Håkan Persson Interview

0:00 Håkan Persson Music Appreciation

0:12 Luke F. Walton What's up everybody, it's Scoobert Doobert. Welcome back to Love Music More. I am joined with my good buddy Håkan of I Don't Speak French, Indie Shake, Swedish Red Elephant, The Man, The Myth, The Legend. Great, great buddy, and I'm so excited to talk to you. How's it going, Håkan? How are you?

0:34 Håkan Persson Oh, it's great. I'm in the middle of nowhere in the forest.

0:37 Luke F. Walton It's beautiful.

0:39 Håkan Persson Yeah, in the south of Sweden, just going for a swim. So it's as good as it can be,

0:46 Luke F. Walton I

0:46 Håkan Persson I

0:46 Luke F. Walton love it.

0:47 Håkan Persson would say.

0:47 Luke F. Walton I love it. Well, maybe we should start with the thing that's in the forefront of everyone's mind. What is your take on Swedish chef? Because I know you have a good hot take on it.

0:59 Håkan Persson Well, it's actually like, you know, the actual sway of the kind of pronunciation of the actual gibberish is kind of correct in a sense, but the actual words are just like, nah.

1:20 Luke F. Walton Let's

1:20 Håkan Persson and

1:20 Luke F. Walton see.

1:20 Håkan Persson if you would like what if you would did like a swedish person talking with an english act like trying like a swedish accent for english it would be something like Yes, hello. This is Håkan from Sweden. So it's kind of a similar,

1:39 Luke F. Walton it's

1:39 Håkan Persson I

1:40 Luke F. Walton a little bouncy

1:40 Håkan Persson guess that's kind of, yeah, I guess that's where they got it from. But he's cool. He's cool in my book.

1:46 Luke F. Walton cool in your book i love it um

1:49 Håkan Persson Yeah, for sure.

1:50 Luke F. Walton so i'm really excited to talk about your musical process the the music scene that you've come up in in sweden And then also just kind of what has inspired you to take on so many different roles? I know that you play a bunch of different instruments, you make different genres. So let's start just kind of from the jump. What got you into music? What made you fall in love with it?

2:15 Håkan Persson Well, I kind of fell in love with music like from a really young age.

2:19 Luke F. Walton Yeah

2:20 Håkan Persson My mom was really, really into music. She was like a hippie in the 70s, like a forefront feminist, you know. So she was a really big inspiration to me. So she gave me a lot of, you know, Beatles and Loving Spoonful and Beach Boys.

2:40 Håkan Persson a lot of those like really cool 60s 70s bands um so i grew up kind of with those vinyls and stuff and then from my dad's side i kind of got uh you know credence character rival kind of more like the southern rock type

2:58 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

2:59 Håkan Persson thing and then i have a brother who's nine years older than me um who so basically When I was a kid, he was just like getting into like the skate scene.

3:11 Luke F. Walton Cool. Perfect.

3:11 Håkan Persson You had like the 90s, Green Day just dropped Dookie, you had Mill and Colin, all these bands.

3:19 Håkan Persson So it's kind of the perfect mixing pot for getting into all these different genres. And my parents were always like, our kids should play an instrument.

3:33 Håkan Persson So, so my brother played piano and I wanted to play piano as well, but my brother was like, no, no, no,

3:41 Luke F. Walton I

3:41 Håkan Persson it's no,

3:42 Luke F. Walton called dibs.

3:42 Håkan Persson no, nobody,

3:43 Luke F. Walton I called dibs.

3:43 Håkan Persson nobody thinks it's cool with piano. You should play the guitar.

3:46 Luke F. Walton Nice, nice, nice, nice.

3:48 Håkan Persson So that's why, so I, that's why I got into playing guitar and then sort of just like. I always felt like I was kind of uninspired by playing other people's songs.

4:02 Luke F. Walton Yeah. Yep.

4:03 Håkan Persson I had this kind of innate longing for writing my own stuff. So I think my first song I wrote like when I was eight years old or something like that.

4:15 Luke F. Walton Really?

4:16 Håkan Persson Yeah,

4:16 Luke F. Walton That's super early.

4:17 Håkan Persson it's

4:17 Luke F. Walton That's awesome.

4:18 Håkan Persson I still have it.

4:20 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

4:20 Håkan Persson It's super lame.

4:21 Luke F. Walton I don't know. I could see that. piano

4:25 Håkan Persson it's

4:25 Luke F. Walton like it's

4:25 Håkan Persson like it's like two chords and it's like i hate to love you no no

4:32 Luke F. Walton so good that's great that's probably better than mine mine was mine

4:36 Håkan Persson no

4:36 Luke F. Walton was dumb i

4:38 Håkan Persson no no for sure how old were you when you started

4:43 Luke F. Walton think i wrote my first song when i was like 12 or 13.

4:48 Håkan Persson Yeah.

4:49 Luke F. Walton um but it was bad it was like called it was like called oh no i don't even want it it's so bad it

4:57 Håkan Persson But that's kind of process. You need to do bad shit.

5:01 Luke F. Walton is

5:01 Håkan Persson Exactly.

5:02 Luke F. Walton exactly well that that that's like one of the things i think people like that are starting out get really intimidated by because they hear like hey like you know been writing songs for how long you've been writing songs for at this point now

5:13 Håkan Persson Well, I guess it's about. 20 years

5:18 Luke F. Walton yeah right it's like hey maybe don't compare yourself when you're just starting out to somebody that has 20 years of experience like could you imagine doing that to any other thing it's like i'm an engineer and i'm learning how to like build roads or something and i'm going to compare myself to somebody with 20 years of experience doing that it's

5:36 Håkan Persson it's

5:36 Luke F. Walton like that's ridiculous

5:36 Håkan Persson like just yeah and I think like you know with modern technology and kind of everyone being so connected it's so hard to to kind of fail without getting

5:49 Luke F. Walton Okay.

5:49 Håkan Persson such a flack for it

5:51 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

5:52 Håkan Persson because

5:52 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

5:52 Håkan Persson I remember growing up like before cell phones like

5:57 Luke F. Walton Yes.

5:57 Håkan Persson before like smartphones and you know you could play like a really shitty show at like a local establishment and

6:06 Luke F. Walton That's a good point.

6:07 Håkan Persson there would be like five friends and nobody would care because like nobody had access to the internet you

6:15 Luke F. Walton Uh

6:15 Håkan Persson know it

6:15 Luke F. Walton -huh. Uh-huh.

6:16 Håkan Persson was like just like but nowadays like if you do like a show as a kid somebody's going to post it on tiktok

6:23 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

6:23 Håkan Persson and they're going to make fun of you and it's like it's it's much harsher kind of reality i think in

6:29 Luke F. Walton Yeah. I agree.

6:30 Håkan Persson that sense

6:30 Luke F. Walton I

6:30 Håkan Persson so

6:31 Luke F. Walton agree.

6:31 Håkan Persson yeah i guess so that's kind of where i started out um And then I got like, so then I got really into like punk rock and

6:41 Luke F. Walton Cool.

6:42 Håkan Persson hardcore. So I play like straight edge hardcore and I played in a rap metal band.

6:50 Luke F. Walton Wait, I didn't know that. That's

6:52 Håkan Persson Yeah,

6:52 Luke F. Walton cool.

6:52 Håkan Persson I played

6:54 Luke F. Walton That's

6:54 Håkan Persson in a

6:54 Luke F. Walton awesome.

6:54 Håkan Persson rap metal band for like six years.

6:56 Luke F. Walton That's awesome. What did you play? Were you playing guitar? Are you singing?

7:01 Håkan Persson I was rapping

7:01 Luke F. Walton rapping

7:01 Håkan Persson and playing

7:02 Luke F. Walton yes

7:02 Håkan Persson guitar.

7:03 Luke F. Walton that's awesome that's

7:06 Håkan Persson Wait,

7:06 Luke F. Walton so cool yeah

7:07 Håkan Persson I can send you a link later.

7:08 Luke F. Walton dude totally yes

7:10 Håkan Persson It's like the music video is still on YouTube, I think. for

7:15 Luke F. Walton That's awesome. Yeah, if you're feeling bold, I can drop the link in the description. But all

7:19 Håkan Persson sure sure i'm

7:20 Luke F. Walton right. All right. It's a check the description.

7:21 Håkan Persson i'm game so yeah and and then kind of i was always kind of just looking for the next kind of thing to inspire the next kind of so i was like borrowing records kind of just whatever i could find every genre

7:42 Håkan Persson And then I like worked just like kind of mowing grass and I started my own studio when I was 15 in my parents' garage and I would record all my friends for free. And I kind of found this passion for producing stuff and recording stuff. And yeah, that's kind of then just kind of snowballed.

8:06 Luke F. Walton Right.

8:06 Håkan Persson Yeah.

8:06 Luke F. Walton And they just keep going. That's so good.

8:10 Håkan Persson Yeah,

8:10 Luke F. Walton That's so good.

8:11 Håkan Persson yeah, yeah. I guess that's it.

8:13 Luke F. Walton What inspired you on the electronic side? What kind of made you get into dance music and want to explore that genre as well?

8:23 Håkan Persson well let's kind of find a story because i was actually i actually hated dance music Perfect.

8:29 Håkan Persson so so when it first came out you know when avicii got big you know like when swedish dance music swedish edm was really really getting big like me and uh my my partner in crime Louise we were like hating on edm because we were like indie kids we came from diy we came from punk we're just like EDM is such a shitty genre but they're like they don't know what you're doing it's just like and then we just kind of kind of fell into doing top lines because someone was asking us yeah like

9:05 Luke F. Walton So what is a top line?

9:06 Håkan Persson yeah

9:06 Luke F. Walton How does that work just for listeners that might not know what that term is?

9:10 Håkan Persson yeah for sure like a top line is basically you have two parts of a song you have the instrumental like

9:16 Håkan Persson the the music and you have the top line which is the vocal melody and the lyrics and the vocal take and so it's basically the two parts of a song the instrumental and the top line so in electronic dance music it's usually a lot of the producers and the DJs they do their

9:40 Håkan Persson instrumentals and productions and then you look for someone to do the top line and the top liner is often someone who's yeah like an indie artist or

9:50 Luke F. Walton Right.

9:50 Håkan Persson like somebody who's a bit more non-mainstream I guess so so that's kind of why we fell into that hole and

10:01 Håkan Persson And then it just kind of, I just kind of, you know, you start working with it, you kind of fall in love with it, you kind of fall in love with the different intricate parts and you find the craft in it

10:12 Luke F. Walton Yes.

10:12 Håkan Persson and like how somebody just spends hours getting like the perfect. like amount of bass and like punch in the kick drum and to really make like the club go wild and it's yeah so I guess that's kind of why we kind of fell in love with it

10:32 Luke F. Walton Yeah. It's funny how relationships with genres can change over time. like

10:38 Håkan Persson Yeah,

10:38 Luke F. Walton I mean like

10:38 Håkan Persson for sure.

10:39 Luke F. Walton I got into music school and I did not like jazz because the jazz kids were mean and you know and so I was just like I don't like this genre and then like now I'm obsessed but it's it like it had this different color of like you know how I felt about myself versus how they the like vibes that they put off and I I see that sometimes with like music and identity especially like you know

11:05 Luke F. Walton traditionally like punk hates disco and disco is like the evolution edm kind of evolves from disco and you know punk and turns into hardcore and post hardcore and like naturally are at odds but now that's all kind of broken down which i think

11:19 Håkan Persson is Yeah.

11:19 Luke F. Walton for the better because like how boring would that be if you only listen to like one genre your entire life you like change as a person but you're like identify as only the genre

11:28 Håkan Persson yeah i think like it's so like limiting to to to do genres and that's kind of uh why i started i don't speak french as well it was just kind of because i felt limited by by the bands that were in at the time that were kind of very boxed in and you would be like oh we need to play strictly punk or strictly this and you just want to do music that's kind of boundary boundaryless and and yeah i totally agree i think like

11:58 Håkan Persson and I totally resonate with that story about like jazz kids being mean like yeah yeah I remember that from music school as well like all the all the guys who played like the Rosanna the drum beat and they're like oh yeah that dude can play drums you're like all right

12:21 Luke F. Walton yeah yeah

12:22 Håkan Persson It's a weird world. Yeah, sure.

12:25 Luke F. Walton it is but it mellows out it's it i feel like part of it too is everyone's just trying to kind of like find their way so they're they're emulating the other people you know like how like whiplash that movie was it's like

12:38 Håkan Persson it's so good it's

12:39 Luke F. Walton out loud flash it's really good totally

12:41 Håkan Persson like it's such a great film but

12:43 Luke F. Walton oh

12:44 Håkan Persson it's like yeah because i think like that's kind of the fun part about like music nowadays it's

12:50 Luke F. Walton you're

12:50 Håkan Persson it feels much more boundaryless as you say it's much more like melting pot you have like genres like hyper pop and like every day i feel like i'm checking spotify or or whatever and i find like a band kind of breaking the boundaries of of

13:09 Luke F. Walton Mm hmm.

13:09 Håkan Persson like genre i've heard before and i'm

13:12 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

13:12 Håkan Persson like shit this is super cool

13:13 Luke F. Walton it

13:13 Håkan Persson it's

13:14 Luke F. Walton is.

13:14 Håkan Persson uh yeah i think it's i think it's a really interesting sonically sonically interesting interesting time we live in

13:22 Luke F. Walton I agree. And I think part of it's the it's like the medium, like, you know, I'm getting all those like weird Spotify for you playlists that are like late night sad, but driving and like, okay, that hey that's you know like that's technically i guess that's a genre now because if

13:37 Håkan Persson Yeah,

13:37 Luke F. Walton you make

13:38 Håkan Persson yeah

13:38 Luke F. Walton music that's like i don't know i can feel it coming in the air tonight phil collins kind of beat it's like that's that's kind of that so it's like okay somewhere loosely associated with that feeling that je ne sais quoi that just

13:52 Håkan Persson Yeah,

13:52 Luke F. Walton French

13:53 Håkan Persson it's like more, yeah, it's like more a mood than an actual genre.

13:58 Luke F. Walton right right which is a yeah yeah that's a freeing thing I think to to write to particularly for people that have done film and TV. So I want to talk to you a little bit about that, like, you know, commercial work, scoring and stuff, because I think a lot of that is an interesting parallel to the way that, you know, pop music has evolved, where,

14:23 Håkan Persson Yeah.

14:23 Luke F. Walton so I'd love to get your take on just kind of what that what that process is like, how you how you experience that, and then how maybe that has informed some

14:32 Håkan Persson of the pop music that's you know obviously is more on the creative and fulfilling side

14:36 Håkan Persson Yeah. of it like one they seem to talk to each other a little bit so I'm just I'm just curious you take

14:42 Håkan Persson Yeah, I would agree. And I think like commercials is actually a pretty interesting subject because like there's

14:50 Håkan Persson i always tell people like when they when they talk about commercial and commercial songs and stuff like that i like well have you seen a car commercial that has like a commercial song have

15:01 Håkan Persson Yeah. you ever seen a car commercial with a commercial song no like because all these brands are looking for stuff that is like pushing the envelope sounding like interesting sonically like a lot of really cool indie bands i've found for like commercials For and

15:19 Håkan Persson sure. i think that's kind of a really really nice kind of uh symbiotic relationship where

15:27 Håkan Persson Yeah. like these big corporations kind of enjoy taking the tiny indie artist and being like oh here you go here's some money uh we like your song uh it's uh i think it's really really interesting and it's kind of it's kind of interesting how it's become that because if you look at like historically you

15:52 Håkan Persson Yep. have like going from like the 30s 40s 50s 60s you have this kind of written for tv music and then it kind of evolved into i don't know why but it kind of evolved into i think it's kind of You have such a short time period for

16:13 Håkan Persson Yeah. selling something, Yes. so you want to have something that's sonically interesting as well, maybe.

16:19 Håkan Persson And like of that of that moment, like that thing that feels like 2023. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

16:26 Håkan Persson And it's like if you just get something that's just, I don't know, like a stock library or a composer that's, you know. focused on underscore and stuff like that then i don't think you come get as much like the soul of that moment as somebody

16:39 Håkan Persson No. that's making it yeah I think a perfect example of that yeah is like one of the first examples I remember kind of visually is I don't I think it's a Samsung ad maybe or if it's like but it's like a thousand a hundred thousand like bouncy balls bouncing down San

16:59 Håkan Persson oh i think i remember that one yeah yeah yeah Francisco you remember that? And it's like, it's like that Swedish singer songwriter, Jose Gonzalez, I think it's like the heartbeats, his cover of The Knife. I think it's that song. I don't

17:17 Håkan Persson I totally remember. quote me. I will. But I just remember that so vividly being such a defining kind of, oh, this is really cool.

17:30 Håkan Persson Yeah, So I think that is something to be said for that. Like if an ad, if you kind of remember an ad 15 years later and being like, oh, you kind of totally. succeeded.

17:44 Håkan Persson No, totally. And it's actually funny because I was just joking about that I can feel it coming in the air tonight.

17:51 Håkan Persson That was kind of like a moment, I think, that pulled pop music deeper into the relationship. I know obviously that was in a movie. all

18:01 Håkan Persson Yeah. right and not in a movie in a tv show but um but like those those feelings i think maybe it was like the 80s where you know if you got like get top gun and all these different things that are like footloose or whatever that are pulling in pop music and um relating them saturday night fever with the the bee gees like all of that starts getting closer and closer closer and then like you're saying like phone commercials like apple and samsung and stuff and now it's

18:27 Håkan Persson now this is like a discovery vehicle because now we can shazam stuff and yeah that kind of opens it wide up yeah

18:33 Håkan Persson yeah and it kind of gets like a competition almost where yeah like companies want to be like the the new curator kind of the new music supervisors are just like Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's they they are the new playlists the

18:50 Håkan Persson yeah i material know exactly playlist this well they're time they're one of the few people that actually have like a broadcasting platform like that

18:56 Håkan Persson Yeah, yeah you can get the word out it's like we don't have like the ed sullivan show or something to like you know like there's like saturday night live but it's not nearly even at the scale that it used to be like you know there's there's just less places to just blast it out commercials are one of the best ways because they're across platforms they're they're you know on hulu they're on you know like on

19:17 Håkan Persson Yeah. broadcast tv and they're everywhere yeah Yeah. Like, I remember you, you got like, was it, you got a commercial for, it was like a beer, beer brand,

19:30 Håkan Persson yeah right? Coors Coors Light which is an American beer All right, curse light. yeah

19:34 Håkan Persson Yeah. yeah It's an American brand. So I suck totally a at that. foreign imported beer Coors Light in Sweden. it's probably it would be expensive actually to drink that standard beer in Europe.

19:49 Håkan Persson so was was course life the brand who was in the controversy recently or No, was no, that was a different one. That was Bud Light.

19:56 Håkan Persson all right all right all right but like all right or controversy it depends on how you see it for sure

20:00 Håkan Persson Exactly. Well, either way, I think it's a controversy. It's like, did they overdo it or did they? uh over respond i think regardless of how you feel either way you're mad um

20:12 Håkan Persson yeah so but how how did you feel like when when you got the news like when you first got the news for like oh you're you're like sam called you and you're hey dude we're gonna do this

20:23 Håkan Persson it was uh the both of us i think weren't sure if it was real you know because like you get an instagram dm that's like hey i want to give you money like okay yeah totally um but uh you know it wasn't real until the the the check cleared and um at that moment it was like okay now i think we've uh

20:45 Håkan Persson we've entered a new phase of this becoming an actual career and and it was interesting too because it was you know you're trying to figure out like okay is this going to be the game changer like did a bunch of people hear it but it ended up being regionally locked to only Canada

21:01 Håkan Persson so i got some more canadian fans but it wasn't didn't end up being like this global campaign but the money ended up you know i was able to buy this laptop which made my music production so much faster and so now that's part of the reason why i'm able to make more music is because of that the opportunity but yeah i mean like that that's the thing to look out for is when you have something that not only pays you but also is that broadcast vehicle

21:25 Håkan Persson that Yeah. like takes you to that exposure level yeah and I think like because when you talk to a lot of young indie bands

21:32 Håkan Persson Yep. they're kind of hesitant towards Mm-hmm. it they're Yeah. kind of like oh I don't want to be like a sellout or something like that

21:39 Håkan Persson Yeah, but totally. it's it's I I kind of I get that but I think it's it's such an important vehicle for for indie music so it's when it comes down to it like Nobody cares if you sell out a little bit.

21:56 Luke F. Walton well yeah i mean there there are different degrees of selling out right like having somebody pay you to put your commercial with or put your song in their commercial you're not really i don't know it's that's like one level and then there's another level where it's like hey can you change all the lyrics and make them about like my chocolate brand it's like okay that's that's a different degree of selling out yeah

22:17 Håkan Persson That's a different kind of sad.

22:21 Luke F. Walton right but then again

22:22 Håkan Persson And I've got my price. Yeah, all right, so let's, okay, I'll write down a number and you tell me if it's right. Yeah.

22:33 Håkan Persson we'll see how close we get yeah but like but but like also thinking about what it is in service for so if you like one of the thing that i want to do is i want to only make music i'm not there yet but that's my north star because i know that if i can get there everything else can get better and then i can have more impact in the world and so it's like in order to get there if i if i gotta sell a little bit um it's okay because that the net result will be more music in the world

22:59 Håkan Persson world and more imprint of like what i do on the community and on the industry yeah

23:04 Håkan Persson and the the global sound all that kind of stuff so um that that's maybe just my way of justifying it but i don't i don't know i don't feel morally icky about it maybe if it was a wrong company i might but you know yeah

23:16 Håkan Persson yeah i think like there's always like this moral line and it's uh we can always say no like if it's

23:22 Håkan Persson exactly if it's you can no always say no yep um but like I like I do sometimes I do like small like talks in

23:35 Håkan Persson Mm like schools -hmm. Cool. and stuff and I always thing I always talk about is people always assume like if you're not like able to fully support yourself for

23:48 Håkan Persson Yeah. your music. you're you you have failed in Right. a sense there's like this this kind of picture oh you're you're working an extra job and like doing this and whatever and I I feel like that is such a false image and it's such a bad image to project to people because like I like for the last I think it's like five years now I've been able to fully support myself on my music

24:19 Håkan Persson But there was like six years before that when I was working professionally and I could sustain myself about 50% so I only had to work 50% another job and then I worked 50% with my music.

24:35 Håkan Persson Mm-hmm. And then there was like a time before that where I had Right to work like 100 and another job.

24:42 Håkan Persson Yeah, And I'm so proud of those years. yeah I'm so proud of kind of digging down, doing the dog years, kind of just like sticking around because so much of actually succeeding with music is just, you know, pure just doing it because so many people are just like, oh, I released the song. it didn't go well huh and

25:09 Håkan Persson Mm-hmm. you just you just have to get at it just okay your song flopped do another song like so this didn't work now try something else you know it's it's always like that and you just it's you can't be you shouldn't be ashamed of having an extra job you should be super proud of it because it's it's it's always going to be something that humbles you and keeps you close to

25:35 Håkan Persson to what actually matters and it's going to be the thing that keeps you once you actually get there where you're able to sustain yourself you're going to be like damn I used to be this and now I'm able to do this full time and I wake up every day and I'm like so thankful for being like able to spend time with my son being able to go down the studio have a cup of coffee you know it's

26:00 Håkan Persson it's like and it's because if I just gotten it from the get-go I wouldn't like appreciate it so

26:09 Håkan Persson agreed that I think like get the stigma way of like being ashamed of having another job you shouldn't like

26:18 Håkan Persson was beautiful he said and then you know listeners this is this is part of the reason why i

26:24 Håkan Persson love this guy so much he's he's you just you just have the right energy and perspective and focus and i knew it from the first time we wrote together it was like damn this dude

26:35 Luke F. Walton like we get each other this is great so i'm so glad that we're because

26:40 Håkan Persson Well, same here,

26:41 Luke F. Walton that that's exactly it that's exactly it i mean i like i i work 40 hours a week doing doing my my full-time job and i woke up at 5 a.m yesterday and i worked on music for three and a half hours and then i drove to the office came back worked on music again and it was super tiring but

27:01 Håkan Persson I swear there's an energy that you end up putting into that music. It's like that FU energy of like, I'm getting out of here no matter what it takes. This is in it. And you're breathing

27:13 Håkan Persson the best that life into that. yeah i don't know there and i also think that it helps you like like you just sent me a sick demo of a tune and i write songs like this too where it's like talking about that like that push pull of capitalism and and kind of like feeling like you're a cog in a machine and wanting to break out And I think that there's something important as an artist to have felt that and understand that

27:38 Håkan Persson yeah because then you can relate to people on a deeper level that are going through the same thing. We're all feeling that and writing

27:44 Håkan Persson yeah tunes to that effect, putting that kind of energy into your tunes and also ending up being on the other side and having that gratitude. I

27:52 Håkan Persson yeah think that's all I agree. Super important. Super important. and it's like and it's so much like because like all the best songs are always written in like just before bed and you

28:03 Håkan Persson Yes. kind of get like Yes. this idea and you say oh wait i need to uh and you're just like you're

28:08 Luke F. Walton I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm going to.

28:10 Håkan Persson you're like made a keyboard and you're just like whispering into the mic and then you wake up in the morning and you're just like oh i need to do this and it's like

28:10 Håkan Persson like mid a keyboard and you're just like whispering into the mic and then you that feeling is and you just spend all day at work just like thinking about when you come home oh I'm gonna do this I'm gonna add that I'm gonna do that and it's yeah it's it's and it's it just humbles you with like with your whole whole being I I think

28:38 Luke F. Walton yeah And it gives you something to help pull you through. Like I even felt that way at school where, you know, I'd be in a boring math class or something.

28:46 Luke F. Walton there'd be part of me that'd be like visualizing the guitar fretboard or being like you know i just learned what the modes are so i'm like writing down the name of all the the greek modes um even though i barely ever have to say those words now but in my head i was like oh if i'm going to be a professional musician i better know that phrygian is all about the flat two and like you know all this crap that's like nobody cares but um back then you know it kept it pulled help

29:13 Luke F. Walton helped pull me through high school because I had like a North Star. I had a thing that I wanted to be and become.

29:19 Håkan Persson yeah and i remember i was the same in school and i remember just like every i don't know if you have it in like um in in the united states but in sweden we have like like student reviews basically so

29:32 Luke F. Walton What is that?

29:33 Håkan Persson so

29:33 Luke F. Walton What does that mean?

29:33 Håkan Persson you meet the teacher like once or twice like twice a year you meet the teacher with your parents and

29:39 Luke F. Walton Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. We have this like once a year. Yeah, yeah yeah.

29:42 Håkan Persson so and you talk about oh this is going well this is good And, Hmm? like... every like every meeting for the whole of my like student years all my teacher would say like yeah he's a he's a nice guy he he does well like but he's he's a bit distracted he's like a bit absent-minded and kind of not there sometimes and I would hear that from like you know first grade until I graduated it was just like

30:15 Håkan Persson and and i think it's just like everyone like because we're always we're we're thinking about uh

30:20 Luke F. Walton Mm hmm.

30:21 Håkan Persson a dream you know we're we're thinking about the creative kind of essence of everything and just like oh right math but oh wait but

30:34 Luke F. Walton No, I know.

30:36 Håkan Persson yeah but it's it's it's really uh it's it's a beautiful thing for sure

30:40 Luke F. Walton It is. It is a beautiful thing. i'm i'm curious about uh the cultural impact of a band like abba in

30:50 Håkan Persson oh for sure

30:51 Luke F. Walton your

30:51 Håkan Persson well

30:51 Luke F. Walton country and growing up as being a musician all that kind of stuff like what's what's it like over there because obviously they're a huge band in the united states too but it's got to be a different

30:59 Håkan Persson well

30:59 Luke F. Walton scale

30:59 Håkan Persson i would say like abba was the first kind of swedish sound where we're like kind of gave the world kind of the Swedish way

31:11 Luke F. Walton Okay.

31:11 Håkan Persson of doing music

31:12 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

31:12 Håkan Persson and it kind of set the tone for a lot of future stuff so we have because that's kind of the thing where you when you grow up in Sweden we're we're a tiny country we're like well now we're 10 million which is the size of Tokyo yeah

31:31 Håkan Persson yeah right i feel like the la county is around 10 million la county population yeah 9.83 million yeah so you have like the size of la yeah

31:41 Håkan Persson you know like Spotify is Swedish SoundCloud is Swedish Skype i thought is soundcloud was

31:47 Håkan Persson Swedish okay oh cool i title should have used i should have skyped you instead of zoomed you

31:52 Håkan Persson no please don't please don't please don't please don't you title title too i just got my uh my title artist artist uh profile whatever send that up

32:01 Håkan Persson oh to artists dope yeah thanks dope congrats but it's it's you know like or or the the wimp that was called before it went title so it's called wimp yeah so it's wimp and it was like a norwegian swedish company and jc bought it and fired everyone

32:23 Håkan Persson it took the technology so yeah so it's not not a super nice story but but it's kind of those kind of those kind of companies and you know those kind of the same with music you have like a lot of you have robin and you have um max martin and like um

32:39 Håkan Persson the hives and abba and avicii and you have so many like artists kind of pushing the envelope and and getting huge and

32:48 Håkan Persson Yes. like you have sarah larsen you know tuvalu there are so many um red one like who did all like lady gaga's first like hits um and and you're kind of so all these people are kind of showing you it's possible so

33:07 Håkan Persson Cool. Yeah. so that's kind of it gives you this kind of stage where okay it doesn't matter if I'm from this small country like there is like this just go do it but it's also weird because at the same time Swedish people are very we don't like to brag we hate to brag and it's kind of seen as uh almost ugly thing to

33:33 Håkan Persson Okay. to brag Yeah. it's Yeah. called in we have a term for it's called jantelag so

33:38 Håkan Persson Okay. it's Cool. Do basically you have a specific like you word don't for. you don't brag about your accomplishments

33:43 Håkan Persson Cool. and Yeah. Yeah. and sometimes i get annoyed by it because i feel like you should be allowed to be proud of your accomplishments but it's also kind of the reason i think why swedish people are successful

34:00 Håkan Persson in in those fields because it's just kind of well like there's a story about how when max martin got one of his biggest hits and he was in la and they were like oh for once let's like go out and celebrate and they like the the record label got them a limo and they went to like some bar and they ordered champagne and they just like sat in a corner Taking some pain. And I'm like, can we go back to the studio now?

34:33 Håkan Persson and so a lot of Swedish people are like that because we we grow up in like the darkness and like the cold and it's like we just want to sit in a in a warm room like doing music

34:47 Håkan Persson and that's just do all the work yes yes that's great yeah and I also think like more than so than ABBA you have something called in Sweden it's only in Sweden actually well there are versions of it in Norway as well but it's very you very unique to our country it's called study study associations so

35:09 Håkan Persson Okay. what it is is basically if you imagine like a state funded school in a sense

35:21 Håkan Persson Uh-huh. Uh-huh. so you start what is called like a circle a study circle and you get money from the state to do a study circle and

35:34 Håkan Persson Uh and you -huh. can study about just about anything you can study how to knit you can study how to play guitar how to any and you just need like two friends that's all you need and a lot of these study associations take the money from the state and make sure that there are rehearsal spaces and

35:55 Håkan Persson um yeah like they set up shows for younger bands and stuff like that so if you're like a young band growing up you can get a rehearsal space for like fifty dollars a month uh

36:08 Håkan Persson Wow. Dang. and you get It's like if like $50 you need a and bar an hour here, man.

36:14 Håkan Persson yeah you get to borrow free instruments Yeah. uh so Yeah. it's it's a kind of unique system and a lot of if you talk to any swedish musician they'll say like yeah i grew up playing in like a study association rehearsal space because we all did uh

36:30 Håkan Persson Awesome. Awesome. i think that is also kind of a perspective at all Oh, so it's, yeah.

36:36 Håkan Persson No, I mean, in the United States, it's like good luck. that's kind of also that's also kind of why you're successful as well it's kind of drive

36:48 Håkan Persson it's it in it is a different i mean like the but it's it's funny because the study circle idea uh i i have some canadian friends that have um you know state funding for tour support or music videos they have like this cultural like council kind of thing that supports popular music in the u.s we're pretty much i mean like we have some stuff

37:10 Håkan Persson stuff for um we have a bunch of stuff for music education um now um that's part of what i do for my day job actually um is is try to get more money for that but um that helps people you know up until they graduate but then after they graduate we do like some grants for like blues traditional music jazz but it's not very robust

37:33 Håkan Persson my canadian bands they'll they'll like have you know a small following and they'll be touring like 50 dates it's like it's an amazing but it's super cool because it's like hey pop music is cultural music too um investing in that invests in your culture and tells your story i mean k-pop doesn't exist without the south korean government investing in it you

37:56 Håkan Persson Exactly. It's, it's, and it's, it's such a big part of like our. our culture Yeah,

38:02 Håkan Persson like yeah, our music is such a big so and like I now I just mentioned like a lot of pop producers but you have so much like on the metal and hard rock side and

38:13 Håkan Persson yes, the punk side like yes. how So true. like the whole whole death metal scene

38:18 Håkan Persson Right. like basically came from Gophenberg in Stockholm it's uh yeah it's it it's yeah it's a weird country oh

38:25 Håkan Persson sounds awesome and i really want to come visit because and you're very much welcome yes

38:29 Håkan Persson you've told me about all these sweet uh what was it you had like a new year's kind of drinks or christmas certain kind of drinks and stuff that i want to try yes

38:38 Håkan Persson you're most welcome yeah gotta get on some of that sounds yeah for fun sure must is a must

38:45 Håkan Persson yeah it's a must yeah I'm here for some lust. Yeah. Dude, that's awesome. That's awesome. I would love to kind of ask you a little bit more about your project because I just personally have some questions.

38:58 Håkan Persson Oh yeah, for sure. In terms of you have all these great musicians that you work with. Do you view your project kind of like this like collective? Are you pulling people in and out? Is this like are there studio musicians that come in and out? Or how did you connect with all of these people? How are you getting, you know, these awesome drummers to come in and how did you how did you build this?

39:17 Håkan Persson Because it has a very interesting kind of flavor to your well band. well it's kind of it's kind of where you find people who you resonate with and you kind of yeah you start kind of small you do like you just hang out and you do stuff and and it all I think it all comes down to just being open to to kind of letting people in and sharing and being that sort of where there's like i'm full of anecdotes but there's

39:50 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

39:50 Håkan Persson like the story about a really big swedish artist and um he wrote like all the music in the band and he did everything and they were sitting at the back of the tour bus and they got like their um receipts for you know ascap sure thing and and he would like oh i got like two million grand

40:13 Håkan Persson and and the rest of the band would be like oh i got 2000 you know and it would be like this really kind of bad vibe

40:23 Håkan Persson Yeah, you know totally, uh totally. and and like there are situations where it is supposed to be like but if you're like a banner and it's like it doesn't have to be like but you should always be like open to other people's kind of ideas like i have this kind of way of thinking where my idea isn't always the best idea like

40:45 Håkan Persson Mm-hmm. even if i'm like super set on an idea i'm like oh this is such a great idea if like louise for example comes in and like oh but you should do like this i'll always try it i'll always like give it a few days or like a thought

41:01 Håkan Persson Mm-hmm. so you don't close your mind Cool, to it so yeah. I we kind of built this collective of just being like super open and being like oh so you want to you want to do this and and just make sure that everyone gets a cut and everyone is included and everyone is like and and people just like join in and want to do it because it's fun and it's and it's like um yeah so i think it's got it's just kind of sharing mentality i guess yeah

41:35 Håkan Persson I like that. That's a great kind of mentality to bring to creative endeavors, music otherwise, is like you have an idea, that's your nugget, but then other people can have this other idea and like being open to exploring stuff, but also confident to like know what's a good idea is a delicate balance, but I think that's super important.

41:59 Håkan Persson yeah for sure so like you shouldn't like abandon your own ideas but like you should at least give other people's ideas a shot i

42:06 Håkan Persson Yeah, feel yeah like especially with you know guys uh when it comes like female guy structure and especially when you're in like sessions there's especially with producers that's kind of why i enjoy working with you as well because it's you meet a lot of producers and it's like you you shout out something you're like oh we should try this they're so set in stone on their own vision

42:29 Håkan Persson are so set in stone on their own vision that

42:32 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

42:32 Håkan Persson they aren't even connecting with your vision so they're just like oh yeah for sure dude and then they program something completely different and you just then you just end up with bad you know bad feels and bad vibes and and you don't want to do a collab with them again like it's it's

42:53 Luke F. Walton Yeah, I get it. Totally. Well

42:56 Håkan Persson So you should always be like, you should always be open to it. And I think that's kind of because if you succeed, if you succeed and you get to this point where you're making it, you want to bring the people along who. you trust and

43:19 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

43:19 Håkan Persson who supported you and who knows you because I feel like that is such that is such the issue with when it comes to big artists it's always like they're so alone they're always like they've always even you like read interviews and stuff they're always talking about how they feel so disconnected and alone because they have no one like who knows them truly so

43:47 Luke F. Walton Yeah, absolutely.

43:49 Håkan Persson I feel like that's important part because if you if you make it you want to have people you trust yeah

43:55 Luke F. Walton And you want to, I don't know, I think you and I are similar in the idea of like, we want to make it as a community rather than just as an individual. It'd be way less lonely, way more fun and way bigger opportunity for impact.

44:13 Håkan Persson Yeah, for sure.

44:14 Luke F. Walton you know if you like because you know how like there's like these music scenes that like you know cbgb like there's like this or a sunset strip or like seattle like you have these like things that coalesce and become sounds i think we have the opportunity to do that but cross geographic like landscape i mean irrespective of where we actually live um

44:36 Håkan Persson For sure. It's just like, I think COVID, if it did anything that's actually good,

44:42 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

44:42 Håkan Persson it showed people it's possible to do the thing we do across

44:49 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

44:50 Håkan Persson borders with just like just a computer and a screen. And I think that's really beautiful.

44:57 Håkan Persson good thing to come from COVID um but yeah as you said like I I think like you and Sam what you're doing it's kind of the same you're you have your little your little bubble of someone you trust and you have like a just kind of little collective of artists and people and it's it's I think it's I think it's a really really good way of doing stuff

45:19 Luke F. Walton Thank you. And actually, I'd love to talk to you a little bit on Indie Shake and kind of what you're doing.

45:24 Luke F. Walton going on kind of the label and in promo side growing that network um you've sent me some really really cool artists that i i look forward to working with in some capacity in the future too um how do you go about kind of discovery growing that network welcoming people in i love the kind of grassroots homey nature that you've been doing it it isn't it hasn't felt so much like a hey i'm a label here's a contract sign it and i'll get back to you kind of you know it's it's bucking that old old style of doing

45:50 Håkan Persson doing things so i'd love to hear about kind of what you're doing there Well, I think, well, it started out with we got this really big sync placement with Samsung and we got a shit ton of money.

46:03 Håkan Persson yeah awesome Yeah, for sure. It was a lot of money and it was, I remember getting the call, I just cried and cried and cried and cried. I was, it was really big moments.

46:17 Håkan Persson Because we had like this background with doing top lines and we worked with, you know, labels such as Universal and Sony and Warner and spinning records and all these giant labels,

46:29 Håkan Persson Mm hmm. what we kind of discovered was like they suck. Mm hmm. They really, really suck because they spend so much money on basically nothing.

46:45 Håkan Persson and you would like you would release a song and you would get like 10 million streams and you would get the royalty statement and you would be like oh 100 bucks because they would like spend you know three grand on blah and three grand on blah and blah and it would just be like this big bloated creature so we were like well let's do it ourselves and

47:12 Håkan Persson Mm-hmm. we had um a friend who had worked like with big artists in the edm industry but who was like an indie at heart Mm-hmm and he joined for the ride and then we joined some other people and yeah and it was just kind of we had so many friends and people who we thought were so talented and did such amazing music and we're like oh

47:38 Håkan Persson We actually have the ability to take a bit of this money and invest it into building our own label, building our own kind of collective. And that's kind of what we did. So

47:50 Håkan Persson Great. we basically did like a contract that is everything that we, the opposite of everything we dislike with me.

48:00 Håkan Persson Cool. Yep. Yep. So for example, like there's a clause in our contract where. We are not allowed to spend above 250 euros without

48:13 Håkan Persson Mm hmm. asking the artist. Cool. Yeah. So we can spend like 250 euros on ads or whatever.

48:20 Håkan Persson Yeah. But anything above that, we have to ask the artist. So the artist has the ownership of their own royalties because that's it's a very like disheartening feeling you know

48:37 Håkan Persson Yeah. when when you have a song that's really successful and by like indie means it's very successful and and you see someone else just throwing your money away it's it feels shitty

48:49 Håkan Persson Of you course. know and Totally. uh but there are a lot of like so actually inspiration for it came from a lot of like smaller edm labels

48:59 Håkan Persson Okay. such as like swath uh which were doing like single releases and they were doing like this sort of very very like small structure easy contracts low cost high royalty payout and that's kind of what we want to do and also all of our contracts are song by song basis so we don't sign artists for like oh 10 years or two records we

49:27 Håkan Persson Yeah. signed them for each song so Cool. Neat. they're always they always have the uh the opportunity to jump boats or

49:38 Håkan Persson Yeah. jump ship Right. uh Yeah. and like that's really bad business it's super bad business like on paper it's stupid as all hell but

49:49 Håkan Persson in reality it's really good because people stay and people want to work with you and people actually you actually have a real connection with people and they're real like they're not just like a number you know so

50:06 Håkan Persson Yes, yes. I, in one, I in one of my business classes on this on the same kind of topic, I entrepreneur came into our class.

50:17 Luke F. Walton and in san diego we're um we used to be at least where i kind of grew up we used to be like the flower capital of the united states like we grew all the flowers um and then it's coastal california so obviously that doesn't really make sense to do anymore because everyone wants to live here and so the as the property values go up all of these people that were growing all these flowers and it's like beautiful coastal communities like crap what do we do um this entrepreneur was the

50:45 Håkan Persson like first guy to go down to South America I think it was like Peru or something and he met these people who were growing flowers at a really high quality down there and he figured out a way to basically put him on a boat and ship him up and they just had a handshake deal because they got on so well they got along he really liked this guy he spoke some Spanish he spoke some English and they figured it out and now he's like one of the top importers of flowers in the entire United States

51:14 Håkan Persson united states is in costco and all these like walmart's all the stuff and i asked him like how did you end up structuring the deal later he said i didn't he just kept it on the handshake they said yeah yeah we'll cut this percent we'll cut this percent handshake no papers they but they just they were cool they just were cool and it worked out and so i think that like there are some things that don't make sense on the business perspective but if you have the right relationships and the right people

51:41 Luke F. Walton All that stuff's just to sue each other. That's really what those papers are there for and or to or to outline a deal so that you're like on the same page that, you know, but beyond that, it's it's like you're you're kind of using it to protect yourselves. But if you have such a tight relationship, you'll want to grow together. And if all of a sudden you're the weekend or something.

52:02 Luke F. Walton It makes the most sense to bring up the people that you trust, the community that built you, and then you all win, you know?

52:12 Håkan Persson like i think there's just something special about it and i i think it threatens the corporate um hierarchy like i've seen it with lebron because he he came up with you know one of his his friends for like childhood friends and now he started a sports agency he's you know um he and so there was a lot of pushback a lot of negative pr like who is this guy why and now he's arguably one of the top agents

52:37 Håkan Persson But he came up with the people that he trusted, he built them up too, and they had significant anti-PR, they didn't like it necessarily in the establishment, but it worked. It worked. And

52:49 Håkan Persson Yeah, for sure. And yeah, I think like, I think you and Sam with the former, I think like it's kind of the same mentality and same thing. It's relationship based.

53:02 Håkan Persson Yeah, And I think that's kind of the future of the music industry in general, because a lot of because a lot of bands don't want to sign to label because

53:14 Håkan Persson yeah there isn't a point to it. anymore it's just like you can do it yourself and it's true you can do it yourself right

53:21 Håkan Persson Yep. But there's a key thing that I think that the DIY misses is that it's so okay, there's a saying, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far,

53:31 Håkan Persson yeah go together. You can do both. And that's that's what I what we're trying to do with me of a former and my own personal music is that I can make music all on my own and so I can go really fast. but

53:43 Håkan Persson Yeah. I couldn't go very far because I wouldn't have anybody hyping me up keeping me accountable saying this song works this is what you should keep going like you know that constant interaction of like I'm not just making for myself I'm making for the team like we're all doing this together that kind of energy is what keeps you going and I'm

54:03 Luke F. Walton it's like it's like i i've never been able to work out to like look sexy or something like i it's like that's too selfish but if i work out in order to hike a mountain with my friends and i don't want to slow them down so i got to be able to to like have good fitness so i can get up the mountain with them or help them if there's an emergency i could carry them on my back or something like that totally different motivation structure and that one works for me just like oh i gotta lose weight so i've got like abs it's like

54:32 Håkan Persson like I don't care man it just doesn't do it it just doesn't do it yeah i think that's a really really nice way of putting it it really it really summarizes in a very very good way yeah i i think that's yeah that says it all yeah i totally agree 100 it's uh yeah it's it's it's just like you yeah as you said you can do both you don't need to choose you can always like and in relationships is so so important it's

55:02 Håkan Persson I agree. like the most important part of everything for Awesome. Well, I really appreciated hanging out with you. Where would

55:10 Håkan Persson sure uh be a good place for people to find your stuff? Where do you point people? Because you've got so much going on.

55:18 Håkan Persson well let me try and keep it short so if you like uh indie music uh check out i don't speak french

55:27 Håkan Persson and through I Don't Speak French you can you can find like a lot of uh different projects we're doing um for like louise should have been here as well uh i'm

55:36 Håkan Persson Yeah, just going to mention really quick i let's do that. work with louise Let's and

55:39 Håkan Persson do she's that next time. Let's do it again. That sounds yeah great. she's a producer and songwriter she's super talented and she has a lot of projects you can check out and um then you have indie shake if you want to jump on the label and you have sweet riff and if you want to

55:54 Luke F. Walton Party! Party!

55:57 Håkan Persson For sure.

55:58 Luke F. Walton Awesome, man. Well, thank you for joining us. Thank you everybody for listening. Be sure to share this, like it, subscribe, all that stuff. You know, hit it with the five stars so people can find podcasts like this and grow their communities and grow their good vibes. I am Scoobert Doobert. You can find my stuff at scoobertdoobert.pizza. That's my website. And we'll have you back with Louise.

56:19 Luke F. Walton We'll have a great time.

56:20 Håkan Persson Looking forward to it. Thanks, Matt. Thanks so much. I had a great time. Thanks so much.