, we played a gig in Munich and then we had a pretty good live set.

JK: and started touring all over Europe

TB: Pretty fast

Awdio: People really seem to be looking for something more vibrant on stage, that seems to be the direction at the moment, is that what the skeleton costumes is about?

JK: We also know the Indie scene where everything is very cool and you’re really aware of yourself and how you pose and the way you dress and the way your hair is and all this, and we wanted to just do something a bit crazy so that you can get away from that energy and just like let loose, and you can see the band are freaking out in strange costumes, and the audience are just like, aw Jesus Christ that’s fucked up, aw let’s just have a ball.

Awdio: What bands do you admire from the past who you’ve thought, yeh they’re doing what we’d like to do?

TB: I don’t know if I admire George Clinton

JK: I was thinking about that too, but I don’t really admire them.

TB: but I guess it’s hard because if you do too much silly stuff, you’re only going to be the clown band, so that’s kind of dangerous, so also we started doing a cover version of Satisfaction, and that was the first hit from us, and also I guess still the biggest one. It could be a very tough start for a long lasting career, but I guess it’s going well because the people that hear the album, they respect it and they see that we can do something else.

JK: And they realize it’s not all about the cover music, it’s 3 live human beings, doing their own thing.

TB: I guess it’s a very strong graphic expression, when you see the picture, you remember it, not like some guys in some clothes that a lot of people are also wearing. Maybe you don’t see what the name is underneath it but you remember the next time you see it.

Awdio: It’s funny because when I listen to your music I didn’t have that idea at all, its kind of quite

TB: Scandinavian kind of?

Awdio: It’s quite serious, I would never thought that you were crazy on stage. But then I saw the videos..

JK: yeh that’s a bit schizo, we are actually a bit different, doing recordings, it seems to work for us to be more sincere and go little bit deeper when we do the recordings, and the live show is just more vibrant and energetic. I guess we found out that it was more fun to play wild. In the studio it’s very hard to capture that.

TB: I guess about the costumes it was more of a coincidence, we almost stole it (them), we were doing an MTV show and they asked as to wear these skeleton costumes and then he gave us them afterwards. And that was how we got these.

Tomas Hoeffding joins us

Awdio: When you started out where you in different bands already or did you just learn to play together?

Tomas Hoeffding: No we played for many many years in own bands, so we were fully educated professional musicians.

Awdio: What kind of music were you each playing?

TB: For last 12/10 years I’ve been DJing and producing electronic (music), I used to play drums before, but I didn’t do for many years, and you could say I’m from the electronic club scene.

TH: I guess I’m mostly from the rock scene. I’m actually an educated bass player. I had a rock band and I’ve been a songwriter for many years. I always liked disco though but I never found any place where I could play the disco because normally in Denmark when you play the disco you just do it in a party band.

JK: I’ve been maybe more on the not too commercial side of the music business for a long time, I was into jazz and more experimental stuff, so that’s basically my background. My main direction has been a bit more off centre.

TH: I was playing in this rock band for many years and it was never very super inspiring.

Awdio: Next step, there’s an album coming out?

TB: 2nd of March

Awdio: Was that recorded in Denmark?

TB: Yeh, actually also in Australia, some of it. We had some spare time and a big apartment when we were touring there.

Awdio: What’s the story with Hot Chip?

TB: We toured with them, before, they were not even famous at that point. They were driving like a small car and we were driving in a small car. But then one year after they blew up and became very big and since them we’ve been meeting them and mailing them, and then we agreed to do a swap so we did a cover of them and they did a remix for us. They’re really cool guys.

Awdio: Why aren’t you living in Berlin like everyone else?

JK: Because everyone else is living in Berlin

TB: And it’s so cheap to go there from Copenhagen.

TH: I think also because all three of us have other stuff than Who Made Who going in. Of course I’m very curious. But our neighborhood is very good in Copenhagen, so a lot of the stuff we do and have fun with would take years to do in Berlin.

Awdio: What are you doing in Copenhagen?

TH: Just playing with other people, making records, I’m co-writing with people, playing bass in other groups.

JK: Drinking with people, most important.

TB: I don’t have time to play with them but I still drink with them.

TH: I think it’s nice to live in Copenhagen, as it might happen that if you move to Berlin there’s bands like us around every corner, and I think in a way, sometimes if you stay in a small less popular part of the world then you maybe have more freedom to develop yourself.

JK: I think it’s an old school way to think about it because today you have Myspace, you have Youtube, you have everything, you know you get inspired..

TH: You’re right.

JK: And our career is not based in Denmark, it’s based all over Europe!

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Tags: awdio, Denmark, gomma, interview, Social Club, whomadewho

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 10th, 2008 at 6:34 pm and is filed under Interviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.