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You are one of those producers who releases -in a manner of speaking, of
course-7 records and a few remixes a week. Apart from a very disciplined character
you must have a voracious appetite for music. If we look at your past
trajectory, you've already toyed with jazzy deep house, discofilter, so-called click-techno,
tech house, vocal tracks in the Chicago/NY tradition, downbeat, Detroit Techno, Daft
Punk style funky stuff, percussive minimal techno, electro, Latin vibes and I
forget a few. I've read you even had a Swedish popstar career with a hiphop band.
Somewhere on the net I encountered a list with your influences: it was
endless. Is that versatility the essence of Håkan Lidbo's music?
"As I work in a pretty OK electronic studio and know my equipment well
-as I've had
my own studio for 12 years- I think that I can make almost any sort of music
there is.
The sampler has always been my favourite tool in the studio and with such a
machine
you can do literally everything. And I've made everything from obscure
ambient to
straight up pop, from experimental ballet music to cheesy disco. I look at
the music scene
today and find most mainstream music, the stuff you hear on the radio, very
very boring.
I think that pop never sounded as predictable and soul-less than today.
But at the same time there are amazing things happening on the underground
scene;
new styles are invented and the new software studios makes it possible to
process the sounds
into something that sounds like nothing on the planet. And if I hear a style
of music that is
truly innovative, I want to be a part of it. And I think that if you learn
to master many different musical styles, one day you might merge all those
influences into something new, a completely new style, and that's my
ultimate goal. I want to invent a new style of music.
Another reason for me making all sorts of different music is that I don't
come from a DJ background but am more of a musician, I played the piano
when I was a kid, I can read
a score and I know at least a little bit about harmonies. So I'm not limited
to build my tracks around samples, which doesn't mean that I don't use loads
of samples but I try to treat them
in a musical way and sometimes even with a bit of humour (which is an
extremely important element in dance music)."
Scandinavian house, techno and other beats are literally everywhere at
the moment.
Has it been there all the time or is it really something that boomed the
last few years?
"I think it's very much the "Bjorn Borg effect" - the tennis player who
won everything in the 70s, inspired so many kids to start playing and
created a generation of really good Swedish tennis players in the 80s and
90s. I think the success of people Cari Lekebusch and Adam Beyer inspired a
lot of Swedish producers to get into house and techno and they still do. But
right
now I think there's a new generation of producers that are maybe more
interesting even if they're not directly connected with the Swedish sound.
People like Tony Senghore, Laid, Martin Venetjoki and others make house and
techno with no respect for the history of dance music whatsoever - or
anything else for that matter. They mix everything that can be mixed and
come up with some sort of house with a fresh punk attitude."
Apart from your musical influences what can inspire you to dive in the
studio?
"My wife, ballet, movies, art: everything that is good in life really.
There are a lot of similarities between different art forms that is very
well expressed in music - things like rhythm, tempo, balance, relations,
chaos -so you can be very inspired to make music by looking at a painting,
seeing a film or watching a ballet. But most of the inspiration comes from
myself and my own music. I think there are different phases in every artists
life, whatever artform you're into; first you get inspired and influenced by
other artists and want to do as good as them, very often you simply just
copy (which is the best way to learn), then maybe you can seek inspiration
in nature or other art forms; but eventually, after many years, when you
found your own way of expressing yourself, you look into yourself for
inspiration, you copy yourself to take your art further. So at least 50-60%
of the time, I listen to my own music, just to try to figure out where I am
and where I'm heading."
A number of previously 'underground' house and techno artists are turning
into
genuine popstars at the moment. Would those kind of spotlights attract you?
Do you like
the way house and techno are on their way to being accepted as
mainstream?
"I don't think I would enjoy being a pop star, but I love pop music and
I have some sorts of
"pop" projects in the pipeline. I think it's a bigger challenge and maybe
even more important
to create a new pop sound than renewing the underground sound. Techno and
house are always looking for new directions and it will always find new
sounds, but the pop of today is terrible. The soul in the music is gone, the
message in pop music is more stupefying than ever, the artists are created
and marketed like products and they have absolutely nothing to say. I think
that
the quality of pop hasn't been as bad as it is today in quite a while. You
might think that the time between a new sound on the underground scene until
it becomes a mainstream sound should be shorter today, but I don't really
think so. It still takes 3-5 years for a trend to go from underground to
mainstream. Of course there are different levels of underground and
different levels of mainstream but what's really interesting is when Daft
Punk that really comes from the underground and used to be deeply respected
there market their music on the same level as a mainstream artist (but in a
much more sophisticated way). I also think that the underground slowly is
learning from the major record labels about the importance of marketing,
strategy and such things. Which is really good for the underground scene as
it is getting more professional and that's always good for the artists.
So if I ever get the chance to make music that ends up on the sales charts
as well as the club charts, I will take that very seriously and really try
to come up with something fresh. But this far
I haven't really had a big hit like that.
Underground music is extremely important because it's leading the way for
the more mainstream music. I would even say that house, techno, electronic
music in general, is the most important music there is today as it's
changing so rapidly - I would even say that it's one of the most important
art forms, not because it has anything special to say, no message, no
political impact, but because it's constantly changing and then leads the
way for all other art forms to change,
to follow the influences that the electronic music is the first to pick up
and express. And change
is essential for our civilisation, I think that the changes in culture very
often is changing people's way of thinking more than politics and science
ever can. So if you look at it that way, making house and techno could be
damn important, as long as you do it with a pure heart."
Is there behind all that versatility and influences something like a
Håkan Lidbo style of music?
"Maybe I have some elements that are significant for my way of
producing. I think that every person has his/her own library of melodies and
rhythms. I always loved basslines and strange drum sounds. Even when I make
pop melodies with vocals and lyrics, I often begin with a
bassline and then the rest of the melodies are built around it.
I'm looking for a sound that is organic and warm and I try to always make my
tracks uplifting
and lively, not dark and cold (a friend of mine who is some sort of Buddhist
once said that he didn't want to be re-incarnated as one of his bad songs.
He used to do quite dark trance but nowadays he's totally into beautiful
atmospheric stuff). Even my most minimal releases (like the album on
Pokerflat, the ep's on X-Trax, Fragile and Intrinsic Design) I think are
quite funky and happy. Some people that don't know underground music would
probably say that those tracks are dark and monotonous but if you listen
carefully, you'll find lots of small details and hopefully even an element
of humour."
Are there any artists or people at the moment that are inspiring you to
do things differently?
"The album that everyone hates; Daft Punk - Discovery, I think its
absolutely brilliant."
Is there a kind of musical style that you're really dying to try
out?
"Maybe not a specific style but I'd love to make the soundtrack to a
movie sometimes.
Some of my biggest musical inspirations are composers that did a lot of
soundtracks; Burt Bacharach, Lalo Schiffrin, John Barry, Ennio Morricone,
Henry Mancini, Quincy Jones."
Considering the amount of work you get done, the scope of labels for
which you release,
I would suspect that you take on things very professionally. Does being a
creative musician bring along responsibilities that you would have liked to
avoid? Or is the fun still the biggest part of it?
"The best part is always to make music but I enjoy corresponding with
people on other labels, other producers, remixers, publishers, DJs,
everything that comes along with running a company with the world as a
market. A few years ago I worked for one of the biggest independent
Scandinavian record labels and there I learned a lot about the business, but
most of all I learned how you shouldn't do business; on the big record
labels you're always signed exclusively as an artist which is terrible, to
me it would be like putting your creativity in prison, and the people on the
big labels only focus on sales, rarely quality, and they treat their artists
really bad unless they're big stars, take most of their money and they
almost never have a musical vision. So I took that experience and started to
make the music that I think is the most important and at the same time
started my company Container so I can control my own rights, both publishing
an masters.
I know that lots of underground producers don't have a clue what publishing
is and they lose a lot of money by not making sure that someone is
collecting the money that really belongs to them. And then it shows that
they have given away the rights for their tracks for life. I think you must
take your responsibility as an artist if you don't want to get cheated on
what belongs to you. And I think that more artists should think about these
matters a bit more before signing a contract."
What do you like best? Performing, Producing or Dj-ing?
I've been playing my live-set quite a bit this year and I really enjoy
travelling and meeting different people doing clubs all over the world,
people that are maybe even more important to the music scene than the
producers, as they are the ones that educate people to change their musical
taste. And being on stage and making the crown sweat is a great experience,
as I play a lot of stuff live when I perform, I very often get a really good
communication with the crowd and sometimes when you got the full attention
of everyone in the club, it's just unbelievable...
I've DJ'ed a few times but just on friend's parties, always very low key
places and always the warm-up hour, just because I'm not a very good DJ.
There are so many DJs that don't release records like I do, and they can't
get any jobs. So I don't DJ out of respect of those who really know how to
DJ.
But the studio is always where I feel most comfortable. I've had my own
studio for about 12 years now but I've never enjoyed making music more than
right now. I think that whatever you do it takes quite some time to really
learn the skill. To me the studio is like the saxophone for an improvising
jazz musician; I work very fast and intuitive, when I make house it's like a
jam-session with the studio. I make a beat, the studio gives me an idea
back, it's almost like the song is telling me what to do, I just have to be
focused and not think to much musical theory, just follow the flow,
disconnect the logic part brain and listen to the intuitive part. If you can
reach that level of control in the studio it's about the best thing you can
do. I've been doing this for many years but I still love it."
By the time this interview will be online there will be ten or so new
Håkan Lidbo's out. Is there any upcoming stuff that you are particularly
proud of and that you would like to know us about?
"There's a recent release on a new UK label called "Bad Girls Go To
Hell" - some journalist described it as grunge-step and maybe he's right.
It's two angry Swedish girls that sing quite funny lyrics about being a
woman. And there's a release on Moon Harbour, one of the finest deep house
labels around, one EP on Estereo which hold new mixes of a track I released
on Loaded earlier called "Walk away", remixes on artists like Rasoul,
Glasgow Gangster Funk, Fatboy Slim, Mikael Stavostrand... and I'm doing some
sort of pop/drum'n'bass project with a New York jungle MC called Z-MC which
is pretty cool."
http://www.kindamuzik.net/interview/hakan-lidbo/hakan-lidbo/876/
Meer Hakan Lidbo op KindaMuzik: http://www.kindamuzik.net/artiest/hakan-lidbo
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