Hello and welcome to The Art of longevity. I'm your host, Keith Joplin. Brett Anderson of suede once said, for all successful artists have navigated for career stages. The struggle, the stratospheric rise to the top, crashed to the bottom and the Renaissance or the art of longevity. We talked to artists who spent decades in the music industry and discover what the journey has been like for them, and how they experience each of Brett's four stages. Along the way, there are some great stories of the ups and downs, and the roundabouts of a career in music, insights, fans and aspiring musicians. This is the art of longevity. This is episode five of season two in which I speak with Jonas beer from new. Join us Welcome to the Art of longevity. How are US morning?
Unknown:Thanks so much. Yeah, I feel pretty good. Just had some coffee and sing in a nice place in Estonia.
Keith Jopling:Yeah, what are you doing in Estonia?
Unknown:Well, it was my friend Alex Maiolo, who shares with me that an interest in modular synthesizers, amongst other things, suggested this little project with, you know, some other musicians who live here. The project is called themes for great cities. It's kind of a mix between music concrete, recording songs from the city as not songs, but sounds and making them into music. And also, using the rhythms of certain things in the in the city to trigger, you know, modulations of things is quite a complicated setup we have right now. Okay,
Keith Jopling:this is another one of your rather ambitious music, art, concert projects. I guess you could say, You do like those, don't you?
Unknown:I do. But I also really enjoy, you know, from a variety, it's nice to do some things once in a while, where you stay in a place for a little while and get to know it, and then you get to perform. And you remember it as one thing, like, you know, it's not like a tour where you play like 100 shows in a year. It's more like a sort of a one off, you know, and that's that's kind of freeing in a way sometimes, you know, yeah,
Keith Jopling:I was actually involved in something like that many years ago, I taught on a music program, and a couple of the students were doing something similar in, I want to say Vienna, I think it was because they were going to record, you know, the sounds of the city. And it was involved in kind of all of the atmospherics and the ambiance of a certain part of the city. And they wanted me to be in it from London. So they kind of gave me this time and date they were going to call me. And then the idea was to connect Vienna with London, something like that. Anyway, they forgotten I was in a pub. So the phone Oh, no, my phone went off. And I was like, hello, hello, who is? Anyway, that was my contribution to the themes for great cities. But back in Vienna, but this is about Tallinn is
Unknown:it? It is yeah, I've only been here once before playing a festival. And it's a really great city. And people are lovely. And I'm here for a week. So it's, you know, there's a lot of time to look around. And, of course, we're rehearsing every day, but I really enjoy that. Getting to spend some time here. And
Keith Jopling:you've released some new music under the new project Takis as well. Just to kind of take you, I guess into a more electronic soundscape. Yeah,
Unknown:well, I mean, it's, we're kind of a duo. It's me and Toby from Blue Foundation. And Toby also things actually on some of our songs. It's just not he doesn't sing lead on any of the two we've released so far. But we're both singing on it. And we've kind of just making songs in a variety of ways. It kind of happened during Corona, lockdown, I had to sort of get us a different studio, which will work in and he had, there was a studio available. And he has this studio on top of an old cinema in Copenhagen. And one of the rooms next door was available. So I got one of those. And then it just became sort of a thing we would do everyday is like drop little bits off to each other. And I mean, we worked together many times before, but we never like had a project together like this. And we did talk about that for for a few years. I mean, we had a band when we were like 14, it's called the orange dog, but we never released anything back then. So it's been a lot of fun and it's been very fruitful. I think creatively or working with him. Ie
Keith Jopling:working towards an EP or an album together or just putting out a couple of songs. What's the plan?
Unknown:I think at this point, we're thinking of releasing an album we're not quite sure when that's Gonna be, but it wouldn't be cool to put out we have quite a lot of songs and a lot of unfinished stuff. But some really interesting things I think, you know. So
Keith Jopling:I want to come to mu, you were planning to do a 2020 was going to be the big 15th anniversary celebration of an the glass handed kites, you were going to take that on tour and everything else. So we may as well start there, because I guess the pandemic just completely interrupted those plans? Well,
Unknown:I mean, to do something with my time I first of all did this thing was with Toby. But I also started doing more scores, like I did a TV series, and I just finished the film, actually. So I've been doing that. And it sadly, you know, because a lot of shows were moved to 2021. But sadly, a lot of those have gone to because it's just not time yet.
Jonas Bjerre, Mew:So I think we had like maybe 20 shows plan this year, and we've done for so far. And right now all that's left that has been canceled is Japan in November, and I am not getting getting my hopes up for that. You know, you don't really know what the future looks like and when it's gonna happen and all that. So it's been really frustrating, actually, yeah, but I mean, weird with an anniversary project as well, because you were set up to perform the album in full, which makes total sense. We'll come on to that in a second. But then it's kind of put off. So it's not 15 anymore, and you've been hanging? So I mean, how do you feel about the project? Do you still kind of looking forward to it? Or do you have you felt differently from when you set out to do those 20 shows you're back in 2020. This is the first time that we play this record from start to finish the way it was sort of intended, at least on the album, there's a lot of sciences segue into each other. It's kind of like a whole piece, right. And we're doing our best to perform it like that. And it's been joyful to do that. And we also played some of the songs on the record that we actually never played live before. Just because they were a little bit difficult to get into a live setting. But we worked really hard at it. And I think that we we got away with it. Yeah. Yeah. So how did those four shows go? I mean, were they with full audiences? What was that like for you? Well, the first one was in festival in Finland, and I think they had limited capacity. You know, it looks great. There were a lot of people, I think there were like 5000 people or something, but it couldn't fit more, you know, but they they had restrictions. But it was great. And then we played a small show on Copenhagen, which was actually meant to be sort of the rehearsal show before the tour would begin kind of thing. But then, of course, everything changed. But it was really cool to play that it was one of the first places we ever played. And a friend of mine owns this place now. And it was great to play a really small show. It's like 200 people. And then a couple days later, we played sort of big hall in Copenhagen, I think it's 4500 people sold out. And, you know, I'm grateful that we can still sell out places like that. And then we say London the day after, and then that was it. Then London was at the Royal Festival Hall. And it was also great. Well, I don't know how I managed to miss that. But anyway, I did. It must have been remarkable for the 200 people, but also I'm in both shows sound amazing to be at because these things are one offs, aren't they to play the album start to finish. I know, you know, when bands do that. I think it's just a really, really special occasion. Because you know, you're probably not likely to ever see that again. And, you know, when that came out, it was so remarkable to me that record because it was not what I was expecting at all. After you'd had, I guess some international success and commercial success or touch that with Frangos. I suppose because I work in the industry, I was expecting you to come up with something that was going to be more commercial kind of Yeah, more taking you into the mainstream. And then you came out with this kind of lavish stratospheric fairy tale prog rock. I mean, where did that come from? Well, I mean, the fringes was was very different, because the majority of the songs were we already wrote that actually also recorded, you know, we had two indie releases before the fringer sample. So we had sort of like a catalog of songs. And I think that you know, there were some people at the label, who kind of want us to record certain songs. And we did do that. But they weren't songs that we actually wanted to put on the album. We got a lot of freedom to like, they didn't push us very hard about that. Then they became besides later on, but we got to do with fenders, the exact album that we wanted to make and then I don't know, I just, we didn't really think so much about whether it will be successful or not really. We just wanted to make the music we wanted to make and I think that's the best way to go. You Um, but yeah, I mean, we did have some pretty good singles on kites, even though it was maybe a difficult lesson for some people. I think that we had some really good airplay on it. Yeah. You got a number one, didn't you in Denmark? With Yeah. Zookeepers boy so you know it again, it took you into that realm of commercial success. I'm really intrigued with you. And mu when it comes to that kind of thing. Commercial success, popularity, international success, because it's very rare, isn't it for a European band, even an English speaking European band is hard to break out of your country. That's what you know, I'm told day in day out by European bands. So when it happened for you, were you thinking, Okay, this is great. We've just got to capitalize on this, or did you not really think about that. Now, we always cared more about the music, you know, I mean, we were very happy with the success we got and still are, but the music was most important and making the apples wants to make and we spend an awful lot of time making albums. So we never really kind of rode on the momentum we had, we always just reinvented ourselves, I think for each album, in a way, I considered a success. You know, I couldn't really imagine us being much bigger than we are, in a way because it's quite unusual. I guess the way we make songs, which people who like us seem to enjoy a lot, you know, and I wouldn't want to change that. Yeah, no, I absolutely would agree 100%. And it's sort of intrigues me that. You had that major labor relationship? I know what it's like in the major label ecosystem, if you like, I mean, how did you end up on a major anyway? Well, we went to South by Southwest, I think it was in 2000. And then played a couple of shows there. And, you know, I think that's why some interest, there was a few labels interested in us, we had sort of been approached by Danish major labels. And we didn't want to do that. Because we, we kind of knew, you know, the smaller territories they want. Maybe it will be put out in England and America, but it won't have as much push behind it, you know, so we really wanted to sign in England or America, and ended up getting this this offer, and there was a few other labels interested in us. But it seemed like a good idea at the time. It was it was also a very different scenario back then. I mean, Sony had, like, a whole team of people doing plugging, you know, in the radio and stuff like that. I mean, at the end of it, when we stopped working with Sony, there were so few people left there that we knew, you know, they it looks like the team's really diminished. Because I guess everyone was in crisis, you know? Yeah, I hear that a lot, you know, from bands who've been signed to whatever the label is, you know, you're signed by people who support and want to see you develop, and you know, as those people move on, it's kind of like you lose your sponsors a little bit. Yeah. But I'm very grateful for the time we had with a major label, because we got to tour a lot. And we're strange band, because we can play in a lot of different places. And we're not we don't play like stadiums, but we play pretty big places in many countries. I remember in 2017, we, I think we played 100 shows or something like that. And it was in like, 28 different countries. Of course, a lot of them were in the States. But I am very grateful that we can do that and get to travel and see all these places. Yeah. I'm curious these days, with as I said, you know, a lot of bands, they asked me, you know, how do we have a more international success? How do we break out of our country? Do you think it's got harder with streaming? Because you would have thought that it would have been easier in some ways? Yeah. I mean, I'm not against streaming. I also think it's like, more environmentally friendly. And maybe it's not because of the surfers use too much power. I'm not really sure. But I usually stream music, there's an album comes out that I really love, buy it on vinyl. I don't know if it made it more difficult, I think in many ways. At least you can reach a bigger audience, they might not pay you as well, but you can you can reach a lot of people on YouTube and, and just being having all the music available all the time. You know, I feel ambivalent about it. I don't think that that necessarily makes things more difficult for bands, you know that you can still steal your CDs or vinyl at the merch store when you tour and stuff like that. There's a lot of young bands that ask me for advice and I really don't know what advice to give. But I feel it's like it was mostly about is mostly about touring, you know, just played so many shows, and it just grew from there and word of mouth and we had this, you know, we always use projections and I make the backdrops myself and I put a lot of effort into that. I think that's how we kind of grew, you know, in people's minds. It made the show's memorable. The first time I saw you was at Yulu actually was, so it was a rather small show, when you were touring Frangos. Even there. So you know, this is a University Union Buildings, I don't know what the capacity was a few 100, maybe even there, you put on a visual show, which was very memorable. I seem to remember, you know, a bunny rabbit, who a pilot, I think that was chairing competing sounds and it was just, it was just fantastic. Loved it. Thank you. We even did that in pubs, you know, when we started out, like clubs and just put this cream and the projections, and it's, you know, to transport people somewhere else, maybe? I don't know. But I don't know how I don't know how I would do today. It's very different scenario. And I think now it's a lot more important to have visual content go viral, and all that stuff. Tick tock, I don't even know what tick tock is, to be honest, I haven't looked into it. In a way, it's an interesting time for you because as a visual artist, as well, as a musician and a band member, you're absolutely right, it is actually about being visual, you know, you've got to sort of put across the concept these days of who you are and what you're about. And you have to wrap projects in a clear concept. And actually, you've always done that. So in a way, you've, you're ahead of your time. But you know, you mentioned you like to take your time about record as mu and That's putting it mildly, I think. So you've been together since 95, which we'll come back to the beginning of if you don't mind in a minute. And you've made I think I've my count is seven albums, there might be one that didn't do I know there was an early one that didn't get the release. As a fan. It's it's interesting, it's frustrating as well, because I want to hear more music from you. But what I'm interested in is what's the relationship in the band during those in between times, like, how do you keep together? You know, what's the relationship? And how do you kind of decide to come back around to a new project? I mean, right now, it's sort of taken a break while we're doing some live shows, or have been doing, but it wasn't like, we were actually working on music, you know, like, for that many years. And maybe not as intensely as we could have. But but it wasn't like it, there's been a few times where like, Okay, we're gonna take a break, because, you know, let's take a year off from the band's, you know, but very seldomly. And we've done that is mostly been a case of spending a long time writing, long time recording, and then a long time touring, then the circle goes around, you know, I guess, you know, when you've played for like, half a year, you know, you like, sometimes we play like maybe 100 shows, that means that we kind of gone for 150 days, because they're always days in between. And then when you get home, maybe they're not the first people you call to go out for a beer, you know, because you've seen a lot of them. But we have a good relationship, and we talk on the phone and send stuff back and forth and stuff like that. Going back to the beginning, again, it took a while for you to become a well known band. So from forming in 95. As you said, you you'd made two albums before Frangos. In those early days, did you think that was a struggle like to get known to get recognized? Or did you just enjoy the process of just getting started? I mean, to be honest, I never pictured it as something I could make living from, I had a different totally different career. And the band was like we were ambitious about it. But it wasn't something I thought would be my livelihood, until we got that major label deal, of course, was something he dreamed of. But it was something that I took for granted anyway or expected to happen. So I didn't really see this struggle. I just, we enjoyed making music together and we enjoy and when we get to play shows, of course really excited when we get to got to make our first album. Of course, we've carried a lot of guitar amps up little stairs and slept in minivans and you know all that stuff. It's been Yeah, it's been fairly strenuous sometimes, but but I feel like I've had a pretty blessed time of it really.
Keith Jopling:With that time keeping in touch with your fan base. I mean, clearly you don't have any while the equivalent of Fear Of Missing Out I suppose this kind of fear of being forgotten because that's what I hear from from a lot of bands. And you know the labels these days is it's got to be always on and you've always got Yeah, presence but you obviously have never felt the need to do that. But how do you keep in touch with the new fan a little bit through
Jonas Bjerre, Mew:Social media, there's a podcast called the mu export podcast. And it's different fans of ours from different countries get together and talk about each song individually. I think they've done like 50. Now, you know, I joined in for that, at some point and, and you know, I stay in touch with people run it a little bit because they sometimes have questions that need answering. And they're great people. So I guess through Instagram instead, we're not we don't really post so much on the on the new Instagram as maybe we should? I don't know, maybe it's laziness. I think the people who enjoy what we do they, they maybe they're not people who need to be bombarded every day with a Oh, listen to this song again, or whatever, like, I don't know, it's, it always seemed weird to me. I was very hesitant about social media, you know, when I started really becoming a necessity, but But yeah, I kind of enjoy it now, you know, for on and off, but I don't want it to interfere with my sort of daily life. You know what I mean? Well, I'm with you totally. I mean, it's really, really interesting how you have resisted all of that. And I think you're right, because, you know, social media is just consuming stuff, ephemeral stuff. And in the moment, it just goes right through you, and I think is the opposite of MUSE music in a way. I do think it's fun. And I have one for myself as well, I sort of show some of the other stuff that I do. And I do enjoy that. But it kind of comes and goes like, I'll have periods where I'm not really bothered about it. And sometimes I I feel like it's a bit too much. And I I don't know, it's it's such a weird time. Like, I remember still what it was like to not even have mobile phones. And it seems so crazy how much has happened in those rather few years? You know, it's, and it does worry me a little bit about. I mean, there are things that worry me much more, but but I am worried about people's attention span. And, and this this sort of need for for stimulus and to be yeah, as you said before, the fear of missing out. I think you actually do miss out. If you spend all of your time on Instagram, you miss out on all the real stuff around you. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I worry about it, just from a music appreciation point of view, sometimes your the extreme end of this, from the artists perspective is the artist spends so much time writing the material, recording it, finishing it, scheduling it, getting that, you know, building it into a concept and everything, particularly if it is a kind of start to finish worthy listen as an album. And then you know, we live in a time when it's not only is it rare to do that it's difficult, you know, I find it difficult. It's like, you know, I would love to set aside the time, set up the vinyl or whatever, and have no distractions. But of course, the distractions are always there. And they're sort of they're sort of in the back of your mind as well. It doesn't seem right, put on an album, like glass handed kites and then cook dinner. You know, it's, you should listen to it. Yeah, right. Yeah, I know, I rarely I'll listen to instrumental music sometimes when I work on additional stuff. But if I listen to music, I really listen. You know, I'll pull up my Walkman, or my headphones. And they'll actually just take a walk and just listen or just sit and listen, you know, that's how I like preferred listen to music. Unless it's like you have some peers and people over for dinner and you want to put out some music. But I want to give music my undivided attention if I can.
Keith Jopling:There's an increasing trend. It's always interesting to see what the counter trends are. And I was supposed to be at this thing last night, but couldn't go which is a pitch black playback, where it's all about kind of 360 degree acoustics and everything and you just go and you sit on a beanbag and listen with other 30 or 40 other people silently in a room to music. And it's kind of interesting to see that kind of thing emerge, you know, as a counter trend. It helps us to kind of be more of that. Now other aspects as well. You know, the world I'd like just, yeah, counter trends to give you some hope. Absolutely, there is hope yet for us to to pay attention to things to fear. Thanks for listening to the art of longevity. I hope you're enjoying the conversation so far. Please tell your friends, listen back to the other episodes. And don't forget to subscribe on whatever podcast platform you're back to the conversation. I was checking back one of the interviews that you did a while back when you were talking about your influences. I think it was your most 10 influential albums. There was stuff in there that the Pixies My Bloody Valentine
Jonas Bjerre, Mew:Cape Busch Genesis lamb lies down on Broadway was in there and prefab sprout and it all suddenly made sense to me when I read that about why Muse sounds like, like mu well it also came gradually Like for instance, landlines down we never really listened to prog rock in the early days and it's not something like we're not taught like we I like prog rock but it's not were listened to the most. But we actually checked out some of those albums because people were comparing us or saying, this is an interesting media you're playing in it's a yes or whatever. You know, when I was a kid, I just basically listen to what my parents listened to, which was Kate Bush and you Eurythmics, Grace Jones and other 80s stuff. And then, you know, Nirvana came out and opens your perception to other stuff like that I was a junior Sonic Youth, all these other things that actually and pixies that existed before them, but I wasn't aware of them. At that point. It's really unusual because if you make rock music, I know there's more to mu than rock. I mean, it's hard to classify in a way, but I think, you know, plenty of rock musicians will listen to many of those other influences, you know, great songs. Chris Jones, okay bushes, but you kind of do blended into your sound, which fascinates me, and it has changed over time I detected on visuals, which is the last record you put out to me was 2017. And I think is kind of an easier, listen, in many ways. But to me, there was a lot of prefab sprout in that record. Is that something that you recognize as well? Or am I just making, we also had one song on the previous album that felt a little bit, actually two songs that felt reminded me a bit of Paddy's way of writing, you just can't help it. Like, if you really love something, it's, you know, you don't rip it off. But it definitely inspires you making the visuals very different. Because first of all, we made it quite fast compared to our normal schedule. And also his first record we did without bow playing guitar. So it wasn't based so much around the guitar, I mean, I also always play guitar new, but in later years, I started writing more with keys and piano. So songs came about in different way. And also, I think we let our love of 80s music shine through a lot more than than we had before. But I really want every album to feel like its own thing. You know, I really wanted to be like, we don't want to repeat ourselves. And make another album that sounds like that one, because that was the most popular one we had. It has to be, you know, rewarding in other ways, too. Yeah, I think you escaped that whole mold with glass added kites because it was so different from Frangos. And with visuals, actually, I hadn't thought about the fact that Bo had left by then. And so that was, I guess one of the influences that made you explore more keys. And I mean, there's some brass in there as well. Actually visuals to me sounds like a stage musical. A lot of the time when I hear it through from beginning to end. Yeah, there could be there songs on there that don't even have guitar, which is, you know, unusual for us. It was mostly just us experimenting. Mostly in my apartment, we usually always go somewhere to record. But the last two ones we have recorded in Denmark, which is also because of we're older, and we have families and it's not like, go away for five months to LA or New York and record it, it will be too strenuous for everyone, you know. So I think on the next one, we talked about this, that we do want to have an adventure out of doing it and go somewhere else, at least to record some of it because there's something about doing that, that always works really well for us, you know, in terms of how you kind of decide to finally get it on and come together. How does that work? Because you obviously do a lot of side projects, you know, you're in Tallinn, making themes for great cities. You have Takis, I mean, recently, you've been in this other band apparatchik as well, I want to talk about that for a minute. How do you gravitate towards like another new project? Is it Do you drive it to the members of the band just talk together and sort of get together and start, you know, I actually talked to us about that recently is like, we kind of need to do it when we feel we have something to say in a way that like a political statement, I think but when you feel like there's something we could do, we should do an album and you know, it should be in this way. You know, when the idea comes to you, and it feels right. That's usually when we start, you know, working on new music, and then, you know, maybe people would individually have written little
Unknown:Things that they bring to the table. But we kind of try and start with a clean slate every time because it just feels more inspiring that way. Yeah. And
Keith Jopling:we're your secret to longevity as a band has been just to take your time as simple as that sounds.
Jonas Bjerre, Mew:Yeah, people that haven't had enough albums to get tired of it. Yeah. No, definitely not. No, no, I think by the time you make one, you know, your fan base is probably craving somewhat, because we did. The album plus minus came out 15. And it was the first album we'd done in six years. And there was a lot of appreciation for us going on tour. But I did feel like when we then put out an album already in 2017, it was a bit too early for us, like people didn't expect us to be back on tour that fast. I mean, it was fine. We played some great shows. But it did feel like it was a bit kind of wrong to put out an album that fast in a way. But just because we have done it before. I mean, I've always been envious of fans who were able to do that. But I think that there is something about having that time to wait for it to happen. This is important. It's interesting that did you just feel that with visuals? Or did people tell you they were surprised? No, I think I just felt it. It may be all in my head. But I felt a bit like that. Or maybe it was just how I felt about it really, like I felt it was too fast in a way. But no, I don't want to take anything away from that experience. It was great. And we had a really good tour. And when we actually started like when we're touring on plus minus, we started kind of writing a little bit on the tour bus, and actually enjoying doing it, we'd never really been good at doing that. But we kind of had some success with it. And I think we were just excited to finish those ideas. That's partly why we did it sort of fast. Also, we were completely ruined, financially, so we kind of had to put something out in a way, you know, I mean, financially, I'm really interested in how you define success, because it's not necessarily financially it's not commercial, even though you've been there, you've touched international success, you've been on major label, you've won the awards, everything you do is critically revered, you know, it's like pitchfork, eight and a half, nine and four or five stars in the broadsheet newspapers. What is it, that actually satisfies you about the success of the band, I think if we had to all have day jobs on the side, then I think it would be much more difficult for us, especially at this point in our lives to continue doing it. So I'm very grateful to have the freedom to you know, I do other kinds of work, I do sometimes design visuals for the bands, and I direct music videos, and I write scores for TV or whatever, but but, uh, I'm happy that it's not something I have to do, I could actually just live of being a noob, you know, which I think is very few people have that privilege. You know, in our country, lots of the artists that are more popular in our own country, but they're more sort of, they sing in Danish, and they're more sort of for everyone. And then they don't play so much outside of Denmark, or maybe not at all. So I don't envy them that because I really, like traveling and seeing the world and playing to different crowds all over it. You know, it's I haven't a lot of stage fright, actually. But at the same time, I really appreciate the experience so much, because it just makes sense to you what you're doing, you know, it feels like you actually have purpose, you know, when you go out there and you see people react to your music. And you can sort of see right in front of you happening. Yeah, and I think what you've been able to achieve after 25 years is getting to a position where you know, whether a new album is every four or five or six years, whatever it is, it's going to find that fan base, and you can kind of be sure about that, which I think is very, very rare to have that kind of longevity. So you kind of made that for yourselves in a way by taking your time and by making fantastic music, of course. Thank you. But the stage fright thing is kind of interesting over such a long career. But you see, yeah, that I do. Whenever I don't get it, it usually doesn't feel like great show to me. You know, if I if I'm not a bit nervous before it. It's like there's not enough at stake anyway. Yeah, then we still have a good show, but it just feel as intense to me. And I think my body kind of knows that. So I think it's also on a subconscious level, my body, my brain kind of lets me have that experience because otherwise it won't be as good, you know. So it's a little bit complicated, but in general terms, I'm not the kind of person who would get up on stage and play in front of people. It's a bit strange that I've ended up doing this I'm not the kind of person who who enjoys the attention that much you're out of your comfort zone in your day job it's not a bad place to be actually know a little bit about apparatchik. I think you've come together a couple of times and it's just an unusual combination of people. There's Magna I can never pronounce Magnus surname for hula Minh Harmon yeah for Holloman from Aha, of course, Guy Berryman, the basis from Coldplay, who else is in the band, then it's me. And then this might interesting was a Swedish producer and songwriter, very successful songwriter and producer who has a studio in London. I mean, he has been in bands when he was younger, I think. But he's more like a studio guy, you know, what we've been doing, like we got together, I met Monday for the first time, very briefly. And also he came to see us show and I met very briefly backstage and then we were playing in Moscow. And he was playing the day after and we had like a day off Moscow. So we went to see her. And, you know, that was him afterwards. And then manly kind of got me involved in an art project by something called the black smoke organization. It was like very early, when people started worrying about the climate change. I did some of that. And then I think was Martin was asked to do something for this documentary about the indigenous tribes. And it was on BBC and they asked Martin to sort of curate the music for it. And so he called Magnus, do you want to do a song with this mindset? Yeah, let's get your voice. Actually, let's get guy a boy as well. I've met guy just once before, at a friend's place. And then they came to Copenhagen at midnight, I had the studio ready. And we played we record and wrote until the early morning. And that became ended up being the main theme for this TV series. And then Monday kind of sneakily invited us on a skiing vacation and had sort of set up a bunch of music equipment. And that's when we made the we made the whole first record, we made the whole record in like, nine or 10 days, I think, for me absolutely incredible that that that could even take place because I'm used to spending years, you know, and I actually I really liked that album, first one, especially because it has that sort of fresh energy in being made so quickly and just kind of intuitively, you know, I love the idea of a heart and mu hanging out together with mutual respect. That's just a fantastic idea. For me. I mean, people must have your number down for certain things. You appear in some unusual places. You were on a Duran Duran track, weren't you for the paper Gods album? Yeah. Well, with that, you know, I wasn't sure if I was allowed to talk about it. But I see that they've talked about it now. And the original idea was it was going to be a duet with Brandon Flowers are the killers. And they approached him and he'd done sort of a demo of it. And then for whatever reason he decided not to do it anyway or his management decided for him but I think because you also just work with new order. And then they were like wow, who's gonna sing this and then I think my agents in in Los Angeles played them some mu and the Sookie busboy and they really liked it. And then I was I was in Russia at the time. And they I just got the you know, like an email from my management saying, like, do you want to sing on the song is the sign is Rogers place. And then I just quickly found the studio in St. Petersburg and recorded and then I sent it I was like, Well, I don't know if they're gonna go with this. And then then they did and they got a really nice email from Simon about it. I never met them in person. So it was like kind of on a distance. But I I grew up listening to Duran Duran and I had I loved that video for wild boys when I was a kid. Yeah, sort of strange. Yeah, we talked about that with no Rogers when he was on the show, actually. It's just wonderful how everything's connected. So you've told me a little bit about what you're doing now. And you've hinted that mu are in a conversation, what's next for you when you come out of Tallinn. And you know, when we come out of the pandemic, what's the top of your agenda? I've just finished this quite intense projects, like scoring as documentary film for president is about the political scene in Zimbabwe. And that's coming out and, you know, I worked really hard on that. So I think I'm gonna allow myself a little bit of time off after this talent thing. I'll keep making songs with Toby and I don't really have that many plans for the rest of the year and I think next year there's going to be more new shows. I never take any time off. Maybe I Do that at some point this year. This has all new friends in dispersed like, well, it takes five years between albums, but he wants to take some time off.
Keith Jopling:That's okay, though you absolutely should. Yeah. Listen, Jonas, thanks so much for joining me, it's been a real pleasure to talk to you as a band, the music that you make, and hence all those kind of invitations from other bands to work with is just revered by other musicians and adored by fans. I'm grateful that it's there. I don't mind that you take your time about it. I'm just really, really pleased that you're going to be working on new music and getting back on the road next year. And really look forward to seeing you. So thank you so much for sharing your career stories on the art of longevity and we hope to see and hear from you very soon. Thanks so much then thanks for having me. It was really a pleasure. Just join us