Sondre Lerche on Love, Vanity, and Letting Go

0:28Blamo! Host: Sondre Lerche and Blamo! I'm trying to do these things called doing nothing. I'm trying to do this thing now where I'll, I don't know, it's not meditation, but it's like I'm going to just sit in silence for like 15 minutes. I've been reading all these articles about how important it is to just like stop and think. And I realize almost always I either have like a phone in my hand doing something or I'm on a computer doing something or I mean, I'm reading a book or I'm listening to music, but I haven't done anything where I just am like doing nothing, like just trying to think. Because a lot of times I'll do it before I go to bed, right?

1:10Blamo! Host: You're laying in bed and you're just, I'm kind of like, oh, what do I got to do today? What am I doing tomorrow? I'm like, I wonder if Paul McCartney thought this about, you know, I mean, my mind's all over the place. But I was like, you know, I'm going to take 15 minutes a day and I'm just going to sit. it's my own form of meditation. I don't think I'm above or below any other type of meditation, but I'm just trying to focus. And it's been nice. It's been really nice. Look, I'm no expert by any means, but every week, you know, my birthday's coming up, all these things, I'm processing the thought of getting older.

1:48Blamo! Host: And, you know, I'm like, what am I doing to better myself? Right? all that all that stuff uh but look i always i can't help but listen to music i i've listened to lately i've been listening to like burt bacharack again uh mainly which you're about to hear you're about to hear why in a minute but um i'm i'm just uh i got way back into stan getz where all of a sudden i'm just blasting stan getz and i'm i'm trying to talk to my kids about improvisational saxophone jazz stuff. I mean, you see what I'm doing here, okay? Which is just a whole lot of yapping. So I'm going to talk about my guest this week because before I do, I have to kind of set the stage, no pun intended.

2:34Blamo! Host: So Sondre Lerke, who is and has been one of my favorite musicians for a very, very long time. I think this makes the cut. I talk about this uh when so i saw him play a show in like 2003 or 4 um no it was even earlier than that it had been like 2002 but he played shows inst louis i remember hearing his music i got it from one of those like virgin demo cds and i totally just fell in love with his with his music he's kind of like this punk rock burt baccarat like i mean there's um he's an incredible like jazz virtuoso So guitar player, really good singer. He writes these like super complex melodies, but they're also like occasionally these earworms that just get stuck in your head.

3:25Blamo! Host: And it's very like happy music. It's, you know, but also if you dig into his lyrics, you're like, yo, there's some, there's some depth in here. So, I mean, he's been a part of my life for as long as I can remember in terms of like being an adult. And I've always, always admired his fits. he's got this incredible, incredible eye for how he puts together clothes. He dresses like himself, which I feel like is a very, very high compliment these days. You know, because sometimes you go someplace and you see someone getting dressed and you're like, yeah, it looks like you're dressing like this dude or that guy or this person.

4:00Blamo! Host: But he's got, you know, the taste level is supreme. The music is supreme. And he's on the pod this week. So here you go. Here's my conversation with Sondre Lerke. First off, congrats on the record. Thank you. It's very, very good. It feels like it's one of your first records in a while that's not like a guitar leading record.

4:21Sondre Lerche: Yeah, it's kind of all over the place in that sense. But it's, yeah, it's got a lot of different colors. I feel looking back now, I feel it's just very sort of, it's a little bombastic in a sense but it's it's got a lot of heart and and uh it's yeah it's melodic and quite ambitious but um but it's very yeah it's very heartfelt well i guess you could say that about probably almost any records i've of the records i've made but yeah it's i i tend to more often than not now when i i'm in the studio i even you know i write all the songs sitting right where i'm talking to you now with my guitar my guitar is right here it's never never far away.

5:04Sondre Lerche: So I sit here and I write. So they're all written on the guitar, but in the studio, I tend to want to do other things or, you know, I'm not so married to it having to be represented in the way that I write it. You know what I mean?

5:19Blamo! Host: Yeah. And I mean, it also, I assume from just being a musician for so long, there's probably not so much of a desire to prove yourself per se on your own like technical skills.

5:31Sondre Lerche: No. And the song, I can always go back and play the song. Sometimes I'll do solo shows. I can play any of the songs I write on the guitar in the way that I wrote it. But in the studio, there's so much else you can do. And the recording is just one way of doing it. So that's how I view it usually. This is how I chose to record and arrange and produce this song. but the song i'm very i'm very class you know i'm a class classicist in the sense that i believe i have immense faith in the song because i write it really thoroughly and and i can play it alone on the guitar i could play it with a philharmonic orchestra which you know one of the songs on the record is with a full uh orchestra but that song too was just written here on the guitar so i i'm very old school in that sense you know i don't i sit people ask me if i have a home studio and no no i just sit like a like a an author and i with the guitar and i i write the song the melody the chords the structure and then i'll spend uh any anywhere between a day and five years on

6:40Blamo! Host: getting the lyrics right you know and that's five years i mean that's that's a insanely long time

6:48Sondre Lerche: yeah it's that's what that's usually the thing that makes the song finished or not finished you know and and on the new record there's the song the first single little kids yeah that went through two years of rewrites mainly just writing entirely different lyrics for the the same melody and and not just being deeply unhappy with it and then going back to the drawing board to the point where I got in the studio, I thought I had it and we started recording and I just knew, ugh, I just hate this. I hate what I have. And I just stopped. I said, can we just, you know, let's just call it off for today.

7:30Sondre Lerche: I'm going to go back to the hotel and give it one last shot. And I went through my notebook for inspiration because I write down random things that maybe someday will turn into something. I had written down, I guess, an idea for a song or for a line, then again, we're just kids, little kids, you and I, you know, should be something could be nothing. And suddenly it just seeing that at that moment of despair, it just connected. And it had me and I ended up changing the melody for the verses writing entirely new story scenario that connected really well with the chorus that I had. And the next day, I came back with just immense self-confidence because I just knew I had it.

8:14Sondre Lerche: And so you go, you turn on a dime, you know, the night before I'd just been, been like, felt like the lousiest songwriter. And the next day I just knew I had it. And I said, I recorded it. Boom. That was it. And I felt like the greatest songwriter that ever lived. So that's how, that's how, that's my life. That's, that's, that's, uh, it just, because also, especially because by that, a song, when you spend two years on, on going over and over and starting over, starting over, it becomes a problem child, you know? So it's every new attempt, it, it's not lost on me that every new attempt, if it doesn't work, it's going to just make it that much harder for that song to change the course of its life.

8:59Sondre Lerche: And then inevitably, after a while, it's so stigmatized by the experience and your own sort of humiliation for not being able to take care of your child. So this was one that I just, I can't let go of this. And I'm so glad I didn't. So that's a really, really important song in my history of trying to write songs.

9:25Blamo! Host: Yeah. I mean, you've been writing songs like well over 20 years. I'm assuming. Oh yeah.

9:30Sondre Lerche: I I've been trying for 35 years. That's I like to say that I've been trying to write songs for 35 years. And, and, uh, but it was, I, yeah, when I was 16, I had a big breakthrough in, in personally, I just suddenly I was, I wrote a song called, you know, so well from my first record.

9:49Blamo! Host: Hell yeah. Great, great track. Still, still hits. Yeah.

9:54Sondre Lerche: I still enjoy playing that. And that, Because that was the first song where I was like, okay, this is on the level where I want to be. And it doesn't mean that you'll be at that level every day. But like now, if I can do this once, I can do it again. So now that was great motivation. And then in the span of, you know, just a couple of months, I wrote all the songs on my debut on Faces Down. And then boom, I, you know, I've tried not to look back since then, but it felt really special.

10:25Blamo! Host: Yeah, I mean, what do you think is different about writing songs at the age you are now versus the age you were then? Especially love songs. I mean, because you've lived some life in a good way.

10:35Sondre Lerche: Yeah, I think, you know, life experience doesn't necessarily make you a better songwriter. But if you are constantly trying to stay excited in your work, I think that will lead you to inspiration and excitement that I typically think that is what I associate with making progress in your work. But it does not get easier because your sort of bullshit filter is stronger and more, you know, the more fulfilled I feel with my work and with a song or with a record, there's like a split second where you're just happy and just, oh, I can't believe. Yes, finally. And then the next second, it's like, okay, right.

11:29Sondre Lerche: But now I have to, now I've raised the bar. And now I can't settle for less because now this is the level I'm at. And that's certainly how I felt, especially with the last record, with Avatars of Love. I felt like it felt really good for while I was making it and for a second after I made it. And then I felt like, shit, well, now this is the new level. and I'm not going to be happy unless I can find a way to progress from here. And of course, that may not mean much to the listener because it's like they hear it and it's me. And maybe some people think it's great work. Some people think it's less or they're less interested in it.

12:12Sondre Lerche: But if you feel like you're constantly making it harder for yourself to live up to your own ambition. But it's also what keeps it fresh and interesting. In this record, it took me a long time to get to where I wanted with it. And then in the end, when you get there, it's just such a joy. It's very fulfilling work.

12:37Blamo! Host: Yeah, I mean, because you talked about a lot of your music as a whole, the whole Sandra Lerke catalog is all love songs to me.

12:45Sondre Lerche: Yeah.

12:46Blamo! Host: And they're beautiful, beautiful songs. but like you know in your new stuff you talk about like falling in love is like this act of defiance so like i'm curious if you could elaborate on that yeah i you know what i i think with this

12:59Sondre Lerche: record i return to some of the the the romanticism and and sort of uh unabashed uh almost naive joy and faith and love that I had maybe on my earlier records when I was very inexperienced in love. I was just a hopeless romantic, but kind of clueless in sort of making it happen. And then I wrote all these, you know, faces down full of love songs that are just sort of fantasies about how it would feel. Oh, what a world this life would be. Forget all your technicolor dreams. It's just a dream. It's a fantasy. It's not written from experience. And even the sadder songs, they're fantasies about having an argument.

13:54Sondre Lerche: They're fantasies about being heartbroken. It hasn't happened yet. And then life happens, of course. And I've written all kinds of different... And then it did happen, right? it did happen you know i finally there was love and i i i i was i i you know i had a couple of of girlfriends and i did go all in and in the end i i married i got i think i proposed when i was 21 okay and i just moved to new york or i was gonna move to new york my my girlfriend was moving and going to school living in new york and i thought well you know this will be our life and it was everything I dreamed of. So I was, I was married for quite some time.

14:33Sondre Lerche: I got divorced suddenly, you know, obviously that does something to your romantic style of songwriting. So I think there's been like 10 years where I, I, I think first and foremost, I am a deeply romantic songwriter in, in both lyric and music regardless. But the, the, there's been definitely a time I think since since the divorce in in I guess 2013 where I was writing more sort of existential um existential romantic songs where where I'm probably there's more doubt there's more sort of critical um perspective on what is it what are we doing what are humans doing what am I doing to you what are you doing to me you know and that that sort of that uh i went all the way with the avatars of love album where i said i felt i wrote about my entire life and career as a as a romantic human being trying to to find love and and maybe not always managing to make room for it because i guess music was always my greatest passion you know as much as i love the idea of being in love and I love the idea of finding someone, my great love has been music.

15:54Sondre Lerche: And that's always been the priority. And I think I was maybe slowly coming to terms with that because yet again, I was finding myself needing to be not in a relationship in order to make this record. But now, of course, I have found love again. Yeah, I was going to say, I think you're doing pretty good now, right? Yeah. So this record, I feel, especially with the world that we live in now and just how dystopian everything is and the way everything moves in such counterintuitive, destructive directions everywhere, globally and in a lot of communities and with our leaders and the wars that nobody wants, but somehow we're told are inevitable.

16:47Sondre Lerche: It just seems like falling in love is an act of defiance because on one hand, you feel guilty for having love, for being so privileged, you know, especially now that I live in Norway, having moved home to the most privileged country in the world. I feel, and then I just meet the woman of my dreams and I end up not moving back to the States, of course, because love is here. Oh, shit.

17:12Blamo! Host: Okay.

17:12Sondre Lerche: So this is what Acrobats, this album is about. It's about finding love in this dystopian world. And of course, part of the joy of falling in love is escape, you know, escaping everything and going into the bubble, the beautiful bubble of love with a person who changes your whole perspective on what life can be. And this is, I guess, why this album is, yeah, it's definitely a very romantic album, but it's not unaware that it's a great privilege in our day and age to be allowed to fall in love.

17:55Blamo! Host: yeah i think that's there's something that i feel is kind of a line that runs through almost anyone who has some aspect of their life that's out in public in which it feels like if you're going to be happy and if you're going to be publicly happy there's a tiny bit of shame that follows that happiness right because you you also are trying to be conscious of people who are suffering and i think it's you know and you you definitely wrestle with that with the album i mean and i think anyone who like I was saying who has an aspect of their life that is that's one-sided you know um or that's a parasocial you know that like even me like and I'm nowhere near anything of your level achievement etc but like I am always a little bit private when things are going good right even on like like my podcast intros and stuff like sometimes I feel like if I am vocal

18:50Sondre Lerche: about like, man, life's pretty good right now. Like, this is good.

18:53Blamo! Host: I'm like, oh shit, should I backfettle that? You think it's good? Do you know what's happening, you know? Exactly.

19:00Sondre Lerche: It's exactly that. And then I try to remind myself that me being unhappy doesn't do anyone any good, you know?

19:08Blamo! Host: Touche.

19:09Sondre Lerche: But, you know, it's not serving, you know, me bringing love into my world and is, I think, it doesn't save anyone's life. But it's still better than me bringing negativity and spite and bitterness into the world. But it's also, I guess, it's a consequence of all of us living our lives on social media and, you know, observing the world. and this crazy flow of news and information and vanity and war and all this is in sort of the same bizarre flow, which is sort of what makes it so dystopian, I think, is that we're consuming all this information and some of it is just, you know, fun and some of it is vanity and some of it is, you know, observing real life that is such a contrast to the life I'm living and we're living.

20:11Sondre Lerche: And of course, that makes you feel ashamed and privileged in a way that I guess then you feel, well, the least I can do is acknowledge it. But at the same time, there's a song on the record called Follow the River. And it's...

20:28Blamo! Host: Dude, it's like a nine-minute song, right?

20:31Sondre Lerche: It's a nine-minute epic odyssey.

20:33Blamo! Host: You remixed it halfway through the song. Exactly. It comes with its own remix. It's good.

20:39Sondre Lerche: Thank you. It's a song that I felt the album needed it. But at the same time, if the album was only songs like that, I would seem so out of touch. I don't know about that. I just thought about like, God, if I made a whole record like this, it'd be like, are you completely out of your mind? So I guess there is the sense that you have to sort of find a way to balance because the things that happen in the world do affect me and it does make an impression on me. And it's changed maybe how I feel when I write a love song. And there's another song on the record called Life Changing Love. And I had an idea for a song that would be called Life Changing Love.

21:30Sondre Lerche: And that in the in sort of in the style of just when Bob Dylan writes really beautiful, simple love songs, Forever Young or To Make You Feel My Love, you know, I thought, wow, maybe there's something I could write that lands in in some, you know, the last line of each verse would be life changing love. But I couldn't because the world is such a gruesome place also. And so I was unable to write a real love song without sort of flipping the perspective and thinking about, you know, what is it that has made these leaders, these terrible, terrible human beings who we have given so much power? What rejection, what lack of love, what, you know, what lack of compassion has led them to become such terrible, terrible human beings and who just continue to just shape life and death for hundreds and millions of people on this planet.

22:36Sondre Lerche: And so it became just the most not, not romantic love song ever, but it's, it's, it's the, it's the final song on the record, life changing love.

22:46Blamo! Host: And you, well, I wonder, would you have written that song had you not been doing, um, you know, your, well, it wasn't a Broadway show, but, uh.

22:56Sondre Lerche: No, but it's the Broadway show.

22:58Blamo! Host: Your range on that one, you fucking blow out. I've never like, cause I was like, damn, it's like, he pushes himself hard.

23:06Sondre Lerche: That's true. I like vocally, I could not sing that way before I did Moulin Rouge. I did 130 Moulin Rouge shows, the musical here in Oslo over the last few years as Christian, as the romantic young American songwriter who comes to Paris in 1899 and wants to get away from it all and wants to find love. And he, of course, falls in love with the first woman who gives him attention, who just happens to be a hooker at the cabaret at the Moulin Rouge. And then, you know, there's love and then there's tragedy, of course. Yeah. But I hadn't done any acting or any musical before.

23:51Blamo! Host: You never done acting? No, you did it in real life. I mean, I guess that's...

23:54Sondre Lerche: Nah, we were just lip syncing to modern nature in the final scene. so you know i did the score for that but i didn't i it wasn't yeah i wasn't asked i'm i'm in the credits is sandra loka as himself you know doing what he does best lip-syncing but i know i'd never done any acting in school or anything and and um i think i was they offered me the part as christian in moulin rouge because um it i think the director just he had seen me perform on television and he thought this was so close to my persona and he was right like when he offered it to me i knew immediately i i'm probably i'm probably gonna have to say yes because i think i am uniquely qualified for this part as a songwriter and as a romantic and as um i think i felt like well yeah if i don't do this someone who does not get it is gonna do it oh interesting

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27:16Sondre Lerche: okay and and so i just had to do it but of course i i didn't know what i was getting myself into because i i love being on stage the stage is the most comfortable place for me to be but i am used to being on stage in the you know the with a guitar in front of you with a guitar and with the com you know the comfort of my own songs my own creations right and and and i'm blessed to have an audience who comes out to hear that but put me on stage take all that away from me and and also try to teach me how to dance which is impossible because i have to be free you had to dance well i i originally there was quite a bit of choreography and on the first day of dance rehearsals the our beautiful our beautiful choreographer kirstie from scotland uh after the day she said hey you know you should just just you don't have to do it you you because she saw I was struggling and she said yeah you know Christian doesn't really have to do much dancing and even the little she was trying to get me to do she saw like this guy he just can't take any he can't do choreography but she saw that I can move you know I can I can move intuitively just do do do the thing that you feel like doing and just but be where i need you to be but like you don't have to do the the the dance because he she could see me suffering so first day i'm like thank god i don't have to do the dancing but i still have to to to act and i i have to end up suicidal by the end of the show yeah you know threatening uh to end my life and and then the thing that I thought would be the easiest, the singing was actually the hardest part because you have to belt and you had to build, I had to build so much new muscle in my, my, my, my throat and, and constantly, you know, my director was saying, you have to, you know, you go bigger, project stronger.

29:15Sondre Lerche: You have to reach the back of the room. And even when you're, you're, you're acting sort of vulnerable, it has to be big. You know, how do you do that? That's, you know, You have professional actors for that. I had to work so hard. I got my ass kicked and I couldn't have done it without being surrounded by incredible actors and dancers who had much more experience doing this than I had. And then I did it. And then suddenly, you know, yeah, then suddenly you can belt out a chorus on your own record as well, like I did on Life Changing Love.

29:49Blamo! Host: Yeah, I mean, because that's got to be a different arrow in your quiver there in terms of that type of performance. I mean, I think you've always sung very well, but like there's a difference when you're singing things like that of that volume. Like you don't get to lean in your own style. It's more of enunciation and it's really singing deeper from your stomach. And yeah.

30:11Sondre Lerche: And it's also preserving your voice because you have to do it again tomorrow. And it's a three hour show. Oh, shit. And you have to climb the same mountain. You know, like when I do my own shows, I can sort of change the set list if I'm feeling, okay, maybe not that song today or we'll choose. The room is different. But here we're in the same room and every audience, thousand people every night, they see it for the first time. They have to get the exact same powerful experience. So you learn so much about preserving your strength and your voice while at the same time uh projecting the same grandeur and and uh oh it's it's it's so it's such a nightmare because you feel like you're an athlete and you're just you have to run the same marathon every night and you're just worried that you're you know something's gonna happen that prevents you from from from reaching reaching the the final um the final line sort of every night but but it's i'm I'm glad I did it.

31:11Blamo! Host: Yeah. I'm curious, like how much was the overlap of writing the new record during the process of performing Moulin Rouge?

31:19Sondre Lerche: It was, I thought I was going to be able to do a lot more writing when I got into doing the show because we have a couple of days off every week and I have, you know, in the daytime I'm off, you know, and you get into the routine. But to me, I felt as you know, I felt like every show was a chance to progress. I couldn't like settle into a routine because I was learning so much just by the sheer sort of volume of being able to do this show so many times. So I found like I was, I went straight home after every show, went to bed. I did my routine with tea and massaging my throat and calming down.

32:00Sondre Lerche: And then I had to get like at least eight hours every night for my voice to rest. And I didn't speak the whole day the next day because I was just terrified that I wasn't going to have enough voice for the show. And so I was so physically exhausted while I was doing the show that I got some writing done. I think I started writing a few songs, you know, little kids and a few of those. But I wasn't able to make big progress and like really zoom in on it until the show. We did 100 shows, took a break. And then I had like a year and a half of no shows. And that's when I wrote and recorded most of the record.

32:44Sondre Lerche: And then we did another round of Moulin Rouge starting earlier this year while I sort of wrapped up everything. And you're done with Moulin Rouge now, right?

32:55Blamo! Host: I'm done with it.

32:56Sondre Lerche: It's not going to come back. If it comes back by that time, I'm too old to play Christian. He's supposed to be in his early 20s. I'm 43.

33:07Blamo! Host: Yeah, but you got the Scandinavian glow. You're good.

33:12Sondre Lerche: I'll tell you something. And when I came back to do the show now, we premiered in February. And the costume department was like, hey, so I hope you don't take this the wrong way. But we're going to have to dye your hair because you've gotten quite a few more gray hair since last time. And the lights pick up the grays. So they really sparkle. And it's just a bad look for Christian. Yeah. So, so I had the, and I was like, yo, of course, whatever, whatever we need to do to get people to believe. But it's still coming out. Like it's, I don't know if you can see it. It was very gentle and you couldn't see that I really dyed my hair, but it felt very strange to me to have it.

33:56Sondre Lerche: Cause then once you're in your forties and you've dyed your hair, you feel, Oh, are they going to look at me and think that I'm one of those guys who are like desperately, you know, desperate to stay young. I did it for a show. It was for a show, you know, I would never do it for me. It was for Christian. It was great, you know, but now it's coming out and there is quite a bit of grace, but you know, I'm just happy, you know, I, I, I, um, you do anything for the, for the character. You really, it's really true what, when great actors talk about, you know, performing as, as a character, you, you feel an immense commitment to representing the character.

34:33Blamo! Host: yeah i mean i uh i occasionally get hit up by um these companies that do like the hair plugs and they're like hey if you're interested you know we'll bring you out there and like do you want hair again and i'm like no man i'm good i don't mind being bald like just chill and it's like i'm not going on some press trip to put plugs on my head yeah do you want to be the poster boy

34:56Sondre Lerche: for this product that you you haven't even considered you know it's like my my dear my dear friend and drummer dave heilman who i've had the pleasure of having in my life the last 15 years and who plays on on this record and all my my recent albums he i think he started losing his hair maybe when he was 19 he was quite quite young but uh it's always so strange for me when i see him with hair when i see old photos you know yeah it's like it's it's a different if it's a different guy because it's you you know he accepts who he is and i accept that that is dave and so i'm shocked that he even has a history of having hair you know yeah i wonder what i would do i

35:41Blamo! Host: don't think i would would try to wire things into my no it's good plus i think there's something about in hitting your 40s for me like there was a you know i have two kids and there was a part of me that's like oh shit like i need to still like you know i need to still be cool you know and i'm

35:58Sondre Lerche: like totally i was like what the fuck does that even mean you know and it's like my my kids you

36:04Blamo! Host: know they'll be like hey whatever dad you're not cool and i'm like no i'm fucking cool like yeah you guys you guys don't get it no exactly they should get to know you better yeah i was like come on i was like you guys wanted to listen to this crap i was like we're putting on the beatles

36:18Sondre Lerche: like yeah we're getting into good music here but thank me later yeah right but i think you know

36:24Blamo! Host: when when you think of like your own like personal appearance and style and all these things as you age the people that i feel who are the most happy are the ones who are just like happy with it you know in the sense that like they're not they're not trying to rewind the clock back i mean i have friends that are getting botox and friends and like that's fine you live your life how you want But I mean, I, I'm really enjoying, yeah, I have gray hairs in my, you know, in my facial hair.

36:47Sondre Lerche: And I, it's, you're like, okay, I guess this is, this is it. Yeah. I think, I think, because I, I, I, when I was a teenager and a kid, I, I was very vain. And I think anyone who goes on stage and who puts out records and, you know, does a little bit of, of, of, you know, what maybe both you and I do. it's there's a I'm sure we have some sort of vanity inherent um you know I pick out what press photos that my publicist sends to you you know obviously I oh I like that way of appearing and I don't like this way of being but I was so much more vain when I was a teenager and and I was when I was starting out and getting noticed I could it could ruin my day if I saw a photo of myself in a publication and I didn't like my hair.

37:35Sondre Lerche: My hair was wrong. It could really ruin my day because, because you want to, it's this idea that you want to sort of always be in control of, of how you're seen. But once you get just a little bit older and you start to realize that I can't control these things, you know, that I can't, I have to just let go of control, both of, of how people see me in photos, but also just how people see me in real life. You know, if, if the photos look too good, then when they see you in concert, they're going to be like, Oh, but this is not that, you know, so you're gonna have to just let go. Because if not, you're going to be so unhappy and so stressed.

38:11Sondre Lerche: And, and I felt that, and then also that in addition to also owning your vanity, but also letting go of it, you know, if you can find that balance, and I think I started finding that um uh where you where i also you know i can if i see a photo where i'm like oh this is how i want to present myself you know i own it but but please you gotta you gotta let go and and for me it's always just been about about the hair like i can't i'm never happy with it and now it's pretty cool man you got it's got its own life and now you know usually i i hate it and then the next day i I see a photo and they're like, oh, but I did look kind of good.

38:53Sondre Lerche: It's always, you're always, you're only able to see it when time passes. And that's, you know, that's, you want to try to not live like that, where you're always just appreciating everything when it's over. You know, we want to live here and now.

39:06Blamo! Host: Yeah. And I talk about this a lot on, you know, so much of people talk about their personal style or the people that they look up to. Like, I don't think, you know, when someone's like, oh, this photo of Steve McQueen and this, I don't think any of these folks that when people will talk about their personal style, that they were as obsessed with how they looked as we are right now. I mean, Steve McQueen wasn't like, oh, my collar wasn't perfectly correct in that shot. You can't do it. Paul Newman didn't give a shit. Like all these, you know, it's like the confidence is generally what we're attracted to by people's style versus, yeah, how, you know, how they purposely had their own level of like dishevelment there.

39:44Blamo! Host: I mean, that's, it's, it's, that's, I think that's the stuff when I like see photos of people, that's what I'm into.

39:49Sondre Lerche: Totally. And, and, and, and so many of those, those iconic men of, you know, yeah, like the ones you mentioned, like they had, you know, they had maybe sometimes like manly bodies, but they didn't, they didn't have like perfect abs

40:06Blamo! Host: and stuff.

40:06Sondre Lerche: They were, they had like, when you, when you see them in, in, in movies of that era, it, uh, it's this idea that, that, that we have now where, where you have to, to be a perfectly sort of styled human body, you know, it's, it's insane. They had real bodies that just came from maybe being active, but also from getting older. And that was attractive because, yeah, they had confidence and they had poise and they had a way about them. They had charisma. Nothing beats that.

40:40Blamo! Host: Well, you've kind of always been this punk rock Burt Bacharach. I love that. I'm curious, where did a lot of your style inspiration stuff come from? I mean, I think you were the first musician I ever saw on stage wearing a cravat, you know.

40:57Sondre Lerche: What is that? What is that? It's like a neck scarf sort of thing. Oh, yeah. You do that a lot.

41:02Blamo! Host: I mean, it's not, you don't do the full cravat that looks like some sort of, you know, Transylvanian lord. But you always have a nice little neckerchief or something going on.

41:11Sondre Lerche: yeah i think my first and probably most prominent style influence um and and and this is also something that i maybe realized more as i get older that this was a huge influence on on everything um the singer from aha you know who had take on me the great the greatest norwegian pop group of all time the singer from from aha morten harkett or morten harkett yeah um incredible singer and incredible style icon if you go back and look at photos of him in in you know obviously in 85 when they had their breakthrough up until uh the 90s you know even when they they they sort of disappeared from view uh in like 93 94 but to me that's all maybe even the those were the years that I remember in real time because then then I was uh you know I was uh 10 11 12 and and I just still thought they were the cat's pajamas and I still thought Morton was such a great style icon so he and he he wore um those little neck neck handcuffs and the ascots and stuff yeah and I and he wore you know he had these leather in the 80s he had like leather uh bracelets that he made himself yeah just wrapped him around his his hand um you know a lot a lot of leather and denim he was such a cool style icon he you know the story is story goes that when the group they were trio when they went to london to try to make it big he the other two were just geeky nerds who made songs and he he dressed them all and started styling them and painted their their hair with with you know like house paint it was it was uh he he he's underrated as like a style icon himself and also for like i think obviously everybody was going kind of crazy in the 80s but he he he deserves recognition not only for that falsetto and take on me but for for his style you know and it had a huge influence me on me and and still does um i think when when i did the patience album in 2020, I went back to a little bit of combining different eras of Morton Harkett's style from the 80s and into the 90s.

43:43Sondre Lerche: And I made this sort of patience persona that I did in the music videos and I did on stage.

43:49Blamo! Host: Was this the double-breasted jacket? Yes. Yeah. I mean, that's a sick one. Where did you find that?

43:57Sondre Lerche: I guess I've had a few through the years. When I started touring in America in the early 2000s, I started making a bit of money from music. And it was fun when I had a day off. I loved going shopping at thrift stores. And so, yeah, I would just try something on and feel kind of cool and be like, okay, I'm wearing that on stage tonight. And then I'd bring it maybe to a photo session. I remember I did a photo session with the legendary rock and fashion photographer, Mick Rock, who did a lot of the legendary Queen and David Bowie, Transformers, Lou Reed images. And when you do photo sessions like that, you bring some of your own clothing.

44:51Sondre Lerche: I typically would want to wear my own stuff because I always felt a little strange wearing. I felt like, well, I'm not a photo model, so I can't just wear anything. I want to feel like myself. But when I did the session with, for Two Way Monolet, it was for the cover of Two Way Monolet. Yeah. That's the croon.

45:08Blamo! Host: You're all hunched over looking down. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

45:13Sondre Lerche: And for that, because it was McRock, he, I think he brought some, some stuff also. And he brought some quite some cool or maybe that way I did a photo shoot with him later also for Playboy magazine. Maybe that's what I'm thinking, because then they had like some really, really cool jackets and stuff. And then I felt like, oh, you know what? It's actually kind of cool to be dressed up. And if I can just find a way of owning it. So I leaned a bit more into this idea. OK, maybe I don't always have to sort of be myself. I can lean into a character. or I can lean into a style because it's fun. And that took me a while to sort of embrace.

45:52Sondre Lerche: But as I got older and especially in the era of the Please, Pleasure and Patience albums where I thought much more consciously about music videos and my sort of stage persona and my style, I started taking inspiration from a lot of different, yeah, just ways of dressing and ways of appearing and moods. And, um, you know, I would, you know, you'd go, it was the era of, of, uh, Tumblr. So I'd go on Tumblr and look at all these photos of cool guys and girls and be like, well, maybe that could be me for at least for a song or for a video or for a shoot. So I I've, I've gotten more relaxed with, I think the way I dress and the way I appear, I was a bit more uptight to begin with, but it's, it's actually fun to be, to do a little bit of dress up, you know?

46:46Yeah.

46:47Blamo! Host: What, where, like, what do you shop now or where do you go now for just your own personal stuff? Um, there's no wrong answer by the way, just no. Um, well, you know,

46:57Sondre Lerche: I do like a lot, a lot, a lot of vintage, if I find something vintage and it's just beautiful and pristine and, and, you know, with vintage it's either it fits you or it doesn't, you know, they don't have all the other sizes so i always take it as a as a good omen if if i try something and it's vintage and i and it fits then it's i have to get it because then it's it's meant for me you know yeah yeah um so i you know i have this leather jacket like it's the same jacket that tom cruz wears in in top gun and it just fit me perfectly it's vintage and it's so that i i've loved wearing that and i did a um last year i did like a career retrospective uh show live show in two acts and at the oslo opera and so i i i had a couple for a couple of songs i put on the jacket and and someone tries to like come and there's a dance thing and this dancer comes and tries to like take it off me and and it gets kind of violent uh for one of the songs so i made a whole

47:59Blamo! Host: whole sort of spiel around this song is going on when that happens it's a song called go right ahead

48:06Sondre Lerche: from uh the self-titled album from 2011 it's a cool song it's kind of dramatic and violent and and that that's the big uh the big leather jacket and that song that that that jacket is just so robust so it can handle anything and i i wear it in everyday life but in the winter and then i i I wore it on stage at the opera. So that one I got from a beautifully sourced vintage store here in Oslo that some friends of mine had. But then I had a big crush on stuff from this French brand called Le Mans Saint-Michel when I did the Avatars of Love tour. Yeah, workwear, like French workwear. And I started wearing that a bunch in 2021, I guess, or 2020 even.

48:55Sondre Lerche: And I was looking for other sort of jackets that were more sort of casual. And I ordered some online and I just loved them. And then when I went on tour, I went to Paris. I had some days off in Paris. I went to the Mont Saint-Michel store.

49:09Blamo! Host: Yeah.

49:10Sondre Lerche: And it was like coming to Disneyland because they had all this stuff. You know, you've just been looking online, but it's hard to make, you know, it's stressful to shop online. But suddenly I was in the store. I spent so much money that day. And I was on tour. I couldn't even carry all this stuff, but I bought all these jackets and pants. So for a long while, that was like my, especially my stage, my sort of stage gear was Le Monde Saint-Michel. And now I'm still figuring out what exactly is the wear for the acrobats era, but I've been trying on some stuff. And I did a photo shoot with like a white tux jacket inspired by Brian, Brian Ferry, I guess he famously wore the beautiful white tux with a black tie, which is, I don't know, just the height of decadence in a sense.

50:08Sondre Lerche: And I wanted to have some, some decadence into, to this. So maybe I'll, maybe I'll wear that on stage. We'll see. But yeah, I've been also more and more into like vintage, like Marco Polo and like sort of preppy stuff. I find like if I find a nice vintage store and they have really a good selection of that, I just kind of want to just get everything. But, you know, it's also very expensive.

50:38Blamo! Host: Yeah. Well, I mean, that's the thing, too, because I think probably some of the best brands right now, especially in menswear, are all Scandinavian. Right.

50:46Sondre Lerche: Yeah. Because I don't necessarily, I'm not always so up to date with this stuff. Like, what are the Scandinavian brands I should be?

50:53Blamo! Host: So there's a brand called Rubato, which is Swedish guys. And yeah, it's a Tempo Rubato is their site. but it's very much a sort of blend of workwear when and sportswear and when i mean workwear it's like a a military kind of olive over shirt but they have like really good denim and then they have like a chocolate suede loafer you know it's it's the kind of stuff like if you wear it and you enter the room people don't people like we're like man that person looks good but i don't know exactly what he had on it's like it's like good forgetful style i think in a way that like yeah You don't look like this kind of ostentatious.

51:32Blamo! Host: It's a quiet sort of confidence. Yeah, exactly. That's beautiful. There's another brand called Samanamel. They're made to measure suiting and stuff like that. But a lot of these brands have a very similar, what they say is this kind of Scandinavian color palette, which is more, you know, there's some earth tones, there's some blues, there's, but it blends really well together. And it's not something that, you know, you a lot of times like when people go and they'll buy some clothes they might get a single thing and that thing only works with the rest of the brand right yeah exactly you have to wear it head to toe to look good it's like brands like rick owens and stuff like that you know but these other brands you can just get denim or a shirt or something and it all fits together no matter what you get and so it's yeah it's nice i mean drake's that i mean they're a british brand but they kind of lean into that similar sort of kind of casual aesthetic.

52:29Blamo! Host: Yeah.

52:30Sondre Lerche: I wish I remembered this brand of shoes. It was also a Swedish. I think it's a Stockholm brand. More Huffs?

52:39Blamo! Host: Yeah, maybe. Yeah. I mean, that's the Swedish Stockholm brand. Okay. I mean, there's a lot of brands, but yeah.

52:45Sondre Lerche: My girlfriend, he gave me these beautiful shoes to wear with my tux. I wore that also for my show at the opera. And they're so beautiful. Yeah, those are Morhas, I think. Right, that makes sense. It's this logo here.

53:02Blamo! Host: Yeah, it looks kind of like an upside down heart sort of thing. Yeah.

53:07Sondre Lerche: So these I've been wearing a lot when I put on the tux or when I want to feel pretty, you know, when I wear those. And I'll show you something more. I'll show you my favorite piece. i bought this when i finished uh the album and i was you know exhausted and proud and happy and it was so cold here and i bought this beautiful um ralph lauren it's a collaboration with a london i think magie weaving yeah polo tweed i don't know it's so it's an irish uh

53:41Blamo! Host: donegal herringbone uh which is right you're you're holding up yeah from from magie which is like an yeah they're it's yeah and it's uh it's a belted um yeah raglan shoulder trench coat yeah so they're and especially someone like you like that fits your shoulders really really well it's

53:57Sondre Lerche: yeah it was it was i just saw it it also has like some really beautiful hints of color in it like there's some green and and red and yellow in uh in in the fabric it's so and it was kind of expensive kind of it was very expensive but it was just it just made my winter so much more pleasurable and feeling because that's the thing about moving back to norway the winters are just gruesome and you kind of give up on trying to look cool because because you just want to be warm but this this this this coat has sort of made it possible to not completely give up on feeling cool even though it's it's winter and dreadful out you know yeah well you're getting ready to

54:44Blamo! Host: go on tour soon and you have a a catalog of music that's massive now like how much are you putting into your i mean set list and is i mean are you basically just doing the acrobat stuff and

54:58Sondre Lerche: or no it's it's it's gonna be a nice mixture of course it gets harder and harder to make everybody happy because people by now, I have audiences that I've met at different stages of my career, you know, and to some people, um, they're nostalgic about please in 2014. And some people are nostalgic about faces down. Um, and, and thankfully there's a lot of people excited about maybe patients in 2020 got them through the pandemic, you know, so everybody has their own sort of touchstone and and i want the joy of having a new record is of course you're excited about the new material but the joy of it is seeing how it plays side by side with older songs what songs you know it corresponds with and what you know how how can it helps me see things in in a new way and uh and it makes it kind of fresh and then there's always some songs from a new record that you know this one is going to be great live and there are others that i don't even know if can we represent this you know um like the opening track um how much of this was planned i'm i i i still haven't quite figured out how we're going to do that in in the u.s when we're touring in september it's probably going to be as a trio oh um so can we represent that i know i can do it solo but can we do it as a trio in a way that makes sense?

56:28Sondre Lerche: Because on the record, it's so lavish and huge. And it has this techno beat. And, you know, so it's going to be a nice mixture. I think I always play like two-way monologues. It always gives me a kick because it brings a lot of people together. And I still think it's a great song. It's just fun. I can't believe I wrote that song. It's so exciting. um so there's some you know and then there's there's uh always someone who wants to hear something from dan in real life and um because that was their you know entry point oh yeah be surprised or yeah yeah to be surprised my hands are shaking um and uh yeah i it's it's tricky because there's too many songs and if you start asking people what they want to hear then you get so many different questions and there are everybody's like why don't you ever play this one why don't you play that one and honestly some songs i don't i don't do it despite people yeah yeah but some people of course you lose touch with you know some songs there are definitely songs where i i wish i had spent more time um rewriting it getting it better usually the lyrics you know some of my earlier songs it's but then you realize oh but it's meaningful to someone out there and you should honor that but it's i did a a couple years ago i did a 20th anniversary edition of two-way monologue and i did a little tour where i played the whole album and it was kind of fun i did it with a string quartet so it was nice and different but it really it really sort of puts you face to face with both what you your greatest achievements but also your, your laziness, you know, as a, as a writer, you know,

58:15Blamo! Host: and it's you go back and you hear those lyrics and you're like, Oh yeah.

58:20Sondre Lerche: Yeah. And it doesn't mean all of them, but it just means like, I, and I know that mostly I'm thinking now, like it would have killed you to just go back to the drawing board on that one, that line. Are you sure this is the best way of saying that? Do you even know what you're trying to say here? You know, that kind of, So there's, I was not a very good editor of my own songs or song lyrics. And it was pointed out to me in certain reviews as well, because I was stretching probably what was acceptable. And some people found it charming because you're, oh, well, you know, he's Norwegian. It's pretty good for a Norwegian, but like you're, it's not what you want to hear, you know.

59:05Sondre Lerche: So it's definitely made me want to be a better lyricist with every record. And I feel I've written, I've gotten into, I've made a slight progress with each record. And now I think it's, you know, with the last, especially with Avatars and with this new one, I feel lyrically, it's a much, it's just, it's super important to me that I really want to sing the song, you know? And the lyrics are what make me want to or not want to sing a song. And I noticed that with the old song. So I really try to be diligent. And so it's not about, you know, writing correct English. It's really about like, do I want to say this potentially a thousand times over, you know, these words in this order?

1:00:00Sondre Lerche: And does this express a profound truth that I find interesting and that I can live with? And there are just certain songs from my past early on where it doesn't stand that test of time to me. But a song like You Know So Well is as true to me now as it was then. And then that was just a really good day. but I think I used to have, it used to be just a bit less critical of, of my own work.

1:00:32Blamo! Host: Yeah. I mean, I think, I think that's a part of just being an artist. I mean, you, yeah, it's natural to, you know, probably dislike what you do. I mean, what, like as, as far as we know, Da Vinci never actually finished the Mona Lisa, right? He had it with him when he died. So like how we view people's art and in relation to the artist. And I don't know. I feel like that stuff gets so messed up. when people just like become, and plus we're like this overtly critical society now versus being in a place to just enjoy what people make. And I don't say this in defense of anything that you have, but I think that as, because of social media, because of the state that we're in, it's easier to make a hot take and criticize something than it is to sit with and try to have an empathetic relationship with the art and understand how it's going to affect you.

1:01:18Sondre Lerche: Exactly. And of course, my job in a way is to accept who I was and who I am and who I want to be, you know. And I'm constantly confronted with this through my own songs, which is kind of awesome and beautiful because I constantly have to sort of accept my failings side by side with my best work, you know. And of course, what your best work is, that looks very different to me compared to whoever the listener is, you know? And there's, you know, whenever, when you've done, this is my 11th album of new material. Is it 11th? 11th album. And so whenever, you know, when you get up to that number, I've been doing this since I finished high school, you know?

1:02:12Sondre Lerche: This has been my life. There's always someone who says, oh, I hope you return to this. And then there's someone saying, I hope it's more of what you did last. And then a third one saying, oh, you're still doing music, you know, so it's, it's always going to be, you know, you are, I am a train that just goes and goes and goes and some people jump on and some people get off and then they return and, and then nostalgia happens. And, you know, it's, it's, I'm, I'm just the train just passing through the night, you know, that's me. And I'm, I'm having just the best time creating a new road, you know, as I go.

1:02:57Blamo! Host: And I think you're doing a phenomenal job with it, especially that you're happy, right?

1:03:04Sondre Lerche: I mean, it sounds like it. Yeah, I really, really always want to be happy. I think I found a way of dealing with life when it's hard. But I am thankful to sort of inherently be, I don't know, I really believe in creating happiness in my everyday life. I'm trying to be lighthearted, even though I'm hardworking and intensely into what I do, like to try to be lighthearted about it. I think I feel blessed to have like a certain disposition and a certain way of meeting life and meeting challenges and also understanding myself that is compatible with happiness. So in that sense, I know, and productivity brings me joy, you know, to be working on something that just makes me happy and that makes me feel that life falls into place when I do it.

1:04:06Sondre Lerche: And then, of course, yeah, I'm very happy to have love in my life that I feel is really, really just beautiful and strong. And I can't believe how lucky I am to have this life. It's great. That's awesome. How's that for an ending? Yeah, I was going to say, that's damn closer.

1:04:29Blamo! Host: Well, thank you so much for your time. I really enjoyed the conversation. So thank you.

1:04:34Sondre Lerche: Well, thanks. it was a huge pleasure to have you on and I'll see you soon alright that's it for this episode

1:04:42Blamo! Host: thanks so much for hanging out support the people making good stuff wear what you like enjoy yourself I'll talk to you next week