+ BRONWYN THOMPSON

+ MARK RUBENSTEIN

+ BARBARA PROBST

+ FRANCESCA GRILLI

+ MICHAEL MARCELLE

+ GLYNNIS MCDARIS

+ JO GALVIN

+ JEROME ICARDO

+ PARANOID PARK

+ GHOSTWOOD

+ BY THE FIRESIDE

+ + + BRONWYN THOMPSON + + +
Interview by JASON LINGARD

www.ubergallery.com

click images to enlarge

economia, 2007, video stills. Single channel video with audio and room installation, 4minutes 27 seconds, looped, DVD Pal.

All images courtesy and © the artist

“I explore the forming of identity and ideals that perpetuate the social structures we are defined by ... ”

1. Where are you from?
I was born in Geelong, Australia, and now live in Sydney with my family.

2. How did you get into what you do?
I initially trained as a commercial photographer. When I returned to study, to complete my Masters of visual arts, I was able to really explore the issues I was interested in: the image, representation and identity. This then saw my practice develop from the still image to one that now includes video, sound and installation.

3. How would you sum up your work in one sentence?
My practice explores the relationship that exists between image, identity, language and power and encompasses the still and moving image, sound, installation and space.

4a. What concepts and themes do you explore in your work?
I explore the forming of identity and ideals that perpetuate the social structures we are defined by. This encompasses representation, image and the gaze.

4b. How much of this is influenced by your own life or childhood?
Although my work is theoretically bound and produced from specific research these are issues that are a personal concern.

5a. You work across many mediums, do you have a favorite?
At the moment I am loving using video: the moving image, and also exploring sound as a totally new dynamic and effect on the audience.

5b. How integral is the medium to the finished piece?
The medium and installation of my work is vital to the finished piece. Through research, explorations and processes I finally come to the resulting production, structure and output of the work. I am interested in creating a visceral response in the viewer/audience, more so than an interpretation of an idea, and therefore the medium I choose is vital to the creating of this effect and environment.

6. What are you working on now / next?
Next I am researching the hidden dynamics that exist in middle class suburbia, the colliding of naturally born and contained instincts with the structures and etiquettes that define society and the individual.

Bronwyn Thompson recently showed at Über Gallery

+ + + MARK RUBENSTEIN + + +
Interview by NICHOLAS HARMER

www.rubensteinphotography.com

click images to enlarge.
All images courtesy and © the artist

“ In all the work I want it to be viewed as a alternate reality where many things can happen.”

1. Where are you from?
I was born in the U.S. in Louisville, Kentucky. I know it seems like a crazy place, people think everyone from Kentucky rides a horse and eats fried chicken. But it actually was a great place to grow up. It has a great music and art scene. My work was definitely a result of my childhood and growing up.
 
2. How did you get into photography?
I was doing terrible in highschool, like I almost didn't graduate. The only class I ever did good in was art class. I really enjoyed it, it made the day seem worthwhile. Then I found out my school offered a photography program, so I decided I would take it. I feel it really saved me and gave me inspiration. I made the photo room my sanctuary. I still remember that I used to love listening to music in the dark room and printing for hours. The kids that were in my class were really great as well. We would always talk
while we developed our film. It seemed like I really found what I was supposed to do in those years. It really was a great time. I was able to
produce a nice body of work in school and I actually travelled to Washington DC, where I was awarded the national scholastics art award. From there I decided that I would go to art school for photography which I did. I went to Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia, from which I graduated in 2006.

3. Your work, Common Place, is a continuing narrative taken over a few years. Do you distinguish a beginning and an end to this story?
Yes, I feel like there is a beginning and end to the story, but I do not know when the end will come. I feel like I have been shooting Common Place since high school, I just didn't realize it at the time. There seems to be a narrative and tone that has been carried out through my work since I took my first picture. I feel like I will be shooting Common Place till the day I die. In a way it is an exploration through myself and my life. It is a very self introspection process. I love the way the work is set up as a book.

Each new chapter is like a new chapter in my own life. I love the idea of creating a separate world where I really can explore my ideas and dreams.

4. The scapes/settings for your work seem quite particular. How do you decide on a specific location for a shot?
Each location is determined by the idea or thought I have, which relates to image. Sometimes I will know that I want to really shoot in a house or specific place. Other times If I see a place that really grabs me, I will try to incorporate my idea or shot within that landscape. For example I did a few images that featured kids sitting amongst rooftops. I really wanted to convey this sense of isolation. One day I was driving and I kept looking at the tops of houses and it struck me that I knew I wanted to use a roof. I have always loved the idea of incorporating kids sitting on rooftops, that
wonderful moment where you can look out onto the world and absorb all your surroundings. So I asked all my friends who had houses if I could look at there roofs, I found two that were perfect for the image, so I used them to create the idea I had in mind.

The blending of the two (idea and location) I really feel brings out a stellar shot. The places featured in each image are meant to be stripped of much of their character, but seem all too familiar. In all the work I want it to be viewed as a alternate reality where many things can happen.

5. There's an extreme difference of style from Common Place and your latest work Once Was. What inspired you to evolve like this?
When you're an artist I feel you're always evolving. You can't always produce the same looking work or it would get boring. My new series that I'm working on Once Was is still a part of the Common Place mythology and world, it is just a new chapter in the series. And for the new chapter I really wanted to convey this sense of overwhelming power and energy. For the first time we can really see the characters transforming into something else. They are travelling through themselves and time in the middle of a metamorphosis. I really wanted the new work to be extremely expressive.

6. Any new projects for the future?
I am constantly working on Common Place. I will be continuing to shoot for the Once Was chapter. It is an extremely time consuming project. It's hard for me because it takes a long time for me to save the funds to be able to shoot. But I'm in no rush, this work is my life and I will be doing it for quite a long time.

+ + + BARBARA PROBST + + +
Interview by ELLA MUDIE

www.gfineartdc.com

click images to enlarge

"Exposures"
#50: N.Y.C., 555 8th Avenue, 07.02.07, 8:47 p.m.
#40: N.Y.C., 545 8th Avenue,03.23.06, 1:42 p.m.
#49: N.Y.C., 555 8th Avenue, 05.21.07, 4:02 p.m.
#46: N.Y.C., 555 8th Avenue, 10.09.06, 8:23 p.m.
#42: N.Y.C., Broome/Crosby, 06.09.06, 7:12 p.m.
#32:  N.Y.C., 249 W. 34th St,  01.02.05, 5:04 p.m.

All images courtesy and © the artist

“ ... my work has a compelling relationship to film in alluding to it on the one hand and in denying its nature on the other.”

German artist Barbara Probst challenges the idea of a photographic moment. Instead of assuming the single gaze of the camera she presents multiple photographs of the same moment shot simultaneously by a radio controlled release system and using multiple photographers. These sequences are then presented as bodies of work called ‘Exposures.’

1. You took your first ‘Exposure’ shot on January 7 2000 at 10.37pm. Do you feel like you began a new life when you took these first ‘Exposure’ photographs?
I was very eager to see the result of “Exposure #1”. It was an experiment which was the consequence of work I was doing earlier. These investigations generated a number of different works and in January 2000 it all came together in “Exposure #1”. The result of this experiment was complex and full of possibilities, so you could call it a breakthrough in my work. But it took me months to understand and recognize the essence of the piece and to sort out how to make the next step into this intricate field of possibilities.

2. What kind of photography or creative work interested you as a student?
Actually I studied sculpture initially. I did figure drawing and sculptural modeling for quite a while. I learned to observe relationships of form and space and of movement and stasis. I learned to scrutinize things and to observe the world. That time was quite important for my development as an artist. Later in my studies I became more interested in conceptual art and I slowly found my way into photography.

3. Many of your photos incorporate allusions to films. Is there a filmmaker or film genre you particularly admire?
I am very interested in film. The cinematic element in my work is the construction of a three dimensional conception of a staged scene by showing it from different angles and distances. Film narrates through time. My “Exposures” do quite the opposite since they display only one moment from different points of view. The images of one “Exposure” provide us with diverse narratives which contradict and challenge each other. The narratives in the “Exposures” therefore become blank. Thus my work has a compelling relationship to film in alluding to it on the one hand and in denying its nature on the other.

4. Do you consider your photography as a type of documentary?
I don’t think – and this is an extensively discussed subject- there is such a thing as documentary photography. There is no objectivity in photography. It all depends on the photographer’s ideas and decisions about how the picture of a thing will look. My work points that out.

What are you working on next?
I feel that there is still a lot more unknown terrain in the “Exposures” to discover, so I expect to continue this journey.

Barbara Probst- Exposures by Gerhard Steidl (designer) and Barbara Probst is out now.

+ + + FRANCESCA GRILLI + + +
Interview by MARCUS COWAN

www.francescagrilli.com

click images to enlarge.
All images courtesy and © the artist

“My work tells stories about things I know, things I have experienced. Events in my life are the starting point ... ”

1. Where are you from?
I was born in Bologna, in a region of Italy called
Emilia. Now I'm living between Amsterdam and Milan. But I'm still looking for a “home” somewhere.

2. How did you get into what you do?
I was always interested in art, since I was four years old. When I was a child, my family was the main inspiration for my work, I realised how easy it was for me to visually express my
dreams and stories through art.

3. You work across a lot of mediums. How is the choice of medium relative to the desired outcome?
I'm just following my obsessions and on the way, I choose my medium. It's an instinctive choice. The most important medium for me is the heart. Recently I started to work with performances, I'm not interested in an experiment of a mise-en-scene, but the rebuilding of a vision, my memories, and dreams.

4. Your work often focuses on human relationships. How important is this theme to your work?
My work tells stories about things I know, things I have experienced. Events in my life are the starting point, but I try to create another image behind them, a new event, where another relationship between events is developed an built.

5. Your work has a nostalgic value. Are you a nostalgic person?
There is time and space, and the possibility of all things. I just try to connect different moments of life, creating a connection between the past and the present, between future and time
that doesn t yet exist. I see myself in a time between.

6. What do you hope people take away from your work?
Strength. Fragility. Fragments. Gifts. Emotions. I love to invite people into a situation that they know, a familiar atmosphere, but once inside there is an “out of control” element. I've created another dimension ...

7. What are you working on now / next?
A project with another artist, a conversation between us about the word ‘residue’. We have decided to approach the word from its relationship with human beings. We have picked “mental residue” as our point of departure.

+ + + MICHAEL MARCELLE + + +
Interview by JASON LINGARD

www.michaelmarcelle.com

click images to enlarge.
All images courtesy and © the artist

“I shoot almost entirely documentary, but it's not with an interest of accurately portraying the world ... my work is about abstracting the world into a totally alien landscape.”

1. Where are you from?
I'm from the suburbs of New Jersey, and now live in Brooklyn, USA.

2. How did you get into photography?
My father was really into photography when I was growing up, and he was always giving me cameras and encouraging me to shoot.  Then I went to Bard College, which has a fantastic photography program, and it totally changed my perceptions about what photography was. 

3. How would you describe your aesthetic?
I think my work is a kind of abstraction of different things that I'm interested in, like science-fiction and horror films, and a lot of occult and mythological imagery. It's about being an amalgamation of pretty culturally familiar things, so it gives a vaguely uneasy feeling of recognition, an un canniness. 

4. Your images seem to be predominately documentary. Is this how you prefer to work?
I shoot almost entirely documentary, but it's not with an interest of accurately portraying the world in mind.  It's complicated, because a lot of my work is about abstracting the world into a totally alien landscape, but in order to do that it's necessary to have some signifiers that the work is being made in the in the world.  It's basically using the format and methodology of documentary photography to make something that looks nothing like it. 

5. How do you decide what makes a good picture? What qualities do images have that make the final cut?
Editing is actually a huge part of my process as a photographer.  I'm very selective about what I choose to put in a body of work, and spend at least the same amount of time debating over the photographs as I do making them. I like smaller bodies of work, with each image holding it's own weight, and leaving plenty of air around the images to breathe.  It's definitely connected to my influence from other genres like sculpture and painting, where each piece is taken into consideration on it's own.

I think very often, maybe even too often, photography is kind of excused from this, and too many images are included in a body of work in order to point to the larger concept behind them.  I'm way more into each image having a beginning and an end, and being able to exist completely on its own.  Though there are definitely photographers whose work is fundamentally about a kind of rapid-fire of images, and do a fantastic job with it.

I also think a lot of it has to do with working with a 4x5 camera for so long.  Working in that format, having the time to frame and position the image however you want, and even just having to lug around all that equipment, you end up having to be very deliberate with every choice made.  I think once I started to work in that mind set on the production end of things, it started to carry over with how I wanted to present the images to the world. 

6. Everyone has a dream project? What would yours be?
I think my dream project would to have any project at all! I've tried over and over again to shoot very specific things, stuff like haunted houses and places where UFO's have supposedly landed, and every single time, the images I end up using from those shoots have nothing at all to do with the original project. 

7. What are you working on now / next?
I don't want to get too specific, but it definitely involves more UFO's. 

+ + + GLYNNIS McDARIS + + +
Interview by PAUL FIELD

www.glynnismcdaris.com

click images to enlarge
All images courtesy and © the artist

“I like to work somewhere between documentary and staged photography... reportage with an emphasis on composition and aesthetic.”

1. Where are you from?
Originally Memphis in the US, but I've been living in NYC for close to 10 years now.

2. How did you get into photography?
I was into all kinds of art making as a teenager, but my focus on photography really began as a film major in college. I would manipulate stills from my videos and eventually started to take photos as story boards for my video narratives.

3. How would you describe your aesthetic?
Natural, open, calm, charged, seedy, narrative, and with a nod to the American South.

4. Your images seem to be predominately documentary. Is this how you prefer to work?
I like to work somewhere between documentary and staged photography... reportage with an emphasis on composition and aesthetic.

5. How do you decide what makes a good picture? What qualities do images have that make the final cut?
It's really intuitive. It's a strange thing, knowing what is right and what isn't. I guess it all just happens. I don't look at a shot and think "this suits my aesthetic" or anything like that, I like it to happen naturally.

6. Everyone has a dream project? What would yours be?
I have many....I plan to eventually make a big, sprawling film. Photography-wise I'd love to do a more extensive historical and travel series... a sort of photographic archaeology of the American South, and also Southeast Asia.

7. What are you working on now / next?
I'm working on my next art show. Curating a group show for the gallery Fake Estate. Playing music, and having fun!

+ + + JO GALVIN + + +
Interview by MARCUS COWAN

www.jogalvin.carbonmade.com

click images to enlarge.
All images courtesy and © the artist

“I spend a lot of time with my images.  If I keep going back to one over and over, or there's an element of intrigue, then I know it's a winner.”

1. Where are you from?
I was born in Auckland, New Zealand. My Dad was a Presbyterian Minister and a job offer in Vienna relocated the family to Austria.  After a whirlwind romance with the city I ended up back in New Zealand aged 10 with my Mother and younger brother.

2. How did you get into photography?
I got my first camera (it was a Kodak 110) on my 5th birthday from my Auntie. When I was 12, after failing to teach me guitar, my father taught me how to use an SLR.

At high school I was quite the rebellious science student– I like chemicals, they make pretty colours.  I took my love for chemicals into the darkroom.  I love being in the darkroom.  I get to wear a lab coat.

After accidentally moving to London with my best friend I came back to Auckland to study, with the intention of majoring in Fashion.  But I couldn't stop taking photos so a move to photography was the natural progression. I spent the next three years developing my love affair with the colour process.

3. How would you describe your aesthetic?
The "snap shot" aesthetic–  no doubt about it.  Someone at art school once said to me
"Oh My God, I never even knew you had a proper camera, your images are so raw".

4. Your images seem to be predominately documentary. Is this how you prefer to work?
I can't help it.  I'm all about the moment. 

5. How do you decide what makes a good picture? What qualities do images have that make the final cut?
It is an intuitive feeling.  It must be reflective of what I am thinking about at the time, and the story I want to tell.  Also the people, the place, the time, and finally, the colours and composition. 

I make slide-shows and print some pictures and put them on my wall.  I spend a lot of time with my images.  If I keep going back to one over and over, or there's an element of intrigue, then I know it's a winner.
 
6. Everyone has a dream project? What would yours be?
I recently bought a Hasselblad, I've begun a project with it, it's going to take years.  I'm dressing my friends as pirates.  My Grandfather died the day before my birthday last year.  He was obsessed with the family tree and had photo albums dating back to the late 1800s.  I'm using them as inspiration. It's all very intuitive and fun.  A huge project though. Perhaps too huge.  Life consuming.  Dreamy.  If that doesn't work out i'd quite like to go into space please,  or I just love animals.  National Geographic come and get me.

7. What are you working on now / next?
I'm currently operating as part of the Cross Street Artists Collective, living and playing from my studio.  I'm in the process of building a darkroom, and designing my lab coat. Oh! And, I have a solo show at 'The Basement' in Auckland.

+ + + JEROME ICARDO + + +
Interview by MARCUS COWAN

www.thethirdeye.fr

click images to enlarge.
All images courtesy and © the artist

“I am also slipping little by little from digital photography towards the use of traditional instant cameras ... This enables me to produce photographs with a particular noise, which is almost timeless.”

1. Where are you from?
I was born in Nice, French Riviera and currently live in Paris.

2. What do you love about photography?
Photography helps me experience the instant. That is invaluable for me as I have the feeling that most of the time I live my life either in the past or in the future. The possibility of transforming what is given to us to see, is something I also find interesting; To subvert what at first appears to be without interest.

3. How would you describe your style?
My first series eliminated humans from the framework. I focused on light, shade, and lines. Then gradually I started to work on the composition and the direction of scenarios. Most of the time I'm inspired by everyday events. Then, I translate this concept into a nostalgic or comic situation. 

I am also slipping little by little from a practice of digital photography towards the use of traditional instant cameras, since I like the rough texture. This enables me to produce photographs with a particular noise, which is almost timeless.

4. You're trained in graphic design, how did you move into photography?
I got my first camera five years ago, though my story starts before then... I was a graphic designer, but felt my interest grew beyond the sphere of design. I was already interested in photography as an artform. When a digital camera appeared one day I just started to take photographs.

6. Your images have a the look and feeling of another time. How do you achieve this?
I love to find places and situations where a daydream could emerge, and team this with the use of an instant vintage Polaroid to produce pictures of another time.

7. What would be your dream project?
I would like to have time and especially money to carry out a series exploring the extreme north of Siberia. I have always felt attracted to this part of the world, the discovery of the boreal social-diversity. 

8. What next / now for you?
Next fall, I'm moving to Sweden for ten months. The aim is to learn the language, and experience the culture. But I also want to complete various photo-projects, as Sweden for me is not only a frozen place but an infinite source of inspiration...

With Paranoid Park, Gus Van Sant proves he is one of the few filmmakers that is able to walk the line between the mainstream and the truly independent.  In the 90’s he established himself as a mainstream director with indie flair, this decade he has abandoned mainstream glory and chosen to go the road less traveled.  The results have been mixed at best.  Van Sant is a director you can easily compare to other directors.  He stands on his own for better or worse.  Paranoid Park is one of the best films of this decade. Van Sant captures the fractured psyche of teenagers to wonderful results in his latest film.

The basic story is very simple.  Alex (Gabe Nevins) lives in suburban middle class life wanting to be one of the down trodden kids that lives in the skate park Paranoid Park. When he takes the plunge and moves from his safe world to the aggressive world of Paranoid Park, things will never be the same.  Something happens one night and someone turns up dead.  The police are looking for the killer and they’re suspicious of local skater kids.  Van Sant plays with time lines and narrative structure to slowly reveal everything in the story.

Based on a novel by Blake Nelson, Van Sant keeps the story intact but rearranges the events of the book. Alex documents everything in the film by keeping a diary of the events in the film.  Events evolve as Alex feels the need to revisit them.  The basic story plays out in quick succession, but as the film continues, Alex revisits the events of that tragic night and more of the story is revealed about the murder and Alex’s life and a mixed up teenager.

Van Sant continues his exploration into the psyche of adolescent youth with Paranoid Park and of his series (Elephant, Last Days), this is easily the most accessible.  His characters aren’t good or bad but just teenagers with all their faults.  They are young and wanting to explore the world.  Van Sant unspools the film through Alex and he is a flawed narrator a best. 

By using different film speeds, jump cuts and the circular story structure, Van Sant reinforces the realism of the movie.  This is the culmination of his past decade of work.  Paranoid Park feels like a turn for the director and he’ll possibly be moving into a new phase of work in the future.  The film will be remember as one of his best and shows that Van Sant is a director that is still traveling the road less traveled.

1. Has life in the limelight so far been everything you expected?
Well, to be honest, our lives have not changed drastically. Our weeks still consist of the same things, getting together and just jamming at someone’s house and playing video games. Although it is cool to travel round Australia and play shows on the weekend.

2. There are many genres out there such as indie surf rock or up beat post punk which people are associating you with. Do you personally feel part of any of these genres or agree with such associations for your music?
Defining our music is always a tough one for us. Not because it’s unclassifiable or anything, because it is. But more so because each one of us has our own individual sound which gels well together when writing songs. Which is perhaps why people may say ‘Indie surf” or “Up beat postpunk”, it’s really just us bringing different ideas to a song.

3. You have toured with many great bands such as Maximo Park, Red Riders and Mercy Arms. Who was the most fun or rewarding to be around?
Touring with Mercy Arms was one of the funnest experiences I’ve had. Were good friends with those guys, which is why we organised the tour. But apart from that, it was also just great to be able to tour with a band whom in my opinion is one of the best Australian bands around at the moment.

4. Are there any particularly entertaining stories from tours as of yet?
I think my favourite time of the Mercy Arms tour was our day in Perth which we spent in Fremantle playing a game of very competitive soccer against Mercy Arms. We’d been talking ourselves up all week and when it came to the day we all realised we were no match for Kieran or Sudek (guitarist and drummer), both of which played Rep Soccer. Needless to say we lost 7-1.

5. Considering you were already very popular even before graduation from high school, how did you manage the two extremely demanding lifestyles of school and music?
It got a bit tough when we had to do shows in between our trial exams and had to ask our headmaster for permission. But most of the time we just kinda played a juggling act. However, we knew where our priorities lied which were in music, so most of the time we would spend our time hiding in our music department during classes and playing guitars or finding ways to sneak out of class.

6. Is music a full time venture or do any of you have alternative interests?
I think as far as how much time and effort we put into not just writing songs, but even listening to new bands and going to watch live bands, it is a full time venture. Although we do have many alternative interests, such as video games which is always a favourite way to wind down after we have a rehearsal.

7. Your sound has been likened to early U2, Mercy Arms and The Lost Valentinos. Who would you name specifically as your influences?
We all listen to new and old music a lot. 90’s British bands like Oasis, Stone Roses, Ride and The Verve are all bands that play a big part in shaping our sound. Other bands we all agree on as a whole are Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, The Beatles and Velvet Underground, which all influence our sound in one way or another.

8. Do you feel the road to success has been easy?
Well, I guess it all depends on how you define success. I feel we have only just started, and still have a long way to go. So far there have been times where it has felt a bit surreal, but I still feel like we have much more of the road to travel

EP available here from Modular

London based musician and producer Daniel Lea is heavily influenced by film, dialogue and imagery from old noir classics, world cinema and the silent era and has found a way to weld these unique influences into his music as By The Fireside. By The Fireside's new album, 'The Great Hartford Fire', is out now on Rogue through Inertia.

1. How would you describe your music to someone who has never heard it before?
Sonic Youth meeting The Beatles at the Circus in the 1940's.

2. What kind of musical background do you have? How and when did you first start creating music?
I started playing guitar when I was 15 after my uncle had passed down his guitar to me after he died. I started learning Nirvana, Sonic Youth & Pavement songs. I played in a few bands when I was younger but I didn't start writing songs until was 23. I started recording instrumental pieces with layered film samples over the top. I would make these pieces with guitars, glockenspiels, mellotrons, samplers, synths & optigans, then I would tape record scenes from films I liked like "Night of The Hunter" and cut them into the instrumental pieces.

3. How did the conception of By The Fireside come about?
After experimenting with instrumental pieces I then started to write songs and then started singing. I mostly layered my vocals with harmonies until I was comfortable with my singing. I mostly use my voice more like an instrument. I then began writing my first EP, ‘Battles That Add Up To None’, that was mostly inspired lyrically from my grandad and looking through old family albums.

4. What did you grow up listening to?
Neil Young, Sonic Youth, Nirvana, Twin Peaks Soundtrack, Pavement, Grandaddy, Sparklehorse, Roy Orbison, The Beach Boys, Smog, Elliott Smith, The Flaming Lips, Fleetwood Mac, Johnny Cash, Leadbelly, Low, Mogwai, Nick Drake, Pink Floyd, Slint, Skip James, Tears For Fears, Joy Divison, New Order, Van Morrison, Sex Pistols, Depeche Mode, Springsteen, Bowie, Rolling Stones, Crosby, Stills & Nash.

5. By The Fireside has been described as both your music box and storytelling vehicle. What kinds of things interest you and inspire you to create?
I am mostly inspired by old movies from the 40's, 50's and old silent movies from the 1920's. I love old film noirs like ‘Night of The Hunter’, ‘Detour’, ‘Nightmare Alley’, ‘Freaks’, ‘A Place In The Sun’, ‘Sunset Boulevard’, ‘Sunrise’, and ‘Greed’. I also love directors like Terrence Mallick, Robert Altman, Fellini, Ingmar Bergman, Werner Herzog, Tarkofsky, Hitchcock & many, many more. I like to create albums that are themed, which fit together as a whole piece of work like a movie. I just find I get into it a lot more when I work that way and I can live in a different little world for a while until its done.

6. It has been said that your music recalls bands such as Granddaddy, Pavement and Sonic Youth. How do your musical tastes and influences affect your music?
I suppose they do a lot. I was listening to a lot of Beatles at the time of making the album and you can hear that a lot on this album with the drums and bass. I suppose I've always loved Sonic Youth and Pavement and what they do with guitars interests me. My record also has this shoegazer feel on a couple of songs, but I don't know where that came from – it was accidental. It’s great when someone says ‘oh that song sounds like this and this’ and I haven't even listened to those bands! I am starting to prepare to write a new album and I am mostly listening to classical music at the moment like Arvo Part, Gavin Bryers, Erik Satie and ambient stuff like Stars Of The Lid & John Cale as well as a lot of dronemusic. The next record is going to be a lot different to ‘The Great Hartford Fire’. It’s going to have a lot of classical influence, mixing that with driving kinds of songs.

7. The concept for your latest release, The Great Hartford Fire, came from a tragic incident that happened at a circus over 60 years ago. What was it about this incident that inspired you to make music?
I watched this movie called ‘Nightmare Alley’ and that inspired me to look into the circus, which is when I came across the story. The album is mostly inspired by the mystery of Robert Sagee, who was accused of starting the fires. He was abused by his father, who used to burn his hands, and he used to start fires to burn his demons away. He used to see a vision of a red man who would arise in flames and would tell him to start fires, then a flaming horse used to chase him all the way home. He alone inspired a lot of the songs including ‘Moon Lake’ & ‘The Great Hartford Fire’. The circus inspired a lot of the sounds to, using a lot of organs, glockenspiels, drum rolls, thumbing basslines, sparkling pianos & stabbing guitars.

8. If you could play with any musician/s live or dead, who would they be and why?
Probably Daniel Johnston, as he is about as good as me on guitar! But he's an amazing piano player and an incredible songwriter. I would love to work with him

9. If you weren't creating music, what do you think you would be doing instead?
I would probably get involved in film. I would love to write screenplays and direct movies.

10. What lies ahead for you in the future?
To carry on writing and producing albums. I would love to one day do film score work as I think my music would be good for that. I want to buy a summer house in the countryside of Sweden in the middle of woods, where there are no distractions. I seem to work best there. That’s where I wrote most of ‘The Great Hartford Fire’, out in my girlfriend’s parent’s old summer house. I also hope to make Golden Hum well known as a studio and produce some more great albums for different people. I one day plan to make a movie but that won't be for a long time. But for now I'm going to concentrate on playing live and recording a new album.

Free MP3 download of Moon Lake available here