(ANE BRUN)
“I FEEL LIKE I’VE BEEN ON THIS LITTLE ISLAND ON MY OWN, JUST KIND OF FLOATING THROUGH THE CHAOS...” How important was your decision to go out alone, and not down the major label route? I have been independent since the beginning, and was lucky, as I found a manager from the start, started my label, and it’s really been the best choice, especially when you look at what a chaotic time it’s been these past few years in the music business. I feel like I’ve been on this little island on my own, just kind of floating through the chaos, you know? I’ve built my own fanbase, and throughout my career it’s always just been a case of building everything up myself. And through the chaos, we’ve always found ways to make it work. And your record, Songs, celebrates that... Yeah, Songs is your typical anthology type thing; 32 songs from the last 10 years in my career. We also did something called Rarities, which is also a collection of songs, but it’s a bit different, as it’s a lot of previously unreleased material. So basically, we released two double albums last year, which is crazy!
SWEET SONGS & RARITIES NORWEGIAN-BORN ANE BRUN IS ALL ABOUT THE MUSIC. SHE MOVED TO STOCKHOLM IN 2000, AND THREE YEARS LATER, TOOK THE PLUNGE AND STARTED HER OWN LABEL SOMETHING THAT WAS VERY RARE IN SWEDEN AT THE TIME - AND IT WAS THE BEST MOVE SHE COULD EVER HAVE MADE. TEN YEARS AND SEVERAL PLATINUM ALBUMS LATER, SHE’S EVOLVED INTO9AN EPIC INTERNATIONAL PERFORMER, AND IS ABOUT TO BEGIN WORK ON A NEW RECORD, A NEW TOUR, AND A RATHER IDYLLIC NEW STUDIO, RIGHT ON THE OCEAN...
You like to make cover versions your own... You know, covers come to me in different ways: sometimes it’s a request from someone for a project; and sometimes it’s me wanting to play around with a song that’s really in a style far away from my own. I did a song by Arcade Fire, and one by Beyoncé. I just try to make them a little different, and it’s a very creative process for me to take an existing song and try and make it into my own. I just love singing and playing, and sometimes I do that for fun, and it sounds good..! Your first record, the beautiful Spending Time With Morgan, was released in 2003 – how has your music evolved into the now epic feel over the last decade? I think my music has developed quite a lot. I started as a classic singer-songwriter with guitar, cello, and a couple more instruments – you know, that kind of stuff. I still go back to that place now and again, but for the last four years, I’ve been touring with a double drummer, and using a lot of reverbs and big sounds. As you say, it’s a lot more epic, but I still have the singer-songwriter in me; and in the fall, I’m going on my first solo tour in a while. It will be just me on the stage, and I’m going to do that in Europe, which should be a lot of fun. Next year, we will have a new album... And that will be really epic!
39 HEADLINER
(ANE BRUN)
You’ve done a lot of work with Peter Gabriel... Yeah, I’ve done three tours with Peter, and I also sung on his album, New Blood. That was 2010-11, but I actually met Peter in 2005 when I was playing at a huge festival - a Mandella foundation concert, with a lot of stars. He came up to me after my little set and said he liked what he heard, and then it took five years for him to contact me! [laughs] I got
Another thing that seems to be close to your heart is the environment... Yeah, I started an initiative with another guy here in Sweden in 2009. It all started as a big concert to create some tension around the [United Nations Climate Change Conference] Copenhagen meeting. We held a huge concert in Stockholm with 25 artists playing for seven hours in a theatre; we also had people talking and films playing in between the music, and it was called ‘No More Lullabies’. This project continued, and we did some more outdoor concerts the following year, had some meetings, and it was like a network of artists that wanted to make a stand. It’s interesting, at the time it wasn’t a big thing to be engaged as an artist in politics, but today in Sweden it’s pretty normal, and I think that’s a good thing. Then I started ‘Art Makes A Stand’, a network where artists connect and show support from the Swedish music scene. There are about 50 artists, and we made a huge ‘Tweet storm’, and that’s how it started. We did one recently about a Swedish power company, which is investing in coal again, and we think that’s horrible, so we made a new Tweet about that. It’s a social network thing that we hope will grow, but it takes a lot of resources, as it’s so emotional. If you go into it, you get really frustrated; things never seem to move fast enough.
“SUSTAINABILITY IS THE FUTURE, AND IT ALWAYS MAKES ME HAPPY WHEN BUSINESSES EMBRACE THAT.” an email from his main technician in 2010, and he asked me to come on tour. They’d remembered me from 2005, and were looking for an extra singer; they looked at what I’d done since then, and a week after the call, I was in England doing rehearsals. It’s amazing, really... You’re quite adept at recording too, right? Yeah, I can record my own solo stuff on Logic or Pro Tools – simple productions at my own studio, basically; and a lot of the recordings from the Rarities album are my own. I have a set of Genelec 8030s in my studio, which I’ve had for years; I love them, and I never thought I’d need anything else, but this year, I added the 7050 sub to my setup, and it’s now even better, as many of my productions are much larger feeling, and it’s kind of given me a bigger picture, I guess. Tell me about your cabin by the sea... [smiles] Well, I am building a cabin by the ocean in Norway, where I’m going to be writing a lot of music. I’ve got a pair of Genelec 8010s, which are nice and compact, and they will be coming with me! I bring them anywhere when I want to work, basically, as it’s easy for me to just connect them to my Apogee Duet, and they sound great. They’re in a little bag, which is perfect, as I travel so much, and I really like the sound. With Genelec, you always get a big sound in a small shell, I find. I mean, I also use the 8030s from my studio as rehearsal speakers if I don’t want to go into a rehearsal studio. I just plug them into my mixing board, and they work fantastically. They’re powerful enough, and I feel like they generate a sound that is very familiar to me – a very natural and honest sound, which I’ve become accustomed to over the years. That’s important as an artist. You grew up around music... Yeah, my mum is very musical; throughout my life she’s been a piano teacher and a singer, so she has always filled the house with music. My father comes from an island on the Atlantic, and the cabin is also on the family land, so that will be not only a musical retreat, but a personal one too, and it’s going to be an amazing place to spend time and work.
So you feel a level of social responsibility towards sustainability, then? Yeah, in the last few years definitely, but not so much when I was a teenager! I became aware of it during my 20s, and now in my 30s for sure. I was also very happy to hear about the sustainability aspect of the Genelec brand; the fact that their speakers are made out of recycled material, and made more or less on demand is great. Also, their business is located in a village in Finland, and all the production is done locally; and the working conditions for the workers are very sustainable, too. Sustainability is the future, and it always makes me happy when businesses embrace that.
“WITH GENELEC, YOU ALWAYS GET A BIG SOUND IN A SMALL SHELL...” How do you think our industry sits now, compared to 10 years ago? Well, the small labels aren’t making much money, and nor are the artists. For me, 2005-6 was the peak for an indie label, as we had the Internet at the same time as we had CDs, and I sold a lot of CDs at that time, and made a lot of money for my albums and tours. We had the exposure to the Internet, so it was easy to get out there... But we also made money! Now, there’s no money anywhere, so we are back to knocking on big labels’ doors. Streaming and touring income is low for new artists; at the beginning of your career, even if you’re playing at a big festival, you won’t get a big fee. It’s not like it was, because you don’t sell CDs anymore. Honestly, I don’t understand how they do it today, but I do know that there’s a lot of good music out there, and through the Internet, be it Instagram, videos, social media... You’ve got to use it all. www.anebrun.com www.genelec.com