Into the wild Blue yonder with Danish group Communions

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Three-quarters of Danish pop-rock group Communions us about their new album, Blue, and their musical journey

Lauren James |
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Communions, from left: Jacob van Deurs Formann, Mads Rehof, Martin Rehof, and Frederik Lind Köppen.

Danish rockers Communions have dabbled in moody 80s-inspired rock since they formed in 2013. But on their new album, Blue, they channel a much cleaner, more characterful pop sound. Young Post spoke to bassist Mads Rehof, guitarist Jacob van Deurs Formann, and drummer Frederik Lind Köppen over Skype from Tokyo, as they dipped their toes into the Asian scene for the first time.

Who came up with the cover art concept?

Mads: It was pretty last minute. We’d been thinking about lots of different ideas, but none had worked out the way we wanted them too. One day, Martin [Rehof, Mads’ brother; guitar and vocals] saw a picture of one of our Copenhagen friends in a pool taken by a London photographer. We thought it was interesting to look at. It’s cool to have a person on an album cover – people are more interesting to look at than objects.

Jacob: It’s blurry, like a dream. It tells a story but you don’t get the whole story.

It’s the album’s lighter sound a reflection of the changes in dynamic within the band?

M: No, not necessarily. We’re still pretty new to recording, so we’re still trying to figure out how to get the sound we want. On the new album, we had a new producer we’d never worked with before [Mads Nørgaard and Malte Fischer].

J: We love the album and the sound, but it is different from previous releases. But you can still hear the undertones – still hear that it’s made by us. We still all write songs together. I’m glad it sounds different, otherwise we’d play the same and keep going in circles.

She’s A Myth is about doing whatever it takes to survive, and Take It All is about being broke. Was this a reflection of your journey as a band – making music against the odds?

M: Yeah, but I don’t know what my brother is thinking about when he writes the lyrics – we’re not involved in that part. But it’s definitely true – none of us has any money.

Time is another running theme on the album, addressed by She’s A Myth and Alarm Clocks. Was time something that was on your minds a lot while you were making Blue?

M: It was pretty subconscious. I talked to Martin about it. It was only after we recorded it that we realised a lot of the song titles were about time.

J: I think it’s always been in our music, when you look back to the Cobblestones EP and So Long The Sun – that phase had a time perspective to it, too.

Mads, when you and Martin were growing up in the US, did ever think you’d be in a band together one day?

M: Never! We were born in Copenhagen and moved to Seattle when I was two months old and Martin was four. Music-wise, I’ve always listened to what Martin and my dad listened to. I look up to them a lot. My dad listened to a lot of old rock, like The Rolling Stones, Roy Orbison and David Bowie. We also listened to a lot of punk when Martin was a teen and I was younger. But I never thought I’d play in a band. These guys asked me [to play with them] because they needed a bass player and I had a bass – I bought my first one when in was 10. I played for about a year then stopped. I didn’t touch my bass again until they asked me to play for them.

Frederik, I read that Got To Be Free was written with you in mind, as the band’s party animal. Is your reputation justified?

Frederik: [Laughs] I love to go out and party but I have a girlfriend now so I party a lot less than a year ago.

Can you see yourselves coming to Hong Kong soon?

F: There’s actually been a lot of interest from China, so at some point, sure. Now we’re in Japan, it’s our first time. I don’t really connect China with a music scene – I know that’s wrong because there’s so many people there, but I don’t know of much underground music.

Edited by Andrew McNicol

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