The Art of Longevity Season 13, Episode 1: Ólafur Arnalds

Ólafur Arnalds reflects on creativity, the changing music landscape, and the deeper emotional connection we risk losing in a hyper-digital world. This conversation unfolds less like a traditional interview and more like a meditation on what music is—and what it could still become.

Arnalds speaks candidly about the role of streaming platforms in his career. Algorithms have elevated his genre (neo-classical) to global visibility, but they’ve also introduced fundamental creative pressures (he recalls feeling compelled to include more “streamable” tracks on his 2018 album re:member, particularly solo piano pieces, simply because of how they perform on playlists). Over time, Arnalds has became wary of how easily those expectations can seep into his own creative thinking. 

More broadly, he gently critiques the culture of passive listening. Playlists designed for focus or relaxation often generate vast numbers of streams, yet little real connection between artist and audience. The result is a strange disconnect: access without identity - a sort of weirdly tuned-out form of listening. 

So, with host Keith Jopling, this conversation looks to find ways to place music back where it needs to be: nourishing, useful, enabling artist to tell their stories, break down emotional barriers and build community. We discuss how Ólafur's new groundbreaking world tour "Falling Apart Together" aims to achieve just that! We also test some of the themes of longevity as written about in Keith's new book Riding The Rollercoaster: how artists survive the music business to become the legends we love. 

Possibly the best episode yet. 

The Art of Longevity Season 13 is powered by Bang & Olufsen. 

Transcript

Keith Jopling 0:00

Hello and welcome back to The Art of Longevity, season 13! Some amazing guests. We have Oliver Arnold, Ladytron, Midge, or some others lining up that I am very excited about. Amazing artists with fascinating careers. In the conversations this season, we'll be testing out some of the themes of longevity in music as written in the book. Riding the roller coaster. Out May the 12th, 2026, you can pre-order it now from all online bookshops, and you can buy it in the shops from May 12th. This season leads up to the book's release, so look out for more news on that and your invitation to the launch party. We'll also be doing another Art of Longevity live with Bang and Olifson, so look out for that. Okay, let's get going. Season 13 of the Art of Longevity. Thank you. Oliver, how are you and whereabouts are you?

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Well, I'm sitting in my studio right now in Iceland. I just got back here like five days ago. I spent the last two months with my little family in Southeast Asia on paternity leave. So I'm just settling back in at home. This is my second day in the studio, and I'm just kind of remembering where all the buttons are and where the snacks are.

Keith Jopling 1:46

The all-important snacks. Okay, you've given yourself paternity leave. That's great.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

Yeah, I think it's important, even if you're a freelancer, of course. I speak from extreme privilege being from Iceland. Uh, we do get no matter what your job is, or if you're unemployed or self-employed, or if you have a normal job, you you you get 12 months paid for by the government of paternity leave. So you don't have to work. Uh and uh I mean I worked a little bit here and there, but it's at least encouraging to take some time off.

Keith Jopling 2:22

Of course, because you know you live in a very civilized country. Um unlike us here over in the UK, where you say something like that and my jaw would drop. It's 12 months shared, to be to be fair.

SPEAKER_00 2:37

So six months each.

Keith Jopling 2:38

Well, okay. All right, still, I'll just reattach myself here. Okay, so Oliver, I've been conducting an experiment all week. I have listened to your music for an hour each evening, completely uninterrupted. Uh and of course, sometimes during the day as well, because I've been, you know, familiarizing myself with the catalogue, but this hour every evening uninterrupted, just going back through your recent albums, I feel like it's changed me.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

Well, I'm I'm just jealous that you could do an hour even every evening uninterrupted to listen to music. That's I'm still at that part of this.

Keith Jopling 3:24

Yeah, it's like discipline. That's the thing. And of course, I did it because this conversation was coming up, and also because that's the way your music is. Well, we can talk about this, but I I assume it's the way your music is is intended for its best effect. I don't think it's changed me permanently, but I can tell you that this week I feel like I've had a week of, let's say, heightened emotions. You know, just responses to things. I've even felt like tearful a couple of times. Not not in a bad way. But it's just so interesting that first of all, we don't take the time to do that. And secondly, when you when we do, it reminds us, and it reminds me, of that pure power of connectivity with music and with the artist who makes it.

SPEAKER_00 4:14

I also think we lose a little bit of this deep emotional connection with music as we get older. I actually read I can't remember, I shouldn't talk about this, but I read some study about it at some point that there's something that happens in our brain where like when I was 18, music would make me cry, you know? And that like so rarely happens anymore. And I don't remember why it was. Something does rewire in our heads, but part of me also thinks like when as we get older, we have so much more responsibilities in our lives. Maybe we become parents, maybe our parents get old, maybe we just have to work more because you know we decided to buy a house, or uh, you know, whatever it is. We we we have all these things that fill our brain with so many decision decisions every day. And maybe it's just that. Like maybe it's also that we don't give ourselves the time, that we don't have the discipline. Because of course, why would you prioritize music? You know, it's it sounds such uh an important thing in most people's lives to prioritize an hour of your day just to listen to music. Right? Probably 95-99% of people would think that's a ridiculous idea. They have better things to do. But I'm that's why I'm so glad to hear because for me that that sounds like an absolute dream. And I I do this every morning with my son uh for an hour uh after he wakes up. I I do spend an hour just listening to music, but I'm also with him, of course, so it's not pure concentration, but we both just sit and listen. Uh and it's very, very rewarding. Unfortunately, it's a lot of kind of bach for babies at the moment, but I'm looking forward to that evolving.

Keith Jopling 6:01

I remember doing the same as well when my kids were born, and the music that you listen to during that period has a real impact on you. Yes. When my first daughter was born, I listened to a lot of uh a lot of Bjork and a lot of sparkle horse. So whenever I go back to those artists, it takes me right back to that time, which is again just illustrates the power. But you're right. I mean, I've have a thing about this, you know, taking the time to listen. Because the bizarre thing about what you just said, like, why should we prioritize music? You know, you spend years of your life making it, and you think as fans of your music, the least we can do is find that time. Because this has kind of become a a rediscovered habit, really, since I got back into vinyl. And I tell people about it, and they look at me like I'm crazy. They're like, What are you, a teenager? Yeah, you know? And I'll be like, well, no, you should try it.

SPEAKER_00 6:59

I've also had in the last five years, a bit of a coming back to this. I built a little sound system at home, like kind of a vintage, big open baffled speakers. Don't need to get into the details of hi-fi tech here, but it's it's very nice to listen to music in this. It's not very expensive to do, it's just it's a very unique listening experience. Um and in the last five, six years, I've started to invite friends over. Uh, or friends have even asked to come over because they've heard this sound system I have in my living room, and they're like, Can I come over and listen to music with you? Because I haven't experienced music like that in such a long time. Uh, because you hear music on AirPods, on tiny little Bluetooth speakers, you know. There's also this. I think access to music the way it's meant to be heard, or the way it's meant to sound, has become very difficult as well. Apart from, of course, a lot of people do have nice headphones, but it's not the same as listen sitting in a room and listening to music in a room. So we've had many evenings where friends come over and we listen to a full record while we have a sip of whiskey and we don't really talk, we just listen. And these have been some of my favorite moments with my friends in the last few years, and I can't encourage it enough for people to invest a small amount in a nice hi-fi system at home, something unique, something special that sounds a bit different, put on a vinyl, have make a ritual of it. Because I think another part of this is that we have kind of de-ritualized the act of listening to music, you know. It's it's a more of a background thing. Spotify picks it for you, you know. Uh, and and that's also where we lose a bit of this art of listening.

Keith Jopling 8:53

It's really interesting because um, by the way, I've written a book that's partly about this called Body of Work. So I'm going to send that to you because I think you'll enjoy reading it because it is about this theme. And it's also about the fact that music has grown so much, and particularly, you know, so to speak, we'll talk about how you feel about genres later on in this conversation, but in the neoclassical, post-classical, whatever you want to call it, in that genre, streaming has really, really grown it hugely. But at the same time, a lot of that is very lean back listening, you know, for study aids or to relax or something. I I often sort of well, I I can ask you now how you feel about this, given what you've just said.

SPEAKER_00 9:38

Yeah, this is this is a very double-edged sword, of course. On one hand, streaming algorithms have brought a genre like mine to the surface, which it couldn't have done in the previous music world, where we would rely on radio tastemakers to pick our music to play on the radio, and this is obviously not very radio friendly. Um so th this has allowed people like me to have a career on on the one hand. So I'm very thankful for it, of course, and and it generates income and all these things, you know. On the other hand, it has created a an image of what we do, which I don't think it's really correct, and maybe an expectation of what we do. And that expectation can even leak into my own expectations of what I expect of myself. I remember making um remember with 2018 record. So it's a few years ago, but we already had this, you know, Spotify got popular, what, 2016 or something like that, 15. And I remember feeling like I I had to have one solo piano track on the record. You know, there was this like there was this pressure of from everyone, like, because that's what streams, you know, but I wasn't that interested, you know, because a lot of the record was, you know, with beats, a little bit more upbeat sounding. And I was like, I had this like gut feeling, like, oh, but you know, are people gonna be disappointed or is the label gonna be disappointed? Because I don't have like an easily streamable song. So it up it's it very much leaked into my own psyche for a little bit. I'm very happy I managed to throw that all out the window. That is so interesting.

Keith Jopling 11:28

Have you heard of this song Neoclassical Massacre by Chili Gonzalez? I was just just a week ago I was showing this to my wife. So Chili, Chili was on this show, uh, I think probably about a year ago or something like that, and it was after he'd released it, so maybe it's slightly longer, but hilarious, right? I'll tell you a little story connected to that because a friend of mine called Andrew James Johnson is also a fantastic composer and piano player, in a way, in a more traditional sense, but also very much in a post-classical sense. As an aspiring artist, he sent me a message because I was I worked for Spotify for a while. And so Andrew sent me a message and he said, Look, how can I get on peaceful piano? I gave him a little tip, yeah, and he he went ahead and did it. And sure enough, he had a track on peaceful piano and he had a million streams overnight. He was obviously delighted about this, and it was kind of this was the beginning of a career transformation or whatever you want to call it. And um, I said, Okay, well, great, you know, well done. And then about two months later, he sent me another message and he said, uh, the track's been taken off. How can I do it again? Yeah. And so it sort of, I guess it became, I don't know, an obligation.

SPEAKER_00 12:44

Uh it's a strange carrot that people are chasing there. And of course I understand it. It's very difficult to make a living from music these days. But it's a very it's a treacherous road to go on. Because once you get on it, it's very difficult to get off it. And we have countless examples. There was a period where the major labels were hunting every artist who would get on peaceful piano and trying to sign them, because you know it was kind of guaranteed streaming income from for the label. But in most cases, you would see that the longevity, uh no pun intended here, uh, of the of these artists was was almost none because they might have had 40 million streams on Spotify, but no one knew who they were. They would put on a show and they couldn't sell 10 tickets, you know, because the listening there is so passive. Uh so that's it creates a little bit of a problem for for the genre, for the industry of the incentives. And I think it's really important to kind of remind ourselves as artists why we do what we do. And obviously, none of us got into this to chase Spotify playlists. It's a illusion.

Keith Jopling 14:00

It's uh you know, it's it's not a real big illusion because all artists have this, uh have this same kind of gaslighting effect with you know, be it playlists or viral videos or whatever it is. But I think it's particularly interesting in this genre again, because the bizarre thing was that, of course, you know, you look at something like Peaceful Piano or 88 Keys, all these playlists that became huge. And then we realized after a time that you have all these artists on there, like yourself and and Niels Frum and Max Richter and Ion LD, all these great artists sitting alongside these very anonymous artists. Well, a lot of them weren't real, actually. Yeah, they were but they were pen names or not real at all. Yeah, it's it's really bizarre period in music history. And I did want to just get your impression of just what it was like just being in that home.

SPEAKER_00 14:52

Yeah, I mean I thought about this a lot, obviously, um because yeah, like we say, it it is very two-sided. Uh because on one hand, this is part of what allows me a lot of creative freedom as a musician. Uh, the fact that I do get on a lot of those big playlists and it generates a lot of streams allows me to, you know, buy a nice synthesizer and experiment with it for a month, you know. It does allow a lot of uh of creative freedom, but at the same time, you just always have to be careful not to chase this. This is not what matters, and you can still do music without all these things, you know. You can still do music without these streams because you don't make music for this, you make music for yourself because you're in love with it, and you will always be able to do that. Uh, even if I have to go back to working my side job as a live sound engineer, which I used to do, uh, like that's fine, you know, I can still compose music in my free time. And so I would still be doing this, you know. The way I've kind of dealt with this also consciously in my music is that I try to reward deep listening. So very consciously, even if it is at times piano solo, peaceful piano solo music, you know, by definition, there's that layer that works well as background music. But if you sit down in front of your nice speakers or with your big headphones on and you listen to it the whole album without taking a break, listen to it all the way through with your give it your full attention undisturbed, you will find another layer in the music. You will you will be rewarded for that effort. And you just said you spent the last week exactly doing that. So I hope that some of that came through to you that it is a very different experience to listen to my music with full attention than listening to it in the in the background. And that is something I do consciously.

Keith Jopling 16:55

It's so interesting because it works on both levels. So normally if you listen to like rock music, it doesn't really work on a on the level of background. But although that's the way a lot of people are are listening to it, clearly. But yeah, I think that's the the experience I've had, and also the fact that you are very much an album artist. So, you know, your career is mapped by albums, they're very different, and each one is a different experience and rewards the repeated listening of that particular album, you know, which is very different from the whole idea of just putting on peaceful piano. So it's it's just fascinating that it works up in b on both levels.

SPEAKER_00 17:37

Yeah, I think I think you're you're spot on with the album artist thing. I think it's really important that we don't lose the art of the album, uh because as artists, that's still the best platform we have to really tell a story. If we just turn to releasing singles on streaming only. The story and music is lives so much in the in the ether around the music. Um so with an album, you have the artwork front and back, you have the track titles, and I'm talking about instrumental music here, so you I'm not even talking about relying on lyrics to tell a story. Um you know you have the booklet that you can open up, and maybe there's a mood there, or even a story more explicitly told in pictures or text that you are looking at while you're listening to the album. Maybe you're going on my social media and you're seeing all the imaging in the campaign around the album that is telling a story. Maybe you're listening to interviews and hear some background. You know, that there's so much more than just the music. And the album is still our best chance to deliver all of that.

Keith Jopling 19:00

Yeah, I completely agree. And live, of course, we can talk about live. I guess you're going to be preparing and rehearsing for this tour that you have coming up falling apart together. And I'm really interested in this because how live music is changing is really interesting, particularly in the age of AI. And so you've got these shows coming up, and you've in your own words, you've said that this is an attempt to dismantling the distance between us. A concert hybrid that reveals the layers we construct in order to feel safe, the moments in which those layers tremble, and the sense of intimacy shared and shared humanity that emerges when we allow ourselves to be exposed. So that's something I got from the you know the materials, but I think you said that. So I was really interested why this interests you and how you're going to do it without revealing spoilers.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

Yeah, this was actually a very difficult pressure list to write. Uh, because I was trying to like this is again like sometimes you're stuck to the formats of the music industry. You know, uh, my management was like, all right, we need a quote for the press release. I'm like, why? Yeah, because we always put a quote. But I'm like, I can't I can't say anything. It's uh it's still a work in progress. But you have to say something. You need a quote, it's a press release. So I wrote that.

Keith Jopling 20:16

Well, I mean, I like this word tremble. You know, that's that that's what got me was the was the the word tremble, you know, making those uh that layer in between. That was I think something that maybe the the press person couldn't write, that you could.

SPEAKER_00 20:31

So if I try to elaborate on this without kind of giving away what the show will be, uh partly because I don't want to spoil it, but also partly because I don't fully know yet, it's still a work in progress. I do have a core concept, and I set out on with this goal already two or three years ago, like when my last tour ended, that I basically never want to do that again. And I I'm probably gonna be doing that again at some point, of course. But I said I I said to myself and I said to my team, I'm not gonna get back on stage until I can present something completely new, completely unique that doesn't feel like any other concert out there. And I've been thinking about it for three years, how to do that. And I came to this conclusion of using the concert as a platform, again, very related to what we just talked about in regarding to the in regards to the album, as a platform to really tell a story, not just a place where you play the hits, you know. Uh as the the concert hall the problem with the concert hall is that it often makes you think that you're stuck in a concert hall, you know, just like the problem with poetry, it makes you think you're stuck to a page. The format, the the the the The location, the the stage you're on is very uh weighs very heavy on what you do there. And I started thinking, what if we break free of that? What if a concert is not really a concert, but a device to deliver a message, to deliver a story, uh to tell people something that's laying heavy on your heart. And in essence, I'm making a show about the act of creativity and uh what it means to all of us. And I'm gonna deliver that message to a TBZ story told on stage through music, visuals, light, uh, stage design, uh, stories, crowd interaction, all these tools that we have, um, and borrowing a lot of tricks from traditional theater. Um, so that's why we're calling it a hybrid. And in its essence, uh I like I believe creativity holds the key to our dismantling the distance between us all. I I I think music, art holds the key to all of that, and and that's kind of what I want to try to represent on stage. I hope this is clear in some way because I'm I'm w walking a very fine line of trying not to say too much because I might change a lot of this. There's still eight months to go, you know.

Keith Jopling 23:28

No, look at it. It's it's I mean, it's very intriguing and it makes sense. And I love the way that a lot of music shows actually are becoming more theatrical.

SPEAKER_00 23:37

Yes.

Keith Jopling 23:38

Um, because it's it's about what you've said. It's this telling of the story, it's about representing the album, perhaps, um, and the theme behind it.

SPEAKER_00 23:47

I was having a conversation with also with my stage designer, this amazing designer, Dennis Vanterbroek, who who's helping design the show. We were having a conversation the other day, and one of the things we kind of were talking about is that concert productions have gotten so out of hand. Like the amount, like everybody feels like they're competing with who has the most amount of equipment. Like, oh, we got 14 trucks of lights, you know, or something. And we were like, what if we are the antidote to that? And we try to do as much as we can with as little as we can, um, because we cannot compete. Uh we can't compete with Taylor Swift. So why try? Why try to fill a truck with lights, you know, when maybe what we should be doing, those of us who have a smaller budget, but a very dedicated audience, like what what is it that we can do? You know, what is uh what are the aces we hold in our hands in terms of like our opportunities? And one of the things we have is a super patient, super attentive audience who is very dedicated when they arrive to the show. We see that in all of my shows throughout my career. And maybe that's something we should utilize in instead of trying to keep their eyes busy with blinking lights, you know? Like, you know, maybe we should respect them a bit more.

Keith Jopling 25:14

It's a really great message, I think, for artists who are operating on a smaller scale, you know, because they if they keep that in mind, they can perhaps be more imaginative and maybe even more confident about what they can do on a stage. Because people are there rooting for them, you know, and that and of course they're always ready to have a different experience. When I go to a gig now, and it's it's funny because since I became conscious of it, it's it happens less and less. But you know, I feel like the best gigs really help help us, the audience, transcend. You know, you just forget time and place, and you forget the fact that you are in this concert hall or wherever wherever you are, and you just go to a different place. And it music, again, as you said, is it's the thing that can do that more than anything else, I feel. But I don't know, it's funny. Maybe as you said, it's an age thing, or it's a conscious thing, because the more I think about it, and I'm waiting for the moment to happen. You know, I was I was like this in the Radiohead shows, the recent run of Radiohead shows, which of course were amazing, and I'm standing there thinking, when is it gonna happen? It didn't, it didn't happen, yeah. But but something else happened there because it was more of a community feeling, which I didn't expect. Like you, you know, just the young and old just mixing together, more like a party atmosphere, actually, that I didn't expect from a radiohead show. But is that maybe a clumsy idea from the audience of what you are trying to accomplish?

SPEAKER_00 26:45

You actually really hit on exactly the core concepts of uh what I'm trying to do. Um so I uh in my concept, in in my script, uh quote unquote, uh that I've been writing, um I want to build up this illusion of a concert uh and then kind of break it down, uh and then revealing like this is what you're talking about earlier with these layers that when the layers tremble, you know, this these illusions that we set up to tell a story to uh disguise our vulnerability in our way, uh by putting something very flassy in front of us. Oh, look at this while you're listening to my music, uh, so you don't have to look directly into my heart, because that feels very vulnerable and scary to me. You know, I want to start the show by actually putting up those layers and showing those layers, but actually then slowly pulling them apart and revealing what is behind it and what is behind it is at its heart community. Music doesn't exist without community. So, yeah, you you've hit the spot there in exactly what I'm I'm thinking in what I'm doing.

Keith Jopling 27:59

The art of longevity is powered by Bang'an Olifsen, the luxury audio brand founded in 1925. For 100 years, Bang' Olifson has been pushing the boundaries of audio technology and acoustic innovation. Bang' Olifson's products combine beautiful sound, timeless design, and unrivaled craftsmanship. Okay, well, there's one other thing about live shows I wanted to discuss with you, and I'm gonna try this. I remembered this quote, and it was by Tony Morrison, the writer Tony Morrison, who's back in the news because there was a recent biography written about her. And I got it from the Paris Review podcast, but I and I've been looking for it everywhere because I remember uh hearing it. But I'm gonna try and play it.

SPEAKER_02 28:49

You know that sense you get that the musician has more, but he's not gonna give it to you. It's an exercise of restraint, uh, a kind of a holding back, not because it is not there or because one has exhausted it, um, but because of the riches and because it can be done again. And that sense of knowing when to stop is is a learned thing. I didn't always have it.

Keith Jopling 29:21

Wonderful quote. Amazing. Isn't it amazing? Yeah. Those live shows where there is that restraint, it's almost like you don't know it's there. You feel it afterwards.

SPEAKER_00 29:32

The original working title for the show I'm making was actually Ten Attempts at Tension. Very similar uh concept. Uh and I'm really fascinating, fascinated by uh this idea of tension in music, tension in live shows. Um it's not only about like reveals uh uh or kind of what do you call it, like climaxes in in music that it's really important to have restraint on. But I also find it really fascinating when when you feel like things are almost about to go wrong. And uh like I look back at like some of my shows where something has gone wrong, and especially on long tours where the show has been like perfect, like it's been perfected throughout like a hundred shows in a row, and you're on show like 97, and nothing can go wrong. The show is polished and flawless, and then you have one night where in the middle of the show, suddenly a cable stops working or whatever, and you have this awkward five minutes of silence where the crew is scrambling around trying to figure out what's wrong, and I have to stand there and talk, tell some jokes or something, and there's cold sweat running down my back. I have no idea how long I have to keep the audience's attention here. Uh, I'm getting super scared, they're gonna stand up and walk out when suddenly it's resolved, and I sit back at the piano and I continue playing, and you can feel the communal sigh of relief uh in everybody brings everybody so much closer. And so like when you break that illusion of of the perfect concert, when you when when the layers start to tremble and you start to see that behind all of this, picture perfect live show that has been so polished and rehearsed behind all of it is just flawed humans. That is when you get the goosebumps. That is when the show reaches another level. It's so important that we we have some restraint also in perfection, that we don't try to remove the humanity from the music in that sense. Because in the end, yeah, these end up being my favorite show. Oh, like that that's the shows I remember. Like I remember that show in Lisbon where I had to like basically do a stand-up for 10 minutes. Not because of my stand-up, which was probably terrible, but because the the 45 minutes remaining of the show after were so like beautiful. You could hear a tin uh pin trump, you know, because the audience would be so with you. Everyone roots for a musician on stage that has things going backwards for him. Everyone feels for them, everyone knows how difficult that is. So you're instantly in like this hyper empathy mode. Yeah, I love that so much closer to each other. Um, so this is not exactly related to that quote, but it just led me to think of it.

Keith Jopling 32:47

Yeah, related to it. And those mistakes, for some reason, as you say, that initially when they happen, they must be terrifying. But then you think, well, there's no need, you know, because in the end it it turns into something good and and everybody understands that.

SPEAKER_00 33:03

Yeah.

Keith Jopling 33:03

This is not just a promotional tool for my books, by the way, but I've written another book, um, which is about this based on this podcast called Riding the Roller Coaster, how artists survive the music business to become the legends we love. And in it, there are all these things about longevity that I've learned from talking to musicians on the show and uh just general experience in in the music industry. And one of the themes is to make music that's useful and to celebrate the usefulness of your music as a way of celebrating success. And this sort of brings me back to how I felt this week, spending that hour each each night listening to your music, because it's definitely been a very practical help to me this week. And I know people have said this about your music over a long period of time, and you'll have heard things from fans about specific things that have changed, or they've where they've used your music in a certain setting. Just wondered if you could share some maybe surprising things or the most memorable things that you've heard uh in that way.

SPEAKER_00 34:18

Yeah. There was a time in like on the internet where I guess we had a lot more direct communication with people as uh than we do now, because right right now it's very algorithm-based and like it's almost like you're operating a TV channel. But it's I used to hear a lot of stories, and and I still do if I really go through my messages and stuff, but there was a point where I felt like I had to start shielding myself a little bit from all these stories. Um because it was maybe starting to affect my ego or even ability to operate as an artist in the way that I really wanted to operate, which is just purely from my heart to you, and that's the reason why it touches people, you know. Um of course there was a lot of stories, there was a lot of people I met who were going through hard times, and those people taught me a lot about what music can do. Because I think I was quite oblivious to it when I started, you know. I was just a kid uh having a hobby, you know. That's what it was to me for many years. Still is in many ways, but but I was very oblivious to the fact that it can it could actually touch people quite deeply. And the the story I always remember is from like around 2010, maybe someone sent me an email. This girl who had battled depression for many years and she uh had a failed attempt of of on ending her life and was in the hospital. Uh and all she could think was uh like can wait to get out of here so I can finish the job. When one day her friend pops over and he's just like she doesn't really want to talk to him, but he he comes by and leaves an iPod there. Just like, hey, here, if you need something to listen to, this is when we still had iPods. Um and she's like, Yeah, whatever. She puts the headphones in and just presses play on Shuffle, and and uh one of my songs comes on, and she said that in that moment, in the first 30 seconds, she could feel her brain getting rewired. And within minutes she was thinking, I can't wait to get out of here to rebuild my life. Uh something just absolutely magical happening there. And I I know a lot of us have had similar experiences. Like I I believe this story, because I've had similar experiences, and not to that extreme, maybe, but we've all had this experience on one level or another. I wrote some emails back and forth with her, checked in on her. Um but I I don't know her today, I have no idea where she is. Uh at some point I closed my public email account. Um because you even though these stories are beautiful, they're encouraging, they're touching, um not all of them were this positive. A lot of them are very dark and had worse endings. You know, I've had yeah, uh yeah, maybe I don't need to say ex uh details, but uh you know uh uh at some point you have to let the music live its life in a way without my like I like I don't know if if it's fair in a way that the the creator himself or of the music um needs to be the the sponge that soaks up the emotional mental extremities of the lives of hundreds of or of even thousands of people and I don't know if anyone can really hold all of that. So uh at some point I had to just kind of start shielding myself a little bit, and I turned off the the email address where you could reach me, and I started creating a little bit more distance on on purpose because my job here is and I'm not in any way qualified even to be a mental health professional to these extreme cases. Uh my job here is to make the music, and I need to focus on that, and that's that's what makes people feel this way. And if if I don't focus on that fully, then it's not gonna do its job anymore.

Keith Jopling 39:16

It is amazing, though, the power of what you've just said. And I think the I'm aware that there are kind of more and more of these applications coming in that are using music more directly in that way, which is probably a good thing because then it takes the responsibility off of you, the creator of it, and actually puts it into a more practical kind of uh a healthcare application, you know. Like uh I think we're at the foothills of really figuring out what music can do.

SPEAKER_00 39:46

On that note, I I I just started with my parents. Um they wanted to use their retirement money to support initiatives that support either research or work with music in relation to health, whether it's mental health or uh long-term illnesses like Alzheimer's. Um so we just started actually a music fund that people can apply for funds out of uh to support projects that support exactly like that. So my energy has gone maybe into something like that, rather than being the punching bag myself, you know, so to speak. Yes, exactly.

Keith Jopling 40:29

Yeah, and I think that's great. Well, maybe this is a good time to bring the elephant in the room into the conversation here with AI. And I don't necessarily bring this up with every artist, but I think, you know, in the context of some of the things we've talked about already, the lean back of the the playlists, the music as a sort of as a having a function. Do you have a take on what is going to play out here?

SPEAKER_00 40:59

My hot take is that if AI takes over the laid back, passive listening, peaceful piano playlists, maybe it's for the best. Maybe we will all be clearer in our intentions for it. And you can already feel it. You can already feel like Rosalia's new album. She made a point out of it not being AI. That was a part of the campaign around the album was this is human, and people fucking ate it up, you know. Sorry for swearing. Um to elaborate, maybe I think AI is gonna get more and more popular, of course, in some areas of the music industry, and it's gonna be mostly background music, passive listening music. So probably we will lose a lot of income from composing for cheap reality TV shows, which you know, I don't know any musician who grew up dreaming about that job. So that's maybe okay. So it's a disruptor for like financially for the industry. But I think it's maybe an encouraging point for artistically for the industry. Um it's a it's a big problem for, of course, streaming and all of that. But but like streaming has done also bad things to us. And maybe this is our encouragement to maybe get out of that and and remind ourselves that the reason we listen to music is not for a specific combination of notes that form a melody, but something much more deeper and more complicated than that, that we can't really explain. And is made out of a lot more elements than just a recording, just an imitation or uh just a melody. You know, that there's the there's the humanity in it, there's the the story we're trying to say, there's the message, there's the human, there's the vulnerability, there's the spirituality, there's the ritual, there's all these things that live in a way outside the wave file, you know?

Keith Jopling 43:12

Yeah, for sure. Look, I mean, I'm glad you said it in a way. Again, the peaceful piano thing, you know, because uh I I worked at Spotify for a while and I actually loved that playlist because it was it did what it did. It grew a genre into a huge thing that hadn't previously been very niche. And I had this idea then that, you know, this thing could be, you know, we could do music books and we could do peaceful piano on tour, you know. And I I I took this up to the powers that be at Spotify at some point, and I was hearing nothing back. You know, it's kind of kind of interesting. I was like, okay, maybe they're not so interested in this idea. And then I got this email that sort of said, Well, that's not what really what peaceful piano is about.

SPEAKER_00 43:59

Okay.

Keith Jopling 44:00

You know what I'm saying? So and then it was sort of be before that time when there was the discovery that it was this very lean back thing that had all of these anonymous musicians on there. And I thought, okay. So I think it's very interesting that you said that, because if in the end AI created music starts to fill all those pipes, then in a way that is that's something that's come full circle with the intention.

SPEAKER_00 44:28

Yes, and it forces us to take another route. I mean it doesn't surprise me that Spotify said that. It seems like their whole mission is to devaluate music, not to make the value higher, because the more they devaluate it, the the the more the longer they can keep their subscription at $12 or whatever it is and not raise it.

Keith Jopling 44:49

Yeah, it's so complex because obviously there's a lot of people who work at Spotify that love music and care about it, and they program it and they do it with passion. But I I think ultimately it is that thing of like the people making the decisions about the future of the company, and I can say that it's generally about tech, is that they they don't have the connection with the art and its power that we've been talking about in this conversation. That connection's completely lost. Of course not.

SPEAKER_00 45:19

They work for shareholders, you know. I have no doubts of the intentions of like most of the people to who work at, for example, at Spotify. Like I no doubt they're they're there because they love music, you know. But I I can't speak for the upper management and and and the interests of the shareholders are to increase the value of their stock. And and those values don't necessarily line up with each other. And that's kind of the problem here.

Keith Jopling 45:46

Yeah, this is capitalism.

SPEAKER_00 45:48

Yeah, yeah, this capitalism is not a you know, it's a new not a new story, obviously. We've heard the same story before. But maybe things like AI kind of okay, you can just have the AI. Like if you just want to make money, have the AI, use the AI to make your money. Leave us musicians out of it to make art, uh, because that's where our value lies.

Keith Jopling 46:09

Yeah, very interesting. Take. And to be honest, I can see that playing out. I really can.

SPEAKER_00 46:14

Yeah, and people will pay for that in the end. People will learn again to value art and music for what it is, and they will be willing to pay for that. You already see that how many musicians are doing well with like subscription, private subscription services or alternative methods of of living off their music, whether it's Patreon or or you know, you see that this model also works. It just doesn't work at scale yet. Uh, and that's what we need to figure out for like the a whole industry to get to that level. That that's what we have to figure out. But I have no doubt about it. Another thing I I want to say, which is also kind of my my take about AI, which kind of just reinforces this point, is a quote I read on the Instagram algorithm of all places was making music easily is not a new thing. Like pop pop mu generic pop music has been using ready-made loop packs for a while now. Like Sabrina's uh Carpenter's Espresso famously is two splice loops put together. That's it, you know. Like uh it's not new that you can make music by just picking the music, you know, without having to really create it. And and that that at least like when it comes to more generic types of music, it's maybe more about your musical taste and that you're very qualified at picking the right splice loop and putting it together with the other good splice loop, and that's what makes some magic happen. It's a magical song, it's a great fucking pop song, I have to say. But it's not any easier now than it ever was before to write both sides now by Joni Mitchell. Yeah. That's still just as hard. AI hasn't and probably isn't gonna make that any easier.

Keith Jopling 48:09

The art of longevity is brought to you with Bang and Olifson. Since 1925, Bang' Olifson has created iconic audio and home entertainment products to the highest standards of sound, craft, and design. You can find more about the partnership on our web pages and by signing up to the mailing list where you can then get episodes first, plus invitations to events and offerings. Finally, we want to get to 100 shows and beyond with the art of longevity, and the only way we can do that is with your help and advocacy. So please rate, review, and share the podcast wherever you can. Back to the conversation to wrap up this episode, and we'll be back with another great guest very soon. Okay, so I'm just aware I'm conscious of time, I have a few more questions. I wanted to go right back to the beginning because I didn't realize that you started out as a heavy metal drummer.

SPEAKER_00 49:05

I wanna push back a little bit and say hardcore punk drummer.

Keith Jopling 49:09

Well, okay, alright, go for it. Tell me about it.

SPEAKER_00 49:12

Yeah, I mean, I I grew up in the punk scene from my young teens. You know, I grew up as a drummer. I just learned drums in music school from when I was like seven. I still remember driving to a small countryside town with my mom to buy my first drum kit um from some guy's garage. And very quickly, you know, the bands I was starting, they were all punk for some reason. I'm gonna guess the reason was it's easy, it's simple, and the ethos is very much like it's not about what you can, it's just about what you do. So if you just want to strum your guitar with all strings open, then go for it. Uh so that was mine and my friend's attitude from when we were seven or eight years old. At 12, 13, maybe I got a little bit more serious into it, started going to hardcore underground shows, being getting involved with the punk scene. At 15, 16, I was working as a live sound engineer at a very popular punk rock venue, so I was very involved with the scene here, often promoting concerts, and had a couple of bands that I toured a bit with, uh, released a few records in this genre.

Keith Jopling 50:29

Do you still engage with it? Do you listen to it? Do you miss it?

SPEAKER_00 50:34

I engage with it, yes. Uh I follow what's happening in the local scene to an extent. I don't listen to it very much. Uh I don't know why, because I still enjoy it. Uh I think a part of it is what we've talked about before, just like how our connection with music just kind of generally changes. Um and that hour I set aside for deep listening is usually ends up being something very different, you know, than than punk or hardcore. Do I miss it? Yeah, sometimes. I I miss it sometimes. I miss going to the shows uh especially and the scene, at least in the uh early 2000s when I was the most active in it. It was a really magical place uh of very supportive people. It didn't matter who you are, where you came from, whether you came from a rich or poor background, whether you're abled or differently abled or disabled, or your gender, like your looks, it didn't matter. It was such a free place. It's just a beautiful free place that I miss in many ways. Yeah.

Keith Jopling 51:49

Yeah, it's interesting as well, isn't it? Because hardcore is just having a moment right now. You know, it's come it's just so vibrant again.

SPEAKER_00 51:58

Yeah.

Keith Jopling 51:59

Uh and it it you know, these things always come back around in in cycles. I find that very interesting.

SPEAKER_00 52:04

Yeah, we I f I feel like the 2010s were very saturated with very generic things. And I think this is the the pendulum that kind of always swings back. And uh, and I think just as in the early 2000s, we were kind of uh dictated a little bit by by more free forms of music. I think that's that's coming back now because it's always the counterculture that comes back.

Keith Jopling 52:30

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:32

It's like it it you we you start with a counterculture, then capitalism discovers it, makes it generic, and then another counterculture comes, and then capitalist takes that and makes it generic.

Keith Jopling 52:44

It keeps on coming from the gutter, from the streets. Yeah, that's where the creativity comes from. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 52:51

Circle of life.

Keith Jopling 52:53

Um, well, I was also uh delighted to discover in one of the pieces I read about you that you loved this Mew album because I and I I love Mew, and I've I went to see their farewell concert just a few weeks ago.

SPEAKER_00 53:08

Oh my god, yeah, someone was telling me about that. Yes.

Keith Jopling 53:11

Yeah, it's because um Jonas Bleur is is leaving, but I think the band are gonna continue, which is kind of I'd be very intrigued to see how that goes. But yeah, this album, No More Stories Are Told, and then you know the title goes on and on and on.

SPEAKER_00 53:27

Thanks for uh reminding me because I haven't listened to that in a few years, and someone else reminded me the other day, and I forgot about it again, so thank you. Now I'm gonna actually write it down and listen to that record tonight.

Keith Jopling 53:40

Okay, so your first album, uh Eulogy for Evolution, is gonna be 20, I think, next year. I know you celebrated it at 10. Yeah, 2007. So what's your coming from the kind of you know, the hardcore drumming and into that when you you know you you made this step into what you do now, that first step. What's your take on that first record now?

SPEAKER_00 54:07

I revisited it on the 10-year anniversary, which I did not realize this almost 10 years ago now. Went back in because we decided to remaster it and we didn't have all the files or something. I can't remember. So I ended up going in and kind of fixing a few things and I had to remix some things because we didn't have everything. I don't I don't think we had the stamps or something like that. Um and it was a very interesting experience, I remember, to to open the sessions again and actually look through what the hell I was doing back then. I had no idea obviously what I was doing. And you're just working on this kind of young intuition, uh kind of stupid bravery, like ignorant bravery almost. Like, oh, I've heard classical music before. I can do that, sure, no problem. And there there's like this yeah, there's this useful, youthful arrogance to it, uh which I really love actually. I could never do that album today, even if I tried. Like, and of course it's a simpler album in a way than whatever I do today, simpler melodies, much more naive. But I couldn't write this music today if I tried. So listening to it now, and I haven't in a few years to be honest, but l when I've heard it, I don't feel like it's mine almost, uh, which is really interesting. But yeah, at the time I was coming from the punk scene and with a punk attitude, and I had always played piano since I was a kid, a little bit, never studied it properly or learned the correct fingering or anything. But I was always playing with it, and I had written a few songs and on one of my tours with my hardcore punk band, actually, we were supporting, we were opening up for a German band called Heaven Shall Burn, which is a very, very big metal band in Germany. And I gave the guitar player like a demo of my music, and at the time this was just a hobby. Like I was just writing some piano music on the side, and I always thought I'm gonna be a drummer, that's gonna be, you know, I'll probably be a sound engineer or something as well, but you know, I'll play drums and bands for the rest of my life. And then like a month later, I get an email from this guy. I was like, Hey, I listen to your demo. Uh, our band is making a new record, and we were asking if we if you could write an intro and an outro for the record for us. Um, so that was the first stuff I did, and he actually directed me a little bit because in my in the demos I gave him, there were still some guitars and drums and stuff. And he was like, Can you remove that stuff? Because we already have that in our music, and just do the piano and the strings, uh, because we think that would be wonderful. And then you could write an intro and an interlude and an outro for the record. So though those were the first songs that I actually did in in this yeah, neoclassical genre, so-called. And it was just kind of prompted by the guitar player of Heaven Shall Burn. Just like, can you have only piano and strings, please? I had not listened to anyone else doing stuff like that. Uh, you know, I had been listening to Chopin since I was a baby, uh, and some classical music, but I didn't really know. I I was listening to some soundtrack music like John Williams and and like this this big soundtrack uh score legends, like but I didn't really know that there this was a thing, like this kind of more simplistic, minimalistic piano and string music. Guess it wasn't really a thing at the time either. But but yeah, after their record come out comes out, I I get another email basically like, hey, what do you think about making a full record with this kind of stuff? And I had not even thought of that. I thought this was it, you know, I was just gonna go back to what I whatever I was doing. So they basically encouraged me to make Geology for Evolution. They almost commissioned it, you know.

Keith Jopling 58:12

I do love that about creative careers, if you like, but I also feel like does that still happen now? You know, it feels like less happens by by happy accident, like that. If you want to change the what you do, you have to kind of make a huge effort to learn something and then tell everyone that you're changing. And you do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 58:38

Yeah, absolutely. And I often think about this when people ask me also like, you know, do you have any advice for young musicians who are trying to make it in the music business? Like, you know what? I have no idea what I would do today. Because for me, this was the story, this was a happy accident, and I don't know how to do it by trying, you know. Uh, and there's this really beautiful essay, philosophical essay called The Tyranny of Ideas. Uh Nadia Asparohova, uh she's a philosopher. Uh she wrote this really wonderful essay about how we how we are often like prisoners of our ideas. If we have like I made that first album, it was successful, uh, relatively. Uh it made a career for me. Why was my next album in the same genre, even? Like, who decided that? Like the first one was an accident. I didn't mean to make music like that. I think I was trying to do something else, even, but it I just didn't know how to, so it ended up what it was. And then that set the stage for my next album, my next album after that, and like album.

Keith Jopling 59:51

Yeah, yeah. The whole world kind of kinda conspires to keep you in in that lane. Yeah, so it's completely tyrannical. Yeah, okay. Well, I will read that. I will because I haven't read that, but uh, but every time I sort of think about this, because effectively I'm I'm going through this now. I'm trying to change my career again. I've I've tried to change before, and people say, no, no, no, no. You're really good at this, so keep on doing that.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:18

Yeah, but why are you good at this, you know? That's the point.

Keith Jopling 1:00:21

Yeah. All right. Well, I won't ask you the question, what advice would you give? We've got to finish up because I don't want to take up any more of your time. But there's a little story, a kind of little story I wanted to share with you, where again, your music kind of had an impact on my whole life, really. So we as a family go down to St. Ives in Cornwall every year. It's our happy place. You know, I had my wife and my three daughters, and now my dog as well. But this I think this is before the days of my dog. So we've been going down there for a long, long time. Every year there would be more and more people, uh, like friends and family would just convene and we'd have these days on the beach where there were forty or fifty of us, you know, just the biggest group on the beach. And then one day, as everybody was packing away their deck chairs and stuff, and all of my friends, all of my group had gone, uh, and I was just hanging around there by myself, and I was waiting for a swim, like a a sort of uh early evening swim, sitting on a deck chair and listening to some music, and it was a playlist. So, again, this is a good example of your stuff cropping up in playlists. Uh, but the track that came up was this song Arbakin. Have I pronounced that correctly? Remarkably, yes. Yeah, yeah. So it's Island Songs One, and um it's the spoken word voice, obviously in Icelandic, I had no idea what he was talking about. But this next three minutes is sort of etched on my mind so strongly that I could sort of go back there anytime at all, like feeling stressed, or sometimes it just pops into my memory as like one of the most profound moments in my life, really, because we were on this that you were in a happy place, but I'd been left alone, and I had an expectation and a slight fear about going into the water, which I always face, and then this music came on, and that was my first connection with your music, I think, was Ireland Songs, and so I just wanted to share that with you. And I I've only just translated the lyrics just this week, because this conversation was coming up, and of course it is about water, it's about a riverside.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:46

Yeah, Arpakin means the riverside, yeah. By um poet Enar Georg. Um beautiful, beautiful poet. Uh, if you know the musician Ausgeer from Iceland, it's actually his dad.

Keith Jopling 1:03:00

Okay, and the voice, who is that? Tell me about how that collaboration came about.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:04

Um that's the poet. Um but yeah, that's it's a beautiful story, and and always good to be reminded of these kind of encounters that happen where everything just falls into the right place. And I'm always happy to hear these stories, although I I don't take them too uh personally, even because I think this could have been another song that you've heard, and it the same thing might have happened. I think there's this moments where our brains are so open to this, and everything falls into place, and you create this wiring in your head that you can always, always go back to. And we I think we all have moments like that that we connect so vividly to a piece of music that we can barely even hear that piece of music without being involuntarily transported back to that place in time and all everything we were feeling in that moment. It's it's so wonderful and speaks so much to the power of music.

Keith Jopling 1:04:03

It was a happy moment, but then when I go back and listen to Island Songs periodically, you know, it's an almost unbearably sad album. To me. That's that's how it makes me feel when I you know, it's just it it feels like just very, very sad. So it's just that clash, really. I guess it's a bit of melancholy, is what is is what it is, but incredibly powerful.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:27

Island Songs and and that song, I was just kind of going around the country and finding uh inter interesting people to collaborate with. And I wanted to have a poet involved with in it. So I I I read through a bunch of poetry books from different poets, and I found him the most interesting, not only because of the poems themselves, and particularly this one, which was very inspiring to me and inspired the song in some ways, but also because we were we were telling a story, and again, coming back to that whole point of always telling stories with music island songs was also a film. It's a featured documentary that we made about this whole process. And I was also looking for interesting people uh in interesting places because we were, you know, the this was half album, half a film, and I had to weigh both things equally in a way. I haven't seen the film, so that's great.

Keith Jopling 1:05:23

I will seek out the film and watch it.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:25

You should see it. It's uh it's on um Apple TV. Oh, actually actually, we did release it for free on YouTube on the anniversary of it, which was the last time. Okay. All right, yeah, I'll check it out. So it's it's full, it's in full on YouTube right now. Um yeah, it's it's a it's a documentary of me going to communities in Iceland, uh finding musicians who work in these communities and hearing their stories and making a piece of music with them, and kind of coming to the conclusion of and this was very much the Beginning of my something that's been very big for my own music since then is like the importance of community in music. Something that really works through everything I do, uh whether it is giving back to community or just like who I choose to have on tour with me, you know, who is in the band and who is even even down to the person who plugs in some lights, you know. Uh like I I I want every single person on the road with us to feel like they're a part of some community that uh that has a a common goal. But in terms of that documentary itself, it was so interesting to see and find out how many musicians have wonderful, full musically fulfilling lives without being so-called career musicians. They've never done an album, they've never been on tour. An example is actually my cousin who lived in the northwest of Iceland in a really isolated town. Uh, we speak to her in the film. She moved up there to become a music teacher, an organist in the church, uh, and like so many other musical roles that she has in that small fishing town. So she becomes, as being like the town musician in a way, she becomes such a big part of everybody's life. You know, she plays the organ in the funeral, uh, she plays piano in the wedding, she directs the choir on Wednesday evenings, uh, she teaches the kids at school. And that woman, that amazing talented musician, is no less a musician than the musician who plays a hundred shows a year and sells hundred thousand records, you know?

Keith Jopling 1:07:46

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's great though that they there's an opportunity that they come together. Yeah, fantastic. Well, as a collaborator, you've become this sort of master collaborator in a sense. I mean, is there anyone on the list that you would dream about, or even if you were in the f realm of fantasy that you'd like to collaborate with you?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:10

You know, the the key for me to a successful collaboration is kind of the opposite of that. It is going from community, friendship, mutual kind of respect first, not a checklist of big names or musicians I'm a fan of. Uh because I think the best collaborations come out of these spontaneous moments. And and uh both my latest, like with with Talos and an earlier very successful one with uh Niels Ram, are both very spontaneous collaborations. Um with Talos actually, there our managements uh both like mine and his management had been trying for years to get us together, and it never worked out. And then one day we meet by coincidence in a bar, and then we walk home to the studio and we just start making music, you know? It's like that's when the magic happens, not the thing planned out, you know. It's just because we started talking and we loved each other's company, and we were like, should we hang out? That's the question. Not should we make some music, you know.

Keith Jopling 1:09:24

You didn't know that your managers had tried to do this when you when you met?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:28

Not super conscious of it. I I had heard of him uh through some request that had come through at some point, uh, but I didn't know his music at all. I had never gotten to the point where I actually checked it out. I was just like, I don't I don't have time right now, you know, maybe we try again later. And and then we just meet, then we get along as friends. And that's why we made good music together, I think. And of course, it so happens that he was an incredibly talented and beautiful artist. But for me, he was first and foremost a a friend.

Keith Jopling 1:10:01

Amazing. I mean, what a voice, you know, a kind of voice of a generation in a way, you know, of male voices. Well, let's celebrate uh him and the work that you did together. Oliver, it's been amazing to talk to you. I think we've covered the bases here. Was there anything else on the subject of longevity that's uh struck you that you feel like you need to say?

SPEAKER_01 1:10:24

No.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:27

We covered a good amount. Uh I feel like this is like a very light music business talk without getting into the nitty-gritty, and that's so much more enjoyable when we can talk about uh things in in a little bit more philosophical conceptual way rather than getting into the nitty-gritty business underneath it all.

Keith Jopling 1:10:50

Yeah, that's sort of my thing that I'm trying to to do. As you know, if it if there's a voice that you know you you're trying to find your own lane now, as we we said, it's this idea that let's not forget if we're on the business side, the music is the business. There is no business without the music.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:10

Yeah.

Keith Jopling 1:11:11

So let's not forget that and sort of try and make that connection very, very conscious, but with the business being in service of the art. So my whole thing is like really this this clash of technology and what that's done, and is putting the art first and remembering to do that. So really my message to is to listeners these days, more than the industry, to be honest. I think that's important. Thanks a lot.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:38

It was enjoyable. Really enjoyed it.

Keith Jopling 1:11:40

Yeah, well, good luck with the tour and with whatever you do next. And yep, thank you for doing this and for the music. And uh, yeah, I hope you uh have a great uh few years ahead of you, and we'll see you again soon.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:55

Thanks so much. Thanks so much for having me on the podcast.