Mads Langer - Interview

I have to say, speaking with Danish singer-songwriter Mads Langer just before his gig at Nottingham's Rock City was an absolute pleasure. Despite a technical hitch with the tour bus, Mads and his tour manager (Phil) turn up on time, both looking remarkably unphased and awake. To my surprise Mads is more then happy to do the interview right away having literally just arrived at the venue, so we shuffle along to what was once called the rig, and we start the interview.

Obvious first question, but, how is the tour going and what have been the highlights and / or challenges?

Yeah, so tonight is the third show of "The Feeling Tour", and the first one was a little bit shaky, because basically as support band you only really get to sound check after the main act, and, it's always like that on the first show, because understandably the main act want to sound check a lot to make sure everything is just so. So the first one was kind of shaky, but yesterday it was really really good. I was very pleased with the sound, my band, the audience were great, and everything went well.

When it comes to music you're quite a perfectionist, often revisiting songs with a fresh view, is there a danger of overdoing that, and do you ever involve others in that process.

Yes, some songwriters just sit down and try to write "the" twelve" songs for the album, and spend two years making those songs perfect, I'm more the songwriter who writes all the time. So basically I have 80 songs every time I'm starting to record a new album, and you know it's not that I have eighty good songs. Often I write five average songs, and then the sixth song is just there, and I can feel it (that that is the one), and that's sort of the way I write. I can't say there's not any of those songs that I don't use that might have something, those five songs I didn't use that weren't good enough for the album, but there might be a great chorus in there. So it's a plan I have, and something I haven't done yet, I'm always too busy to get it done, but I would love to go back through my back catalogue of songs, and try to see if there's anything there.

Maybe follow in Queen's footsteps with Bohemian Rhapsody?

(laughs), yeah, that would be interesting! Yeah I'd love to do that!

You did that fantastic cover of "Olive's" song, "You're Not Alone", what drew you to that particular song?"

You know, since I've written more then 250 songs, it was something of a paradox to do a cover, but I did it because I was out of money, and I had moved to London and I was looking to get a record deal. A radio DJ wanted me to do a soundtrack for his program about the nineties, and I said yes (because of the need for money), and more then that, I thought it would be a fun challenge to do. Then I went through these compilations of 90's dance tracks, and immediately as I heard "You're Not Alone", I was like "Oh yeah, I remember that song", it was special. It was something else then the rest, because if you listen through the production, it's actually a really good song, the melody is beautiful, and the lyrics, quite simple but still very strong. So I felt that I just had to do this one, and basically I didn't spend more then three hours in the studio. You know, just, this is how it goes, and then just recorded it, spent three hours and didn't think anymore about it, and went back to London, and shortly after actually I got my record deal with Sony, and of course they didn't know about the recording. So I had this phone call from Sony saying "Have you made a cover song of a nineties dance track?", and I was like, "I guess I did, just before we signed", and they said "It's number one in Italy", and I said "Wow!! Really!?" as it totally took me by surprise! Well, as I said earlier a bit of a paradox, you could say though that both of those paths have now come together though, and it made it onto the album too, and has created a platform I could have never dreamt of.

You have quite an eclectic taste in music anyway though, you were in a cover band when you were younger, for……

Yeah that's right, Rage Against The Machine, I was singing in that one. And I'm a Jazz trained piano player too. I just love music. And you know, Stevie Wonder basically taught me to sing, I was a big fan as a child. So I thought that when I started to write music properly, I thought I was going to be writing soul music. Once I started writing though, it was more "singer/songwriter" in the style I have now.

Have you found that countries have certain musical trends, and as a result react slightly different to your music?

The thing is, the singer / songwriter genre is kind of timeless. Yeah there might be up's and down's like anything, in terms of being in the media etc, but there's always going to be a need of good songs put out in a simple way. If you listen to commercial radio, like let's say "Capital", they have thirty songs that sound exactly the same. But the good thing is that most countries have both "sides", like BBC Radio One, but then BBC Radio Two which has a bit more about music and not about "pop stars". And the interesting bit about being an international act, is that you can see the local acts across the world, and see the difference between them, because obviously a German Rock sounds quite different an American or English Rock band, or even a Turkish Rock band, it's kind of an experience, but inspiring at the same time.

You had said before that you had an experience with a previous record label who had unrealistic expectations, do you think record labels are struggling to get to grips with the modern music scene etc?

I think basically what's happening is a really good and healthy thing, they (for the most part) have finally figured out that they actually have to be really about music if they want to survive, and they have to play the ball game where music decides the future, and not you know, the people behind the desk who want to make an instant quick profit just like that, but they have to invest more in careers. I think in some ways they have had to take a step back to be honest, and have realized how the industry has changed. They're going to have to reinvent themselves in some cases, and I think it's extremely interesting to be a part of what is almost a new industry, because that's what is happening right now. In many ways I think that artists have taken some power back, with X Factor it's a different story, but I don't see myself as part of that.

You said it, X Factor, not me! What's your take on all of that?

Well I'm kind of mixed on that because it is good entertainment and it does put music on television like every Friday night or whatever, which is good I guess, because the artists who's songs are being covered reach a huge audience. But, I don't see the X Factor winners as initially being artists to be honest, that's not saying they could develop later on, but at first, not really. I do understand that if someone has been struggling all their life in being seen, and it just hasn't happened for them, I can understand why you try to audition for X Factor. I suppose time will really tell if the winners of X Factor (and similar) will have long term careers, and if they did manage to do that, then yes I would respect that.

Sort of following on from that, it can be a bit too easy to get carried away, especially when you have record labels, management etc giving you a certain message, how do you regain your focus and grounding if that happens? What things put it all back into perspective?

To me, music has always been my life, ever since I could walk. If I wasn't such a pure musician I would probably have stopped and started in education or something like that, because I got sick and tired of it at one point, with music basically. And you know, it's when you start hating what you love the most that you realize "Oh my god, something is wrong here", so what I basically did, I lived in New York at that time, and I basically I just moved back to the countryside in Denmark, moved back in with my parents for three months, and you know, slowly realized just how far away I was from the days where I sat and played for 5 hours a day, at the Grand Piano. So I bought an old car and just went on the road, and started writing songs again…

And that would have been that old 1987 VW Polo! Have you still got it!?

(Laughs) Oh my god no, it died after that tour! It broke down like five times in Europe, but it did live through that (Laughs).

My colleague and I are fans of a chap called Ginger, who's in a band called The Wildhearts, and recently he's been doing a "Pledging / crowd sourcing" project where people can pledge £20 towards producing an album…

I think all kinds of ways to be creative in terms of making it becoming a more lucrative industry again are very welcome, and actually that sounds like a brilliant idea. I guess that this might happen more in the future. I used to be on an indie label, before I signed to Sony, and I can really feel the difference, once a major label puts their weight behind an album / artist, you can really feel the difference. But yes, I think it's great that they have the opportunity to make / generate money for something they really believe in, which used to be impossible without a record label behind you. And of course the Wildhearts did have a record deal and have had the chance to build a fan base, so yeah, why not. Yeah that's pretty cool.

And final question, how did the guitar shopping go?

Ah, yes. Well, whenever I visit a new country I try to find the best guitar shops, but I was in Stockholm, and to be fair, it was a little bit too expensive, but they had some very good stuff in stock. America I find is still the cheapest and best place to shop for guitars I think. Unless, do you have any good tips for me?

Well there is Tommy from Slaves To Gravity (another great band we've interviewed this year) and he works in a guitar shop in Denmark Street in London…

Oh yeah, I know Denmark Street very well! But it's still insanely expensive as well. They gave really good guitars, some beautiful guitars, like the best stuff, but yeah, it's still a little too expensive!

Actually I raided Ebay and got lucky with a Jackson Kelly for £80

Oh my god, wow, that's actually pretty good! You know I bought my favourite guitar in a café in Williamsburg in New York. This guy sat next to me, and I saw this really old guitar case, and I just asked, because I was shopping for guitars that day (laughs), so I just asked him what it was, and he said it was his old guitar that he was selling because he couldn't afford his rent. It was a Gibson LG2 from 1959 and I had it for a good price, actually a really good price. It's my recording guitar, and my songwriting guitar.

Do you go for a certain brand of guitar?

Yeah, I tend to stick to Gibson and Martin, or Fenders when I'm looking at Electrics. But I do have some custom made guitars too, ones I've designed myself, with a guitar builder. There's this great guy who lives in the countryside in Denmark, but he's such a fantastic specialist, and he knows everything about building guitars. So he basically went to Canada and bought some Maple which was really really old, and took it back to his place, and sort of buried it in special kind of, well, it was in the ground, all part of a traditional process that he knew, and it was there for two years, so that it had matured. And then there's this machine that kind of shakes it, and it's been an amazingly interesting process to sort of build your own guitar with him. And those guitars were just for me too.

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After the interview, I waited so I could catch Mads' performance in his support slot for "The Feeling", and this is the shocker. It's widely recognised that he has got a very good voice, but when he's performing live you suddenly appreciate the real power behind it, a truly gifted singer, so much so, I decided to head to the merch store to see if I could pick up a copy of his album. Alas, no joy, only T-Shirts available. At this point, slightly disappointed, I make my way out of Rock City and catch up with Mads just to tell him what I thought of his show. We chatted a bit about his love of Snowboarding amongst other things, and when he finds out that I wanted a copy of his CD, he very kindly offers me his very own copy. It's not often you meet a musician of this calibre that makes those sort of gestures! All in all he's a lovely guy, very talented, and it's easy to see why he's building up such a great fan base.

To find out more about the awesome Mads Langer you can visit his Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/madslanger