Collection 4 THE NORTH

197
Rough Days
for Diamond Trade
On my quest to bring you the very best music coming down from the North I was starting to lose my mind in a sea
of innumerable album releases.. but then I came across the sound of ‘Rough Days For Diamond Trade’. It’s the solo
project of the Copenhagen based musician and award winning filmmaker Frederik Sølberg. For the last 10 years he
has been a key figure on the Danish indie scene as a member of the bands Ghost Society and Lake Placid, making remixes,
directing music videos and live visuals and he is seriously talented in both fields. The debut E.P
“Somehow” was released at the end of last year and it’s stunning.
A perfect blend of his electronic and indie influences contrasting distorted guitars, electronic drum beats and catchy synths
with his moody androgynous vocal.
“The sound of broken hearts on a dance floor”
We talk going solo, music making and Scandinavian melancholia on a cold winter‘s night…
KALTBLUT: Hey Frederik. Thanks for taking some time to chat
to us! Your E.P is out now in Germany! Were you happy with the
response you had here in Berlin?
FREDERIK: Yes, Berlin was totally overwhelming, it was really
much more than I had expected, we played at “Monarch” and it was
full.. I really hadn’t expected it! It was quite amazing to play. Even
if we had played in Copenhagen there wouldn’t have been as many
people.. Maybe the project is more hyped in Germany than I thought
but the whole time was packed with interviews, and meetings and good
response from lots of people and that was really, really nice. I also think
maybe this kind of music fits Berlin…
KALTBLUT: Yeah that’s true I’ve found so many great artists
coming from the North also being based out of here. Why do you
think Scandinavian music is so popular in Berlin?
FREDERIK: I think because Berlin has more this sort of cosmopolitan
feeling, that it seems that people are more interested in these kind
of things, no matter which way you look at it Denmark is much more
conform and so I guess some of the interest in my project could be the
fact that I’m Scandinavian, which of course doesn’t add anything in
Denmark but in Germany could mean something…
KALTBLUT: When did you first get into music, or did the interest
in film making come first?
FREDERIK: I’ve been a music lover since I was very young, I don’t
have parents who are interested in music or anything like that so I think
I got the idea on my own. My mother’s a librarian and I think I was
around 9 or 10 years old asking her to borrow books and articles about
Jimi Hendrix for me, so I had this kind of innocent interest in music
since I was a child but I didn’t start playing until I was say 13, 14, with
guitar, my main instrument... film came later, I was like 12 or something,
but I started wanting to do fiction film and I did that for some
years, I was working as an assistant director doing some short films,
music videos and then I started moving towards documentaries…
KALTBLUT: Which one of the two would you say you put more
of your time and energy into?
FREDERIK: I guess music comes more naturally to me, it’s very
easy, when I work on music I forget about time and space, I forget
about my girlfriend.. I’m just totally immersed… but when I’m making
Interview by Amy Heaton
film, of course it’s still a creative process but it’s also a very rational
process where you have to amplify, you have to develop, you have to
sit in an office etc, so it’s not so instantly creative, so I think for me it’s
two very different creative outputs. I think that’s the reason I made so
many music videos because it’s the two things I know about… I think
when I make films I also put a lot effort in thinking about the music so
it’s interconnected.
KALTBLUT: You’ve been used to playing in bands most of the
time. How does it compare being out on your own now?
FREDERIK: Totally different, it also means that you’re much more
vulnerable, like when we released the E.P in Denmark even though there
we have an much bigger network, it was pretty much myself because
our label and our promotion company are in Berlin so they took care of
the German part, and I remember that there were lots of things I thought
would happen here and then I got a bit disappointed when they didn’t
and I was thinking like, “hey! I’ve been playing music in Denmark for
so many years, I know journalists I know people etc…” and I’m not
sure I would have had that same feeling if I’d have been in a band, you
don’t get that feeling like “we’re all in it together..” and I like that! I’m
a very social person, I enjoy sharing things with people, so when we
played in Berlin last week and had all this great response, it was pretty
overwhelming.. and I tried to call my girlfriend and share that feeling
but it’s totally different when you’re in a band. Of course I have lots of
friends around who are very sweet, and the musicians I play with, but
still it’s not the same..
KALTBLUT: So did you plan out your solo sound from the start
or was it just unfolding as you went along?
FREDERIK: In the beginning I had this idea that I would never
tell anyone that it was me doing it, I could put it out, on myspace or
something, and I would never have to play live or actually release
anything.. but then it just grew somehow, and I got more self-confident
about it at some point, not only the music, but the thing about playing it
live..
I’m so privileged to have a lot of friends who are musicians and I asked
a few of them if they wanted to play with me, we did this show for a
film festival and in the beginning when we started out rehearsing I was
saying, “can we turn you guys up and my voice down..?” because I
didn’t want to hear my own voice, and then I realised after this coup-