Me & Melancholy On the Making Of ‘Under the cover of darkness’
Can you share any interesting or unique musical elements or production techniques used in 'Under the cover of darkness?'
I’m not sure if it is something unique, but for sure I have learned so much since the last album about how to get the sound I want and how to make room for and let different tracks cut through the mix.
One interesting thing though was that I during the process foundation of some similarities between “Just like a dream” and “We are the people of the night” and wanted these tracks to have a seamless transition, so I put “Just like a dream” as the first track just to do that.
How does 'Under the cover of darkness' fit into your overall artistic vision?
It’s dark and melancholic overall and the vision from the start of Me & Melancholy was to be just that. So I think it is in line with the vision. I was even darker a while ago until I swapped a few songs out. “Hypnotize” and “Sometimes” were not originally on the album as they were a bit too uplifting ;-) But then someone told me I just had to have them on the album.
What is your personal favorite song from 'Under the cover of darkness' and why?
I think it has been different favorite songs during the whole process. Right now it is “We are the people of the night.” I’ve always been a night person and always been told I must adapt to the norm and go to bed early and wake up early with a smile on my face, but I just don’t work that way. When the clock passes 21-22 I get so much energy and have to do things like compose some music.
Where do you find inspiration for your songs or musical ideas?
Most of the time I just get something in my head and it could be a beat, melody or just a lyrics idea and sometimes it is a full song.
Other times it could be that I just sit down and start playing around with sounds and that usually becomes something that is just a loop or idea that I save for later. Then the third way is that I browse through these previous ideas and find something I am completely right about but at that moment sounds awesome and I have tons of new ideas to build upon that.
What are some of the biggest challenges you have faced as a musician, and how did you overcome them?
I think I have had a huge struggle with vocals and that I have had this kind of stupid idea that I will only do one take of the vocals. I wanted to have some small flaws, you know some notes not perfect in pitch and so on. And I guess I just wanted to make sure to capture that initial feeling. But this had led to lots of problems when I had listened to the song a few hundred times and was sick and tired of it and then I sometimes just rerecorded the vocals in the last minute. But I have slowly learned to try to retake vocals from the start if I’m not happy with them.
Haha, now that I said that out loud, it seems pretty stupid and I should focus on changing this from now on.
