His own man
Lukas Graham is honest, loves his parents and refuses to be styled. Not quite your typical pop singer, finds Emma Page.
When Lukas Graham gives this interview he is, he says, ‘‘luckily for once’’ speaking to me from his home.
Home is a Copenhagen apartment just blocks from the inner city enclave of Christiania, the utopian commune where he grew up. It’s late evening. He’s just finished a cup of tea, the summer sun is going down and he’s sitting on his couch.
He seems delighted to relate these domestic details and uses that phrase ‘‘luckily for once’’ because since the world went crazy for his catchy earworm of a tune 7 Years – one of biggest hit singles of 2016, which topped charts worldwide, including New Zealand – being at home, on his couch, is a rarity.
There’s been sold out shows; gigs in Paris, London, Milan, Los Angeles, New York; interviews with Rolling Stone, Billboard, Vice, and endless touring – especially since the United States release of the band’s self-titled album earlier this year.
Touring will halt in September when, ‘‘I go on maternity leave if you can call it that. I’m expecting a little baby girl.’’ So, congratulations all round. The 27-year-old, who has known his long-term girlfriend since school, has always wanted to be a father, and yes, the baby, his first, will probably find her way into his songs, just as his other life experiences have: friends in prison (Criminal Mind); growing up in Christiania (Mama Said); the sudden death of his father, aged 61 (7 Years).
‘‘The fact that I like to write songs about my real experiences and my real life and the real people that I’ve met in it’’ – could be, he thinks, part of his music’s appeal. Or perhaps it’s his love of different music genres – pop, folk (his dad’s influence), rock, hip-hop, classical. (He started singing in the Copenhagen Boys’ Choir at the age of 8, wrote his first song at 20 and has been performing them to critical success since).
But he doesn’t really know why his songs click and maybe doesn’t want to.
‘‘It’s not that I’m trying to write another 7 Years or a new version of Mama Said. Songs just kind of come out of nowhere and you need to catch them when they do. And I think if you know what people like about you too much then you’re going to f**k up.’’
Lukas Graham is actually the name of his band, comprising friends Mark Falgren (drums), Magnus Larsson (bass) and Morten Ristorp (keyboards). The singer’s birth name is Lukas Forchhammer. Graham is the middle name of his father, who died in 2012, just as the band’s career was taking off. ‘‘My Dad was a good dad’’, he says, describing him as a truly present parent. ‘‘You didn’t get the feeling often that he’d rather be somewhere else.’’
Forchhammer is genuine and open. His voice seems consistent across all mediums – in his songs, YouTube clips, media interviews, documentaries, this phone interview.
In the image-heavy world of the music business, he seems his own man. A recent Billboard article describes how he resisted being styled for a photo shoot, preferring his own plain white T-shirt. ‘‘Too many people’’, he says in the article, ‘‘don’t have big enough balls or ovaries to be themselves. I do.’’
It’s a great quote and he scores extra points for the feminist twist of adding ovaries to the popular expression used to denote courage or grit.
So does his honesty come naturally?
If you lie, ‘‘you’re just going to mix up your own story and that’s just stupid’’. It’s easier to be straightforward, ‘‘from the getgo’’.
‘‘I find it a very, very powerful thing to be yourself and not to try and be something else and to use that as your biggest shield and your biggest attack in the world – to just be you.’’
Big influences were his parents (‘‘I got enough lovin’ from my mum and dad’’ read the lyrics from Mama Said) and the neighbourhood he grew up in.
Christiania or ‘‘free town’’ is a separate, self-governing, 34-hectare area inside Copenhagen that started in 1971 as a kind of squat at an abandoned army base. It’s grown into a largely successful social experiment, although not without controversy and conflict, especially around drugs, and is home to about 800 residents.
People shared and cared for each other, says Forchhammer. As a kid he could eat dinner anywhere, and clothes and other items were shared around.
The idea that ‘‘money isn’t necessarily an important part of being happy’’ is a ‘‘very, very big influence’’ on his worldview.
And if he does ever need grounding, a rest from the ‘‘unfathomable journey you go on’’ when you have a runaway successful song, he comes home, goes to a regular bar, meets regular people, visits the mum’s of his friends in prison, recharges with the people who know him.
‘‘I think it’s an important thing if you grew up in a neighbourhood that’s different from the rest of the world to remember what was different about your place and keep that in your heart, because that’s what made you . . .’’
‘Too many people don’t have big enough balls or ovaries to be themselves. I do.’ Lukas Graham