(((O))) Interview: LLNN at ArcTanGent 2023

Before their blistering set at ArcTangent, Danish darkstar doomsters LLNN sat down with Jody Dunstan and talked about field recordings from a blacksmith’s forge, writing “stupid” riffs and pushing the boundaries of cinematic and very heavy music.

E&D: So, for the people who aren’t aware, tell me a bit about who you guys are and how you, how you arrived here?

LLNN: Well, we are LLNN from Copenhagen, Denmark. And we arrived here by plane! (laughs)

E&D: Well, I meant as a band, your history!

LLNN: (all laugh) We started out in, uh, 2014 and we wanted to play very heavy and cinematic metal. We wanted to try to push our own boundaries, we have all been playing hardcore and metal for many years. So, when we came together, we wanted to try something else. And we brought in Ketil, who is my little brother, and he has a background in electronic music, and he was like this local DJ star. His main music influence was electronic music. But he also loved the hardcore scene because he has been to many of my shows. I was in a band 15 years before and that, so, my brother has been hanging around. Just, you know, he knew the whole scene, all the people and the music. He was like a perfect fit. And then, we released albums and EPs.

We got picked up by Pelagic Records. We played in Berlin, uh, in a cellar! in some old building, and Robin Staps from Pelagic saw the show and he signed us. And just played a lot of shows and, actually just having fun. And now we are here for the second time.

E&D: So, have you, have you played much in the UK?

LLNN: We have done a, done a bit, yeah, here and there. And also, the last tour we did with The Ocean and Playgrounded. We were here for like two weeks and the prior tour to the latest one we also went to the UK with Bison.

E&D: Your music’s very complex and you’ve got a lot of layers. I read that you use kind of real-life sound samples. How does that process evolve? Is that something that you, just experiment with and it organically becomes something? Or do you have an idea in your head and you follow that for creation?

LLNN: We have an idea, but we experiment a lot. Our father has a forge and he has like tons of tools, saws and everything, so we just hang around in there and try to record. We build our own audio libraries using these huge industrial machines, actual metal on metal and all these sounds. It’s essentially added later in the process to the songs. We have an idea what’s gonna be there, but first we do like drums, guitar and bass.

E&D: Exactly the same as you would do as a regular band. Right?

LLNN: Exactly. And then we, we make sure to make room for the sound design, ’cause we know there’s melodies and like soundscapes and stuff like that and then we add it afterwards. We make sure to make room for it, we’re not afraid to have songs with like very simple parts because we know we have like another element that could fill out the gaps. So, we try to make [what] we call it actually primitive, like a bit stupid riffs, stupid songwriting. Yeah. Stupid songwriting. Let’s call it simple, simple songwriting because we know later it’s gonna be pretty complex when the whole thing comes together!

E&D: So, you say you kind of build that into kind of a final thing?

LLNN: Yeah. . . So we don’t know what the song is gonna sound like until after we’ve recorded everything. It’s totally different listening experience when we listen to our music without the sound design. And when it’s afterwards it’s different colours, you know, different visual pictures in your head. It can really change the vibe of the song. Wherever we want to go, we put in the synth to like in that direction.

E&D: So you can go to that library and kind of pick things out.

LLNN: Yeah, and we also record all songs live with the full band and that means that when we are adding all the sound design that is also recorded live to make it more organic. When we do all the synth parts on the keyboard, we record that live because we don’t play on click. Even when we record. So, everything is really always really organic

E&D: I guess you get that chemistry then as a band. And I always find it interesting when you see a band live and you go, “is that the same band I listened to on a record?”

LLNN:  We try live, to not do that, and give people an experience that we are a band band. Like we’re kind of “old school” in that sense, ’cause a lot of bands use a click track and it’s very precise. But it’s not just a backing track, the electronic stuff, it’s all played live, like a live jam, we want to give the experience of a band actually playing together. We have some pre-recorded intros just to make the audience like I know that we are there and then we start.

E&D: Really interesting. I kind of read a few things about how you bring your outside interests into music as well, sci-fi and gaming. Is that something that you try and use as inspiration as well?

LLNN: All the time. We are all really nerdy. We are all gamers also. We get a lot of inspiration from video games, also how to work with sounds and video games; so if there is have a sound that is gonna repeat itself four times, we go in and, uh, randomize that sound. So it’s not sounding exactly the same. It’s more organic. If you’re playing a video game where you as the player get closer to a bonfire, and if you do that several times, the fire, the sound of the fire will always change to make the playing experience more real. And we have taken that element into the songwriting, and then we change, we tweak all the sounds as they go a little bit. You can’t hear it but you can feel it, it’s not the same. If it was it would sound artificial.

E&D: What’s coming next for you guys?

LLNN:  We have a new guy in the band [Victor]. This is gonna be his fourth show with us. Then we have a few more festival shows here and there. And then we will end the year with a headlining show in Copenhagen, our hometown. We have a tour in February. A European tour.

E&D: Any new music on the horizon?

LLNN: We are working on it. We are, we are syncing up. If you can say that in English, you know.  But what I wanna say [about Victor] is we all come from the same scene. There is a big mix of bands, and we all know each other. When we were talking about looking for the new guy in the band, it all came to Victor. And actually if we talked about if he didn’t want to do it, then we couldn’t see anybody else do i,t because I’ve been playing with him for a lot of years and yeah, it was just the perfect match for us.

It’s more important for us music-wise to be friends, and if it wasn’t going to be Victor the band would most likely end. So, it’s very important for us to have that, um, the social aspect of it. ’cause we spend so much time together during these things. And it’s actually more important for us to be good friends and want to hang out together rather than for them having like the perfect musician with us.

[Victor adds] So saying I kind of suck, but, uh, but I’m…

E&D: You’re a nice guy?

LLNN: That’s basically it, yeah!

E&D: Are there any up-and-coming bands you wanna give a shout out to?

LLNN: Death Goals. . . they’re playing the slot before us. Callous Boys. Shit help us!

We’re gonna check out our friends in The Ocean. They’re gonna play today as well. And Playgrounded

So we played with the Playgrounded for six weeks last year together with The Ocean. So, we know the guys very well. Quite well. Yeah. And they’re super cool people so I’m looking forward to hanging out with them. It’s just awesome coming to these festivals. We always know bands and people and hanging out.

E&D: The one thing I like about this festival, and I’ve been a few times, is you do see the bands wandering around, checking out other people.

LLNN: Yeah, yeah. People don’t sort of just fly in and fly out. Which is nice, right? We wanted to stay as well for all the days because we wanna check out some, some awesome other bands.

Also, a big shout out to Heilung, uh, which we have, come to learn now as like the people in Heilung. We’ve met them now a few times and um, they are serious, like, pretty interesting acts if you ask me. It is not just about music, but the whole narrative and the whole visual, and ideas behind the act are something else. It really is.