WAVES AT NIGHT » ARCHIVE

Nordic producer/DJ/father/et al. Prins Thomas (aka. Thomas Moen Hermansen) has finally graced us with his presence and is set to play some killer gigs this weekend. Known for his trademark “cosmic disco” sound, Thomas has been in the music industry for a very long time, and currently owns and manages two labels Full Pupp and Internasjonal. You may know Thomas best for his collaboration with fellow Norwegian producer Hans-Peter Lindstrøm – the two stringing multiple releases on record label Eskimo.

Thomas is playing at Sydney’s Playground Weekender on Saturday (20th of Feb) and then he’s off to perform at the Mercat in Melbourne on the 21st. Melbourne’s Sunday gig is going to be bliss: beautiful tracks from the wonderful Thomas in the afternoon to late evening (yes, this party kicks off at three in the afternoon) so I highly suggest you purchase some tickets right now and come along. Oh and there could be a sneaky late night gig from Thomas that night as well…

The wonderful Thick as Thieves is responsible for touring Thomas and you should definitely keep your eyes peeled for their future events – they are bringing down some great talent like Optimo, Phil Kieran, Trevor Loveys, just to name a few. One that has got me excited is the prospect of Croatian Ilija Rudman coming down-under very soon.

When asked to interview Thomas I didn’t have to think for the answer; I accepted straight away, knowing this was somewhat of a dream come true – Thomas, after all, is one of my most admired producers. So upon meeting with him on a beautiful Melbourne Friday, he straight away jumps the gun and tells me about his teeth problem. Thomas then went into detail of how, whilst in the toilet on the plane to Aus, popped a lump of some sort on his gums… ah maybe I shouldn’t tell the story – it’s fair gross.. Alas, onto the interview:

PATCH: The prince of Norway! How are you? You enjoying Australia?
THOMAS: Enjoying it very much. Haven’t really done much yet besides eating and seeing a little bit of what the city [Melbourne] has to offer, such as bars and restaurants. I really enjoy the summer vacation in the Scandinavian winter.

PATCH: How’s the family back home? Is it tough being on tour without them?
THOMAS: Yes, I mean, it’s probably the main reason for not coming over before. I have a 6 year-old year son and my wife studies full time. In general, I usually don’t travel for more than two weeks to two weekends a month. I seldom travel for more than a week. I go to Japan once or twice a year and you know this year is going to be breaking the record. I went to Singapore last month for five days. So, I’ll be in Australia for a week and again in Japan for a week. I’ve taken all the long trips early in the year. All in all, it’s good; I get to see my kid probably more than normal and this way it provides economic freedom as my wife can study instead of working. Pretty much decides day-to-day life, plan as we want to.

PATCH: Do you play much in your home country? What’s the music scene like over there in Norway?
THOMAS: In Oslo, the club scene is small but good. And it’s normal. Well it’s always been about quality and diversity than hype. I mean, you do have a night based on whatever is hot right now internationally (for more younger people). I mean, in Oslo, there is only two proper clubs with proper sound-systems.

I have a monthly residency at one of these clubs that has been going for three to four years. There was another club I had been playing at for 10 years but now I’m having a break from there. I’ve started traveling so I can’t keep my residency there anymore. After a while, three years ago, I needed to be tied to one regularly gig which keeps me home during the weekends. I get to wake up in my own bed and this night is kind of a continuation of the label Full Pupp.

PATCH: So I read you started DJing at a very young age?
THOMAS: Yes, in my bedroom with turntables doing tape edits. But not good ones. In ’85 – ‘84 (9 or 10 years-old) I was inspired by “Wild Style” and the first hip-hop culture boom in Europe.

PATCH: Hip hop?
THOMAS: It’s not the same as the rap music of today; it’s more diverse. I was playing my step-father’s rock records, next to pop music 12”s and a few hip-hop music I could get my hands onto. And the early house stuff, didn’t consider it a genre of its own of at the time. I tried to pinpoint the first house record I bought – I think it was an ‘87 release “What You Gonna Do”. I still have it in my old DJ bag with my sticker ‘DJ Tee’. I didn’t play any club mixes obviously. I played at the Wednesday night youth club and Christmas balls at elementary school. First proper club gig happened around ’93 – ’94 which started as a residency of the first house clubs in Norway.

PATCH: Tell me about your most memorable gig experience?
THOMAS: Probably one of the first times I played in Tokyo. I had a really crazy hectic schedule which meant I didn’t sleep for three days. I had three gigs: Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I still hadn’t slept since I left Oslo, which was two and a half days ago. I went to this early gig in Tokyo on Sunday and the promoter was really unsure if it would work. I had to start early and stop early (6PM till midnight) due my flight leaving at 6AM or 7AM. When we arrived people had already been queuing outside and cheering. I can remember getting in the booth being so tired and taking off my shoes. The promoter came with velvet carpet and said take off your socks and laid out a bowl of fresh fruit and offered me a neck massage – I replied, “No, I’m fine”. I bent down and took out “The Rolling Stones – Wild Horses” and I just put it on while checking the sound around the club. I put the needle down, went outside and checked, and sat down on the floor while it played. I didn’t even queue-up the next record. I was almost sleeping. At the end of the track there was a huge cheer and I saw a filled up dance-floor. That’s a good start of a night when people are there when you play the least danceable track in your bag.

PATCH: I have a few recorded past sets of yours that are quite magical but they all share the duration in common, being a minimum of 4hours in length. Do you thrive in long sets? Is it hard to maintain momentum?
THOMAS: No, I mean, I like doing really long sets. I love to play ten to twelve hours. I usually only can when I play private parties (Norway, Japan). But I mean, I’ve been playing long sets for such a long time so when I started traveling, it was almost hard to get into short sets when booked for them. My manager now specifies that I have to play a minimum of three hours. I’m the only person in the in roster that doesn’t demand a maximum of two hours sets! If anyone hears me play for one to two hours, don’t complain – I would love to play longer. If you play for twelve hours you would be really tired from standing in the same spot, etc., but for me it’s a much more natural way of playing than shorter sets. It’s more about the survival of the greatest records – “Who of you are gonna’ be part of the party?” It’s always difficult when you have a big bag of records and they all want to participate.

PATCH: How did the music journey begin for you? It involves cellos, doesn’t it?
THOMAS: Cellos, clarinets, recorders. Everybody has played the recorder or were in the marching-band. The funny thing is, everything started at the same time. I was buying records, I was taking guitar lessons. I took one private bass lesson but I didn’t have the concentration so my teacher gave up on me. Later on, I self-taught myself the bass by myself. I went to a teacher to play cello for three years (this was after I had already started DJing) – they all belonged together even though my friends thought I was strange. I was listening to Miles Davis, hip-hop and country and all these strange things and being like a little hip-hop kid, whilst learning classical at the same time. But I never did succeed in learning these things. However, I went to school for hello but I never got good. I put the homework away and instead, put the record on that I liked and just played by the ear. I would play it my own way and then learnt basslines on my own, which later brought me on onto buying a bass and playing in bands.

PATCH: Tell me more about the bands you participated in.
THOMAS: In 1990, I started playing bass in a band and that’s when I bought the bass which meant I had to play properly. I could play Miles Davis on my un-tuned cello so I knew I could play bass in a folk band. I played in loads of different bands so sometimes I was drumming and I also learnt the guitar. I did all the chords myself. At that time it was so time consuming and I was ditching the lonely DJing career thing. At the time I was too old to go to the youth club to DJ, and none of my friends were ‘breaking’. I didn’t have any time left for the DJ thing until 2years later. I was playing in a bunch until I actually had a ‘career’ by sending demos. As a result, we actually won a silly rock contest, sponsored by a Norwegian Labour party’s union – nationwide. We won three days worth in a professional studio and also got played on the radio. We recorded everything live in the studio and did loads of tapes and sold these demos and kept on being local heroes. We were called DVM. It’s an expression but also means the everlasting man *Thomas tells me it doesn’t have the same effect in English – “It’s a Norwegian language thing”*. In time, things weren’t turning out well with the band – I was still buying loads of records and people kinda’ knew me as being a DJ as before. So some friends of mine started the first clubs in Norway and they asked me if that wanted me to be the main resident at the bar. So for half a year I was playing records at the bar and also being a bartender on the side, serving myself beers. They said stick to DJing and not bartending.

PATCH: You are best known for your “space disco” sound (whatever you want to call it) but I personally believe your best work is shown on your Rong and Mindless Boogie releases, showing your love for kraut, prog, psychedelic rock style / dubby-disco. Tell me about your love for these styles of music.
THOMAS: I’ve always been listening to loads of genres of music. When I started buying records it was already a mixture of stuff from my step-father’s collection to hip-hop stuff to classic pop music. I was going to the opera with my mother and step-father and also going to jazz concerts, etc. So my music birth was without boundaries. If it makes you happy then go for it. The fist time I felt restricted was when I probably played in clubs playing one genre of music all night. Obviously, I know there are some things that don’t work as well in the club and there’s a lot of stuff that don’t belong in DJ sets. I really like to put some of that stuff in, mainly if something sounds like an energetic dance track. It doesn’t matter if it’s ZZ Top or whatever; it’s up to me as a DJ to do my job to try and come up with something that sounds exciting. With psychedelic or kraut, etc., these things have a lot in common with dance music. Kraftwerk were originally kraut and it’s all about the repetition and slide changes. But at the same there is loads of stuff that I would like to fit in a category that’s editable and understandable like kraut or psychedelic. So it’s generally more about the music feeling.

PATCH: We’ve seen it with Lindstrøm and now with you: you both seem to be heading in that “live” direction when producing your music. Can you elaborate?
THOMAS: I think it’s because, on our first record we were still trying to work out how our music relationship was leading and we spent a lot more time doing post production rather than recording. I wasn’t comfortable doing loads of playing when we started recording together. But I thought he was a great musician. He was the one that pushed me to jam and pick up instruments. His trained, I was self-taught. It was hard getting everything in the beginning. The first album is more of a studio-creation but with the second album I was the musical driving force. Lindstrøm was doing more of his electronic stuff; he does midi and drum machines. He has thirty different synths, etc. His using more machines added with human spice on top. With album two I said, “This time we will do a proper album acoustically, give ourselves some boundaries, and some rules”. It was easy if you record when you have direction at the start. For me, this was a great chance to play the drums and play the drums again after my band period. My new album is one step further. With album two I tried to play the drums, etc. I’m not a great drummer but I’m good enough to hold the beat. So now with my new album I can do all of this but I’m still learning.

PATCH: While on the topic of Lindstrøm, he recently just released a solo album with Christabelle and now you too, releasing a solo album in March. Are you two on a break?
THOMAS: That was a long term project of his. Lindstrøm does his own stuff and when we have time we work together. We have been really busy for ages so we spoke about plans for a third album, but it’s most about finding the time to do it; and feeling inspired. With both albums we did, we laid down the rules for Eskimo –“We aren’t doing it on the deadline and we aren’t playing you the record until its done”. This allows much more room to experimentthan the feeling of being tied to a deadline. Hans-Peter is rehearsing with Christabelle for live shows and I’m doing an album with The Mole, co-producing three albums on Full Pupp/Internasjonal and planning to do my own band. I had an idea that soon as my album was done I would rehearse with three other guys and be known as the Prins Thomas Orchestal. I had to turn down gig offers (for the Prins Thomas live band gigs) as I didn’t have time to rehearse.

PATCH: Oh and the cover art for your album… a flanno? You crazy man!

THOMAS: Oh yeah. You know what, I wasn’t really thinking. I was at this hotel in Sweden where my Swedish friend, who’s a photographer, took some photos of me. When I had to think of the cover, I was thinking, “What was the last good picture taken of me?” And… I like the pose. The funny thing is, it has been used in all the promo, because it’s sidewards. Inside the gate-fold there is another picture for me. *we laugh over this ‘self-promotion’*

PATCH: Was this album somewhat liberating for you? (as in the past you have colabed with various others for your albums)
THOMAS: It was actually great. I’ve had some ideas floating around, bits I recorded with other projects. I thought of doing some condensed recording session, basically getting an overview of material that I haven’t used for anything else. Surprisingly, I had loads of ideas so I used them as a base for recording a bunch of new tracks. Four or five probably came to me in a week where I recorded the bass in one day etc. All the pieces came together quite quickly.

PATCH: How did you meet Lindstrøm and are you two both similar people? Do you gel well together in the studio?
THOMAS: According to Lindstrøm, we met or he noticed me when I played Wham in Oslo. I can remember the exam time. I would also see him in 2nd hand stores in Oslo. I was aware of him making music and we bonded through liking the same music and buying the same stuff. We were linked through the similar people in Oslo.

I would say we are the same type of person; we both have young kids and wives. We all live in the same quiet town of Oslo. We both enjoy doing non-musical stuff, AeroPress coffee and baking our own bread.

PATCH: Are you good in the kitchen?
THOMAS: I’m good in the kitchen but I’m great in bed! My music is nothing compared to what I’m like in the bedroom.

PATCH: *Rapturous laughter* Do you cook for your wife?
THOMAS: Of course. All the time.

* * * * * * * *
(back to the question)

THOMAS: We both share a lot of the same ideas and ideals. When we work together we gel, but at the same time we probably like working in different ways when we work separately. Hans-Peter, when he works on his own, his a perfectionist. He’s the kind of person that can work on a song for 4 years. For him, he tries out demo material by getting it broadcasted when live sets have been put out on the net, but he still sees the tracks as not finished. However, eventually they are finished. I like to wrap a track in two days and record the ideas before you start stripping away the happy accidents that often comes when you record. I actually proposed to him, “When we make music together, we should base it on happy accidents.”

PATCH: There are a few oldish things I want to know about: you also had an alias known as Major Swellings. Can you tell me about your past work under this alias?
THOMAS: Yeah, like a lot of people, a lot of the early stuff was on worked samples. I only had a computer and that was the sound I was reaching for at the time. In terms of Major Swellings, basically we traded edits with Idjut Boys. They said to me, “We would like to compile them [the edits] as an album” and so I gave them the edits and they released it. I still enjoy doing edits but now there are so many unnecessary ones. It’s taking the fun out of the original track. There’s been so many times in a club and I’m listening to someone before/after I’ve played and they are playing a track I know and love and it jumps the good parts in the song! Not all music has to sound house based. For me, especially for disco, what makes it fun is that they are different to the house tracks. It’s structured in the same but for me it must remain super cheesy. I love strings.

*on the topic of edits I asked about Dirk/Mindless Boogie*

THOMAS: Dirk [for A&R for Eskimo / Mindless Boogie boss] was asking me to do edits for Mindless Boogie. I still do edits but these days I only trade with friends like Todd Terje. But he’s [Terje] doing it properly; I haven’t heard one shit edit by him. He is one of the very few disco producers that has the potential and knowledge that’s required to become a successful producer over-ground. He is trained and he can play any instrument you throw in him. He gets his guitar in the studio, quickly tunes and an hour later he is playing it and recording tracks.

With edits, there’s no point in releasing them now. There is still stuff left to do edits wise but at the moment I feel that they contribute more if they are exclusive to me in DJ sets rather than if I pressed them as records. Major Swellings stuff stood out when the album came out but now it would be pointless.

PATCH: You were also in different groups: Made in Hong Kong and also Vallerenga Blues and Disko Combo (which involved Lindstrøm). What’s the story here?
THOMAS: Made in Hong Kong is the first recorded thing I’ve ever done. I did it with a guy I tried to make music with since the mid ‘90s. This was a guy from my home town of Hamar. I can’t remember… it was all programmed. The whole track and effects was run through a really old sampler and it was all done with live mixing through a desk to tape. All the echoes and everything and arrangements was done by punching ins and outs on the mixing desk. But we started doing this project by taking baby steps into production. And we worked on an album, but we never ended up completing the album. I moved to Oslo, and this guy kept on living in the basement of his mothers place. We just weren’t working together.

The first project with Lindstrøm was before the album; I can’t pin-point the first thing we did that got pressed. One of the earliest things we did was a remix for Roxy Music which quite in fact is coming out around now.

*Thomas then went on to talk about some other rare stuff his done*

THOMAS: There’s also Kitty & Sonia bootlegs (edits of like these Polish gypsy jazz tracks and a Brazilian singer being recorded in a Japanese studio). We had people buying the last copies for $200 and a store in Canada bought three copies for $200 each – they told us, “If you find any more copies, we are willing to pay the same price for them.” Oh, and just a few months ago my friend found a box of 50 copies.

PATCH: Tell me about the beginnings and happenings of your record label Full Pupp.
THOMAS: People I knew liked the Idjut Boys. I could present something to them and show what I had to offer. They were into the releases and started giving it to their friends. This guy from Chicken Lips called me and said he was into the stuff and if I wanted, he could help me setup a label – that’s how Full Pupp started; let’s start fresh with a new name and blank canvas. The only idea I kept from Tamburin was keeping it local. All the artists are local and friends of mine in Norway. The main reason for starting a label in the first place was the notion of building something from here; good Norwegian labels with Norwegian people. We will bring out our own records, properly distributed and working together. We have been trying many times to setup one Norwegian distribution channel. But, alas, we are building something strong from Norway.

The label has grown stronger but unfortunately not sales wise. We started by putting out full 12”s every so often, working with most of the same people which finally has led to albums in works and then I setup Internasjonal. We have our regular monthly in Norway and a bi-monthly at Corsica Studios in London, England titled “Ekstravaganza”.

It’s [the Full Pupp label] not a local, small thing anymore. In the beginning it was just a clique of my closest friends but now it’s grown into young people from Norway – even techno demos get sent to me. Sometimes we have people like Jarle Bråthen [signed to Full Pupp] who has a complete different music background to mine (French music). He actually comes from the commercial background. Although, he has really good production skills and the end result is music that is different. I’m also co-producing his new album.

PATCH: Can you tell me more about Full Pupp’s sub-label ‘Internasjonal’.
THOMAS: So, the music made by my friends was for Full Pupp. After a while, I would get more and more demos. I had to say, “Sorry, I can only put out Norwegian acts only – have to keep it local.” At the same time, I was getting really great stuff; stuff that I bought or people played that I couldn’t release. My intention was for like an archive type of thing: not old stuff but stuff that was forgotten b-sides, limited pressings that came out and nobody noticed and releases where the b-side was really good. This is where we go back and rescue. For example, I kept on playing Al Usher’s “Lullaby for Robert (Bogdan Irkük Remix)” in my DJ sets but it really wasn’t presented [released] in a good way. So I gave it justice by releasing it and getting good names to remix.

PATCH: You mentioned Tamburin before but I never knew until recently you were A&R of Tamburin!
THOMAS: That was me trying to run the label. We asked for cultural funding in Norway from this really old thing called “Norwegian cassette tape tax”. They were collecting, well you know, if you released music in Norway, you always had to pay to the collecting society. Some of this money goes into funding projects. It’s funny, I mean, I think labels shouldn’t be run on artificially to be kept alive. It was a good start for us, but that’s when we realised you need a lot more than good tracks that are brought out on vinyl for them to suceed. You need distribution worked out. We did everything wrong with this label – everything that you are not supposed to do when running a label, we actually did. Like, we didn’t ship to any distributer. So after pressing we sent to Norway. The tax is really expensive in Norway. We also then started shipping ten and ten at a time to different shops. The records were 180gms and were so thick – the thickest vinyl that could be pressed. The sound quality was better, and more stable. Shipping from Norway is expensive so we had shops in Japan and LA coming back saying, “Dude, I can’t buy anymore of these records. They are more expensive than anything we have had in the shop before.”

A lot of the main acts on Tamburin have now become involved with Internasjonal and Full Pupp.

PATCH: It’s obvious you are a very busy man: what do you do in your spare time when you don’t have work on your plate?
THOMAS: I watch good HBO series…

PATCH: *laugh* Right on! You know any Australian TV shows?
THOMAS: My friend tipped me about Underbelly, so I need to jump onto that. I hope it’s better than Neighbours and Home and Away – they are soo shit. I like to watch quality TV with the wife. We also go cross-country skiing (10 mins away from our home). My son is six years old in a month. I take him to ice hockey and soccer practice. I go to the studio everyday of the week mainly, except, if I’ve been away on the weekend I take the Monday off and I go to the studio till 3 or 4pm. I spend two hours making dinner before the wife comes home. I spend a lot of time with my son. *Thomas mentions he spends a lot of time with his son on FarmVille (a Facebook game) and we somehow just blabbed on about this topic* I just remembered I have to harvest the potato crop tonight, I think. My wife let him has his own farm on my her Facebook account, and their farm was getting so weedy so we had to delete the farm. He also wasn’t getting gifts so I decided to give him gifts since I was the only one that could. We usually buy stuff that we can harvest in three days. We are level 27.

My oldest son is 15 years old and lives with his mother. Life is based on me being a husband and a dad to them, combining it with what I do.

PATCH: What’s in store for the future, with your own music and your labels? Have any goals?
THOMAS: No goals. I never have goals. If I set them, it has to be in reach, not to disappoint myself. Never work with deadlines. Of course you sometimes can’t help dealing with deadlines, like I always have them with remixes.

I’m doing this Norwegian festival as the curator, hosting the Full Pupp stage this summer. *he assures that’s as much information I can have on this subject for now*

Working with Colin de la Plante (The Mole) from Cobblestone Jazz. An album is a possibility: we have the songs but we just have to make sure he keeps seeing this Norwegian girl so he keeps coming over to Norway. I brought him to play live on the Full Pupp night and he met this girl there and now he comes over regularly. When she’s at work he comes with me in the studio so it works out fine.

In terms of music for myself, I have a few projects lined up. Worst case scenario is three or four albums coming out more or less – just me with maybe some different project names coming out. Some projects are in talks; there’s a possible project to start a band with a girl who plays flute. Not sure how that would turn out. I like to keep it tough and I feel most comfortable with someone that’s like family. The Mole is a good friend and we have things in common, gel well together and then that’s what triggered the idea of actually doing something.

I’ve been doing recording sessions with my younger brother. He’s a trained cellist. He reminds me of myself when I was younger: he’s eager and has his organ and drum-set all in his room. I’m trying to push him in the right direction, and I also invite him to my studio. I did a remix for this Japanese band (will be out on Smalltown Supersound) and I had him doing bass and stuff. It will be good traveling with a younger brother. His also a potential member of the Prins Thomas Orchestal project.

There’s also a bunch of remixes. It feels like I’m working on one everlasting remix; they always overlap. Doing one for Kompakt, and a Norwegian jazz-rock guy.

By the end of the year, perhaps a blues project with Lindstrom: “the two men and the drum machine” with Lindstrom. Captain Beefheart and two guys. Or we might actually make a space disco record…

PATCH: Would you ever considering shaving your beard for money?
THOMAS: *Thomas pauses, then reaches out his phone from his pocket and shows me a photo of him with a clean-shaven chin*