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Peter Sund
181 Plays5 years ago
For this episode we visit with Danish artist and musician Peter Sund. Lunau & Sund songwriting is inspired by a beautiful mix of Nordic hymns and songs mixed with folk and Americana. You could call the style Nordicana. Trine Lunau (vocal, accordion) and Peter Sund (guitars, vocal) have been playing together and writing music for 18 years. Their performance and connection on stage are second to none. Their concerts are built up around their voices and guitar and the music is supported by humors tales and anecdotes about the duo’s life and their sources of creative inspiration.
Lunau & Sund has for many years been playing concerts in Denmark. They have since extensively been working on building an audience in Sweden. This has resulted in several tours in Sweden, the latest in March/April. In addition to Sweden, several other European countries have been visited in recent years, such as Germany, Estonia, Greece, Switzerland and Italy. In 2019, Lunau & Sund played to the delight of Rhode Islanders in Newport.
http://www.lunau-sund.dk/
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Transcript
Introduction and Reunion
00:00:00
Speaker
You are listening to Something Rather Than Nothing. Creator and host, Ken Vellante. Editor and producer, Peter Bauer. This is Ken Vellante with the Something Rather Than Nothing podcast. And for this episode, we have Peter Sund from Denmark.
00:00:25
Speaker
Peter is somebody I haven't seen in 30 years. He was an exchange student out in Rhode Island. He's built a career in Denmark. His beautiful music. He was playing his beautiful music then. He's still playing it. Peter's soon. Welcome to something rather than nothing.
00:00:49
Speaker
Thank you very much, Ken. Such a pleasure to be contacted and to appear on your podcast here. I'm honored. Thanks, brother. It's great to chat with you.
Musical Journey Begins
00:01:02
Speaker
First question is, when you were born, were you an artist?
00:01:10
Speaker
Well, you know, yes and no, I guess. And it's a very interesting question. I think I was from an early age musically gifted. I mean, music has always been my thing. I can't draw or anything like that. But I was definitely musically gifted and my parents recognized this.
00:01:36
Speaker
and took me to lessons and supported me developing my skills as a guitar player to start off. So I don't know if I think I would call myself artistic at that stage. I think we'll probably get into it, but I think from my perspective
00:02:03
Speaker
being an artist also, you need to have some kind of intention with what you're doing.
From Exchange Student to Musician
00:02:10
Speaker
And from an early age, I think it was just the sheer joy of playing and singing.
00:02:19
Speaker
and getting into it, you know. And I was lucky, you know, growing up in a place and in a family where that was supported and still is.
00:02:36
Speaker
So it's a yes and no answer, I guess. Yeah, you develop it over time. And I think sometimes when I ask that question, it's like, when I say the word artist, it pops up in the head. A lot of times people think of somebody with a paintbrush in front of a canvas. So it's always like,
00:02:51
Speaker
You know, yeah, yeah. I think a lot of us have a piece of that in us. But for you, for you, it's music, Peter. And I wonder if you can indulge myself in the audience as far as from a long time ago.
00:03:07
Speaker
When we met, you were playing guitar and such, and a lot of time has passed. Can you talk about your musical path, about creating music for yourself and producing music? Can you tell us about how that's developed? Yeah.
00:03:27
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's been a long journey since I was, as you mentioned, an exchange student in the States in 1991, living with this great guy, Joe Trapania, who was also a musician, piano player, organist, choir director, and
00:03:47
Speaker
And I think from there on, that was probably, I mean, I was playing up until then and I've been playing in youth club bands and stuff like that. But I think coming to America and living with Joe, I realized that music was really something that I could
Rock Band Era and Live Music
00:04:08
Speaker
pursue as a career. There is a world between not mega stardom and not playing at all. It's actually possible to make a living with music. So I think that was my kick off. I actually started there when I was living with Joe in the States. And from then on, it's been
00:04:37
Speaker
I went back and went to more school and I've been to music colleges and music conservatories, so I've been a student of music for many years.
00:04:57
Speaker
And, but I guess, I guess all of the time I, I, besides being a student also had sort of the more kind of a more rock and roll approach playing in like rock bands. I'm also a child of the whole grunge period in the, in the nineties and, uh, and, uh,
00:05:16
Speaker
I was playing in a rock group in Denmark and I recorded an album with them and did a small tour of Denmark.
Evolution into Music Production
00:05:25
Speaker
When you get to that level, music can really grab you. It becomes an addiction, playing loud rock music.
00:05:39
Speaker
I guess it's both addictive for the player and the audience. So that sort of side of it, playing with bands and playing with different kinds of musicians has sort of been parallel to that I've been a student of music also, going to college and conservatory and developing that.
00:06:05
Speaker
And I guess with producing also, I mean, I've just always loved recording. And since...
00:06:17
Speaker
those early days I just loved fooling around with little four-track tape recorders on cassette tape and making demos on those and multiple layers on these little cassette decks and just sort of having that also as a parallel thing to playing in bands and being a student and just hanging out in studios and
00:06:46
Speaker
sort of just learning and picking up stuff and eventually being asked by other bands if i could sort of do their session or record them or produce them or whatever and yeah so that that has sort of been the start of it i guess yeah and to the point i guess where i am now
00:07:11
Speaker
For the past, I don't know, 15 years I have been having my own recording studio at the house.
00:07:20
Speaker
And my main band has been with my wife, and we're sort of a husband and wife kind of group, duo, singer-songwriter, you know.
Transition to Acoustic Music
00:07:34
Speaker
But we, you know, it's just been our life, writing songs and recording and having different bands at our house, recording them and producing them.
00:07:48
Speaker
So yeah, well, I wanted to ask you about just a little piece of it with the grunge. And I mean, when when listeners hear some of your delicate playing.
00:08:04
Speaker
beautiful, delicate playing. I've been fascinated by knowing some of your sounds and hearing some of your sounds and knowing the super loud and that soft, that soft, soft touch. Two very things that you do very well. Any comments about that? Yeah. Well, I guess it's, I don't know, I sort of
00:08:33
Speaker
My whole grunge in the heavy rock period, it was just like a really stormy relationship. And when my band that I've been playing with in the 90s sort of fell apart, I just needed a break from that whole scene. And I also started playing some jazz.
00:08:57
Speaker
and just try exploring different kinds of sounds and styles and...
00:09:07
Speaker
Yeah. And when I went with my wife, it actually started off as my wife's project. And I was just playing her songs and producing them in the studio. And it sort of just developed into being our main gig. And I fell in love with playing the acoustic guitar. I also got a bit tired of carrying heavy shit and these amps. And everything was so loud.
00:09:37
Speaker
getting old, I guess. But truthfully, I fell in love with playing the acoustic guitar and the fact that I had the sound I needed to create was in my hands, really.
Influences from U.S. Rock Scene
00:09:54
Speaker
there's no sort of backup in any big martial rack or a floor full of pedals. So that has lasted for a long time, and I still love playing the acoustic. I play more and more electric again, actually. I'm sort of getting back into it, but yeah. It's great to hear. I guess it's been a journey, Ken.
00:10:24
Speaker
It was really loud and aggressive at one point in the 90s. I still have it in me somewhere, but occasionally it peaks out. I think it's interesting too, the time that you were at the United States was probably one of the biggest resurgence of rock and roll here, stateside, that there's been in the early 90s.
00:10:51
Speaker
You were at a particular time where both before and after you didn't quite hear that intensity and sound the same way. Yeah. No, I felt that. It was great. And I feel like mentioning that. Do you remember Dr. Metal, Michael Gonsalves? Of course.
00:11:17
Speaker
in from Rhode Island. Of course. And he used to come up to Joe's house with cassette. I still have them. The Queen Strikes album. I forget the title of it. You know, on cassette and yeah.
00:11:34
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. That one. And he used to come up and give me these cassettes that he'd gotten from the radio station. And that really all sort of put me on to that whole grunge, heavy rocks kind of scene.
Art and Healing: A Kurdish Inspiration
00:11:51
Speaker
It was just great. Bringing up those cassettes and playing pool and listening to loud rock and roll. Very much the gate.
00:11:59
Speaker
Exactly. So I wanted to get, when I do a music, when I talk to a musician and do a music episode, I want to get the listeners to hear a little bit of the music and I wanted to move towards that. I wanted to ask you, I mean, there's a song, the English translation is in your hands and it's as I understand,
00:12:23
Speaker
which is a song about some folks you know and about the healing power of art. Before I play that song, do you want to mention a couple of comments about that song?
00:12:37
Speaker
Sure. The song is the title song of our latest album that we released this September. I have some friends. It's their Kurdish-Iraqi couple.
00:12:54
Speaker
And the man, his name is Nias Bayati, he came to Denmark in the mid-80s as a refugee escaping the regime of Saddam Hussein. And he was actually severely tortured when he came to Denmark, and especially his hands were all broken.
00:13:19
Speaker
He's a wonderful artist and a sculptor, painter, makes wonderful drawings. He carries this whole Persian tradition of, you know, millennia of art tradition. He just has it in him.
00:13:36
Speaker
So he's very interesting. But when he came to Denmark in the 80s, severely damaged, he sort of, both, you know, both physically and mentally, he got back into art. He's always been an artist, but he got back into it. And you know, shaping in clay, sort of gradually getting his fingers back to life with creating
00:14:04
Speaker
molding sculptures and whatever in clay. And through that process, you know, coming back to being a functional human being again, really.
00:14:21
Speaker
So that's his backstory. And he's a friend of mine. I've been a colleague of his at a school where we both worked as teachers. So occasionally I'll pop out at their place and we'll have a tea. And this time we brought the whole family and we just had a nice evening. And he tells stories about his life and how he escaped prisons in both Iraq and Iran back in the 80s.
00:14:51
Speaker
It's all very strong stuff. When we came home, I was just filled up with his whole story of escaping.
00:15:06
Speaker
line in your hands just popped into my head because of his whole self-healing process with creating art with his hands, but also from the perspective that we carry each other.
00:15:25
Speaker
We have a responsibility to carry each other through horrible stuff like this. So that's sort of the back story. And I'm sorry for the American listeners that it's in Danish. I'll send you some trends. I think I have it translated into three or four different languages because Niasse, you know,
00:15:54
Speaker
translated it into so his home country can read it also. I love to hear it in different languages. This is a beautiful song, and I'm going to cut to it, but I did see Nayaz Bayadi. He has a TED Talk, and it was a beautiful TED Talk.
00:16:14
Speaker
about this. And one of the big themes in the podcast that I get into, and I never expected how far I'd get into it, is art, healing, healing the mind, healing the body. And I just want to really thank you for this song. We're going to cut to the song now, Peter Sun, Landau, Yipen, and Hange there.
00:16:40
Speaker
And we're going to play it now and we're going to chat about it. Enjoy.
00:17:11
Speaker
It's the end of the world. It's the end of the world. It's the end of the world. It's the end of the world.
00:17:41
Speaker
Now we're set in a wind full free But things lit swine We're so lonely and spoiled for the earthen flight Of oxen's foam The ne'er-higgin' me a new conming on a mobile
00:18:17
Speaker
ee dee nuhin na aa samyak
00:18:28
Speaker
I am the only one who knows the truth. I am the only one who knows the truth. I am the only one who knows it.
00:19:07
Speaker
Safety is not enough. It's not enough. It's not enough. It's not enough. It's not enough. It's not enough.
00:19:31
Speaker
It's the end of the day, the sky is shining in our ears. It's the end of the day, the sun is shining in our eyes. It's the end of the day, the sun is shining in our eyes.
00:20:14
Speaker
Beautiful song Thank you
00:20:25
Speaker
Thank you for that. Folks, there's a Vimeo video for that as well. Very, very, very, very beautiful. I love the sound of your playing. I love the production. You can hear the production. You can hear the quality. You just got a beautiful feel with the songs that come out, Peter. Thank you for that.
00:20:55
Speaker
Thank you very much for saying that. I appreciate it.
00:21:00
Speaker
And actually I want to mention that if you listeners check out the video, the video is actually shot at Niasse and his wife's Evans workshop.
Art as Communication
00:21:15
Speaker
They primarily work in bronze. They cast different things in bronze these days. So they sit there and Evans is
00:21:28
Speaker
is making a sort of a hit. She's sculpting him, the head sort of cut of Yas' face in clay next to where they melt their bronze and do their stuff. So that's a little extra info for the video. Thank you so much. Hey Peter, I got to hit you with one of the big questions of the podcast. What is art?
00:21:58
Speaker
Yeah, that is really a big question, I guess. I think, yeah, I don't know, I think for me,
00:22:13
Speaker
It could be many things in many genres, music, painting, performance, whatever. But I think for me, it needs sort of to have and needs to communicate something. And it needs to sort of leave a mark on the listener. I think that's important for me.
00:22:44
Speaker
Yeah, and I guess, but it's so many things because there's also, art is also, you know, it's also set in time, you know, that some of the great works of the past might not communicate to me as strongly as a new song or something, a new work of art or performance that I see right now, but it's still, it's a
00:23:14
Speaker
It's a great piece because it's sort of set in time. It's a tricky concept to sort of, I think for me anyways, to put a short, clever answer to. But I think for me anyways, it deals with communication and it deals with having sort of
00:23:42
Speaker
making an impact. I think that's the shortest way I can put it, really, I think. Yeah, I love kicking around the question because of everybody's conception of art.
00:24:55
Speaker
But I heard from you, and I find this a lot with musicians, you said something leaving a mark. You want to tweak things enough. You want to have that memory. You want to do something to somebody. And I think that's powerful with music. You spend a lot of time in your life creating art. And one of the questions I had, Peter, was,
00:25:25
Speaker
Do you ever step back and say, why do I do this? Why am I trying to have this effect on folks? Do you ever step back and say, why am I so passionate about this?
00:25:40
Speaker
That's a really interesting question as well. And I ask myself that question often. And I'm not really coming up with any good answers. I think the short one is that I just can't help myself.
00:25:57
Speaker
I really just have a strong urge to write and to play songs and to
00:26:16
Speaker
There are so many layers of it also, and I think for me, if I should pick one spot where I get struck by the magic of music, that's when I started to write a new song and I have a blank piece of paper and I hit
00:26:37
Speaker
the same old G chord that I have hit a million times before and people have hit it a million times before me also you know and then suddenly something just there's a synergy between my mind and the day and the weather and the the the the timbre of the guitar that that sort of
00:27:01
Speaker
creates an idea and creates a sound that I can build a whole song on. That the moment for me is magic and I just need to go there. It's food, it's soul food for me. And then the rest of the process with music is
00:27:27
Speaker
It's more like building blocks, you know, then comes the band and then we do this and then, you know, that's more like, that's where sort of my training and education and experience sort of kicks in. And eventually, hopefully, it's something that
00:27:44
Speaker
that has a great sound and a great structure to it, but hopefully also that special place where I sort of found magic can be sort of conveyed to the listener. I hope so.
00:28:04
Speaker
that the concept of what it does for us in soul food and I've had indigenous First Nation, Native Americans, North American guests on here and using the term more of a medicine
00:28:19
Speaker
I've had interviews talking about what it does for your soul, enhancing in music. And I think what I've discovered is that there's something more profound than we give credit for. We use different names for it, but it's nourishing of our spirit that we're actually alive. That we're alive or something, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:28:44
Speaker
I hear you and I think that's a great thing that you ask this question because this exact point might not be discussed enough. And it should be taught in schools and stuff like that. That there is a place where we actually can't, we can feel and touch
00:29:13
Speaker
our soul of or whatever term you want to put on the special energy that's the human spirit. You can tap into that and it's magical.
00:29:27
Speaker
But I mean, for me as a songwriter, it's not a constant state. It's magical. As I described, things just sort of align and then you have something where there was nothing. Isn't that the thing? That's the thing.
Motivation and Magic of Music Creation
00:29:48
Speaker
Peter, Peter, why is there something rather than nothing? Why is there something rather than nothing?
00:30:02
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. I think there's a whole bunch of answers to that. And I think we have something in us that we just talked about that wants to get out. We want to communicate. We want to put stuff together where there's a synergy happening.
00:30:22
Speaker
I mean, it's...
00:30:31
Speaker
One and two is three and then, whoa, something new, you know, and I don't know where this urge comes from, but it has always been here, you know, since since the first whatever paintings on a cave somewhere, you know, and
00:30:47
Speaker
or music as a means to communicate or whatever. It's just been developing over thousands of years and it's still the same.
Universal Nature of Music and Art
00:31:01
Speaker
We can make stuff happen.
00:31:04
Speaker
As humans, we are capable of this magical synergy where things become more than the individual compounds.
00:31:20
Speaker
There's a magic there. I think what you say is the case and it's true. Peter, I got a bigger thing I wanted to mention. I was wondering, most of the listenership, it's an international show. You're actually the guest from the 16 nations that I've had. So it's an international show.
00:31:50
Speaker
Yeah, so one of the great things about this is for people to kind of connect with different areas and different art. I wanted to ask if you could lead the listeners to where they can find your art, but also if you don't mind indulging us, just mention a couple of things that maybe you're hearing musically in Denmark or things that you're interested in, just so we can kind of connect and hear what's going on locally as well for you.
00:32:20
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, sure. Well, firstly, with my band, it's called Loonau... Heifersund? Is that what you call it? No, what's it called? Loonausund.dk is our webpage. Yeah, that's probably...
00:32:44
Speaker
That's right, that's the word. That's my band that I have with my wife and we have released around six albums.
00:33:00
Speaker
Yeah, six albums and and from there you can we are on all social media and we are you should be able to get our musics on all streaming platforms and and you can you can also order your vinyl. We did vinyls for the past two albums. You can order those if you like.
00:33:21
Speaker
And for my production work, my webpage is thefarm-music.com. And there's a bunch of links for different artists that I produced and recorded at my studio.
00:33:36
Speaker
So yeah, I mean, yeah, so those two web pages, you can discover all about me. So and what I'm listening to, that's also a really good question. I don't know, I go to a lot of
00:33:56
Speaker
I'm constantly sort of having the Beatles and the band and stuff like that as a reference to what I'm doing just in terms of good taste and how to play really well and how to write good songs. So that's sort of my anchor, I guess.
00:34:20
Speaker
And there's a pretty interesting folk music scene in Denmark right now. Yeah, there's a couple of bands, something like Dreamer Circus and Basco. You could check out, which sort of has, I guess, like new Nordic contemporary folk music. There are good representatives of that. Yeah.
00:34:51
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. What else am I listening to? I also really enjoy listening to American folk country music. I saw Chris Seeley twice.
00:35:09
Speaker
before the whole pandemic stuff here. One solo and once with the punch brothers. So I think he's really great. He's a unique musician at an extreme level of craftsmanship. So I listen to him quite often. And yeah, I think there's a good scene there in America for new bluegrass country.
00:35:37
Speaker
sort of indie bluegrass? I don't know. Do you have a name for it? Yeah. Well, you know, what happens is, speaking of the band, in that great film, The Final Walls, there's this great description where somebody's trying to describe... The Last Walls. Yeah, and they're describing, they're like,
00:36:02
Speaker
Well, the band's doing this music and I guess I was listening to it and there's a soul, there's a funk, there's, you know, describing this whole thing. And man, that's a strange kind of music. What do you call it? I said, we call everything rock and roll at rock and roll. Like at the end of the day, it's all in there. It's in the soup. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
00:36:23
Speaker
It's all in the soup and that's really great. I think that's where I am really.
Closing Remarks and Gratitude
00:36:31
Speaker
I'm still a rock and roller as I was 30 years ago, but there's just been so much stuff into the soup, so it contains a lot of stuff.
00:36:48
Speaker
But I mean, I come back to the I can I go back to the classics a lot, you know, and so, yeah, these days, I don't know.
00:37:00
Speaker
I want to say Peter, this episode has been 30 years in the making. I am most glad to connect with you as an artist, as a human being, and to learn about your music, the beautiful music that you do.
00:37:22
Speaker
I just want to thank you for stopping on the program and, you know, for us to be able to connect, you know, around music and continue the conversation, which is what I try with the podcast. Yeah. Yeah.
00:37:37
Speaker
It's been my pleasure Ken, I'm really happy that you asked me to do this and it's been great reconnecting after so many years and I really enjoy your podcast. As I told you before we went online, I only watched one because I immediately recognized that
00:37:57
Speaker
that all the past participants' answers would be great and they would influence my answers. So I now look forward to listening to all the rest of them. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Stay well, stay healthy, great success to you, Peter. And I'm for sure, I know we're going to talk soon. Take care, brother.
00:38:39
Speaker
Go for a quantity go. In a way no one can believe it's you. No trace.
00:39:08
Speaker
the insane that go. Minh bam, the F-O-L-M. Minh bam, li fos nadi,
00:39:47
Speaker
Made in scribble, love F. D. B. Hines, early clown P. P. P.
00:41:14
Speaker
The soul of God, the soul of God. The soul of God, the soul of God. The soul of God, the soul of God.
00:42:05
Speaker
This is something rather than nothing.