THE PROG INTERVIEW
Danish artist, photographer and film-maker Lasse Hoile is best known for his artistic collaborations with Steven Wilson, Opeth and others. He talks us through a career filled with black metal and high-concept prog.
The Prog Interview is just that: every month we’re going to get inside the minds of one of the biggest names in music. This issue, it’s Lasse Hoile. The Danish filmmaker, artist and photographer has collaborated with Steven Wilson, Opeth and Dream Theater, and he’s just released Muzak, a book that showcases the visual collaboration between him and Porcupine Tree. From Motown to metal to prog, his love for cinema and the thrill of discovering
Porcupine Tree, Hoile discusses his artistic journey with Prog. Just don’t mention Lars von Trier…
Lasse Hoile is a big man. With his coal-black attire, solemn features and deep Danish mumble, he towers like someone you’d expect to meet in a dark forest – and looks even taller sitting at the low table in the Greenwich cafe where we meet. He drinks an oat milk latte, seemingly a hipster hallmark but it’s actually more reflective of his ongoing struggle with Crohn’s disease.
Following the death of his (British) father in December, Hoile has been at his house
dealing with the aftermath – which, through numerous admin and communication breakdowns, has been “a fucking nightmare”. He’s open and good-natured in conversation, but his present situation weighs heavily in his voice.
“He [my father] died of an aneurysm in the stomach that burst due to hypertension… so he was probably mad at something,” he laughs weakly.
Born in 1973 in Aarhus, Denmark, Hoile’s introduction to what one might deem ‘the dark side’ began with horror films at the local cinema. As a young adult he lived in Greenland for four years, where he acquired mailorder heavy metal demo tapes that were advertised in magazines, it being the pre-internet age. Through that he became friends with Nordic black metallers Mayhem, now the subject of a new film, Lords Of Chaos.
“He [singer ‘Dead’] killed himself with a shotgun and his friends sent me pictures of him with some bones and then Euronymous [guitarist] got killed by this guy called Burzum [aka Varg Vikernes]. I have all those emails, letters and postcards and shit they sent me.”
Ultimately, however, Hoile found his true calling when he discovered Porcupine Tree – centred on a friendship with Steven Wilson that began in the 90s and has continued through years of arresting artwork, videos and live visuals. It’s fair to say that Wilson’s presence and impact would be quite different were it not for Hoile.
We’re meeting today in the run-up to the release of his latest book, Muzak, a richly illustrated, album-by-album treasury of his work with Porcupine Tree. Carl Glover, Muzak designer and longtime Hoile/Wilson collaborator and friend (also the brains behind artwork for Led Zeppelin, King Crimson and The Rolling Stones, among others) sits across from us and offers the most succinct explanation of their creative process on these records: “You try to make it look like the album sounds.”
The imagery in Muzak reflects a packed, macabre fusion of inspirations that include
Francis Bacon, Frank Auerbach, Tarkovsky films, old album covers and, perhaps most potently, ‘life’. And through all of it (those stark eyes of In Absentia, the sunsetting darkness of Deadwing, the dead-eyed children of Fear Of A Blank
Planet) there’s something acutely ‘human’, even in the strangest images…
Which came first for you, music or art?
Both, I guess. I have always been a big music nut, and I have always been a movie nut. When I was a kid, my mum and dad got divorced, and when I was with my dad he would put me
When you hear Pink Floyd for the first time, at least for me, it was like, [gasps] ‘This music talks to me!’ And other
good things, like Radiohead
when you heard it for the first time, you thought, ‘This is amazing!’
in the cinema so he could go to the pub and drink. And my parents always listened to music. It wasn’t the kind of music I liked, but I would look at the album covers. I liked the Motown stuff actually, my mum loved Marvin Gaye, I still like [that] today… But it wasn’t until later when I got away that I opened my mind more to music.
We read that after your parents got divorced you spent some time with your mother in Greenland?
Yeah, four years. I finished boarding school and then I had to go to Greenland. I met people there who introduced me to
60s and 70s progressive music, that was around 1989, 1990. I started getting into all kinds of exciting stuff.
What bands were key for you at that time?
Pink Floyd obviously, Kraftwerk, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Procol Harum, Electric Light Orchestra… I was a lot into Frankie Goes To Hollywood I guess [chuckles], I really liked those big productions. So I got into that, a brief stint in punk, some heavy metal… Just everything, y’know.
What stands out in your memories of Greenland itself, as a place to live?
It’s very isolated, you have to entertain yourself. I lived in two places, on one [of those two places] it took 20 minutes to walk from one end to the other, and then you’d go hunting or sledding with dogs or hiking in the hills, and I would paint and draw as well – horror stuff, weird shit.
And what were you like as a teenager generally?
I think I was very confused. I tried a lot of different things… It’s hard to find an identity; if you stand out too much out there you get bullied. So you had to be careful, especially as a Danish person in Greenland I got picked on, so you had to keep a low profile unless you wanted to get beaten up.
You mention trying different things. Can you give us examples?
Everything from clothes to music to hobbies… I tried to hunt, I really liked that. We went out in small boats and almost had an accident, then I didn’t do that anymore! We went sledding, ended up in the storm and had to cover ourselves with the sled, thought we wouldn’t make it, didn’t do that again after that [laughs]. But I always tried to do art. Drawing gave me comfort somehow.
And the cinema, that you spent a lot of time in as a child… what films were you watching?
Everything. There were matinees where you could see two, three, four films, everything from old westerns to really cheesy Roger Corman horror films, Star Wars, Gremlins. I wasn’t that old but I saw Blade Runner, The Thing, Alien… I had a lot of nightmares back then! But I guess the more you see it the more you become… not ‘immune’, but you think ‘it’s not so bad’. It was better than sitting in the pub with my dad.
So your dad was in the pub a lot.
Yeah, I’m afraid, a lot… [trails off]. It’s how it was. I mean, he was a social person, so he would always be in pubs having fun.
How would you describe your family dynamic, growing up?
Well, they always let me do what I wanted to do. That was good,
MUZAK FEATURES MANY NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN IMAGES, PLUS PHOTOGRAPHS OF STAGE BACKDROPS, FILMS AND ALBUM ART SESSIONS.
in a way – you could go on adventures. I guess they were busy with their lives, and they knew I would be OK. I mean, they didn’t have, like, superinteresting jobs. It was just very lonely I guess, in a way. So I just drew and read a lot of books, my dad was good at drawing so I kind of picked that up from him.
Was there a piece of art that made you think, “That’s what I want to do with my life?”
It was going through my mum’s album covers. But also when you’re under 14 or something
[in Denmark] you have free access to all the museums, so I’d take the bus and go and see every art show that was in town… It’s hard to explain, ’cos I kind of eased into it [art]. I didn’t plan on doing it; at first I wanted to be an astronomer, but my maths was shit so I had to give that up. Then I wanted to be a philosopher and that was like, “Fuck… all these books?!” I used to live next to a library so I’d go there every day and find something interesting, landscapes, prehistoric stuff, and look at the images. And because I spent so much time in cinemas I wanted to do special effects. I tried to get into a special effects company in ’91 in Los Angeles but they wanted, like, $60,000 and I was only 16 or 17. But they did write, “Oh you have talent, you should really try.” But I didn’t have $60,000!
You came to England to go to art school, but ended up going back to Denmark to do movie makeup. What happened?
I wanted to spend time with my dad so I lived in Maidstone, and I then I tried to get into Kent Art College. I submitted some of my horror artworks and they told me “try again later”. I wanted to learn to paint – at that time I was always so fascinated by the Renaissance, the colours and all of that. Then I got into make-up school in Denmark which turned out to be a disaster.
In what way?
There’s only room for one or two people in the whole of Denmark to do it [chuckles] unless you do, like, fashion and stuff like that. And I didn’t wanna do that. But I tried to do a lot of effects for short films and stuff like that, so from there I started to make short films with some friends… We had a deal with [Danish film company] Zentropa and Lars von Trier to do some films… and then he fucked us in the ass because he was doing Dancer In the Dark, and took all our gear and money [laughs]. I told him to go fuck himself, and I never saw him again.
So that was the end of your relationship with Lars von Trier.
Yeah, thank fuck for that. Then we did our own thing for a while, but we were always on the fringe so it was hard to get a grant. Then in the mid-90s I also went into photography. I was like, “Hey I can’t paint, but this Photoshop thing can help me!” So I started to make these collages and stuff like that… I realised this was something I really liked. I edited a lot of TV series, directed some short stories and stuff like that, and then that money I spent on camera gear and gradually got into it.
Also in the 90s you sang with a death metal band called Panzerchrist. What are your memories of that time?
Oh Christ… Blurry, a lot of drinking! [laughs] I tried the guitar, I tried the drums,
People don’t understand
the word ‘progressive’ – they think it’s
the same doodling and the same thing over and over again. The thing with progressive music is you have to progress!
And that’s what Steven Wilson does.
I could do a little bit of everything but I was horrible at it. So I said, “Ahh, I could always scream,” and we had a good group of mates. We played a lot of gigs. It was just five years of getting wasted! But we did make two good albums.
It was around this point that you approached Steven Wilson at a Porcupine Tree gig in Odense, Denmark.
We had a couple of friends and we were sitting around [with them] saying, “Music’s so boring these days.” When you hear Pink Floyd for the first time, at least for me, it was like [gasps], “This music talks to me.” And other good things like Radiohead when you heard it for the first time, you thought, “This is amazing.” Everything was grunge or postrock, and it was just the same. Then I heard Stupid Dream, and I was like, “What the fuck is this?” It’s not Pink Floyd, but it had the same kind of… soul to it. I just had to find everything [by them], and then Lightbulb Sun came out, then we saw they were gonna come to Denmark me and a couple of friends called and said, “Hey, we need tickets!” and the guy said “Hold on, hold on, nobody’s bought any tickets, there’s plenty left!” We arrived and we were the first and only ones there. I think about 28 people turned up. And I later found out they’d just sacked their merch guy…
So the stars started to align…
Yeah. And they just played amazingly. I said, “I have to work with these guys.” I’d done a few stupid heavy metal covers. It was like, “I can’t do heavy metal, death metal, stupid… I need to branch out, I’m better than this!” We were so ecstatic after the show. On the way home I almost fucking crashed the car because I drove over red lights, just thinking about the show. But we got home and I dug up Richard Allen [PT manager] at Delerium’s contact, sent him some of my stupid pictures and said, “Hey, I have to work for you.”
And he then put you in touch with Steven. Was it love at first sight, so to speak?
I think so. I can’t even remember what I sent. Obviously it was really heavy Photoshop stuff, but luckily not a lot of people did that kind of stuff back then, but I also tried to keep it ‘human’, in a way, so it wasn’t just a mish-mash. And we just discussed what he liked, the photographers and the films he liked… We just kept it going.
In Muzak, you and Carl talk about the influence of European cinema, and you and Steven also shared a fondness for serial killers and… well, weird shit.
[Laughs] Yeah, I mean, it’s more like the human mind and the reason behind it; what drives people to do these things? And why doesn’t anybody notice anything? It’s always the nice guy, “Oh, he was the friendliest guy ever”… I think it’s more like the psyche behind it, rather than the act, that’s interesting. But yeah, we talked about that, and art, everything really. I would discover something and send it to Steve, and he’d discover something and say, “Hey have you seen this?” Just like you do when you’re young with your friends.
What were the bands that you first bonded over?
It was really hard to give him something he hadn’t heard! I did introduce him to Mew and some electronic stuff though. I like progressive music… I’m a big King Crimson fan. But I don’t like all that technical stuff, the twiddly diddly stuff, it gives me stress. So electronic music is probably more my thing. I really listen to everything, from drone music to death metal. If it’s good I’ll listen to it. It’s not like, “Ugh, I hate Justin Bieber”… I do, by the way, but you know what I’m saying; if it’s a good pop song I’ll listen to it.
So where did you stand on Permanating, the most polarising Steven Wilson track?
Well I think it’s about time he started making stuff like that,
It was just very lonely I guess, in a way. So I just drew and read a lot of books, my dad was good at drawing so I kind of picked that up from him.
because he’s always had it in him to make really good pop songs. I think there are people that don’t understand the word ‘progressive’ – they think it’s the same doodling and the same thing over and over again. The thing with progressive music is you have to progress! And that’s what Steven Wilson does. The song makes me happy, it’s surprising, it’s refreshing, it’s not stupid pop.
As someone who’s worked with Steven for so long, which of his albums have you found most satisfying to work on? And which do you come back to the most?
I really liked The Incident, maybe it’s because it’s the last, there’s a lot of emotions with me and everything involved in that. We went around, me, Steve and Mike Bennion, they wrote this movie script and we were trying to get that going… It was a lot of fun.
Of the music you listen to now, what artists do you come back to most frequently?
Talk Talk, Brian Eno, Gas… I listen to a lot of this stuff called Echospace Detroit, which is like dub-ambient with stuff that goes on for, like, an hour and five minutes – I like to work to it. And sometimes I just like to listen to Morbid Angel for 30 minutes, or some old Entombed, and then some classic… well, I guess in that respect it can be called a bit schizophrenic, my music taste.
You’ve worked with other bands besides Steven Wilson, like Opeth, Anathema, Dream Theater… In your mind is there a common thread that unites these bands, besides the fact that they’re progressive and have metal roots?
A band like Opeth I think I knew them before Steven, because of my old heavy metal days, not as people but I knew their music and liked them. But I could see bands like Opeth and Katatonia, at least they were doing something new, they were slowly branching out into different kinds of stuff. I know it pisses off a lot of fans.
Your work has essentially evolved alongside Steven’s. Have you worried or thought about the idea of being pigeonholed as an artist?
Oh yeah. The thing is I have so many ideas, a lot of them I haven’t realised, there are many things I haven’t done yet, because I have all these things I really need to get out, and a lot of those involve covering up faces [laughs] and
I’ve been doing that for much too long! I can’t help it, I don’t know if it’s a ‘thing’ but I really need to start not doing that! We always had a fondness for masks, I think it comes from seeing old pictures from the 20s where they had these big papier-mâché heads, and it’s really surreal and creepy.
Another fondness of Steven’s you share is for old ghost stories. Do you believe in the supernatural, or something along those lines?
No [pause]. But I’ve experienced some weird shit.
Such as?
Well, at my dad’s place things keep falling down, but also two people have died there; my dad and his friend. But there’s always a reason. I’ve stayed in a few creepy places, where you can almost feel… But I think if there is an afterlife, you would know about it. I’ve been stuck on an island in Denmark in an old 18th-century house, which people said was haunted, and you come down and the coffee machine is on and shit like that. But maybe it’s just people who forgot something.
So, for all your immersion in unsettling things, horror and all the rest of it, what are you afraid of?
[Long pause] Failure? No, I’ve failed so many times, I’ve fucked up so many times. You learn from failures. Sitting around doing nothing is the worst for me. Unfortunately… since my dad died… I have all this shit going on and I haven’t been able to do much, and that kills me.
What is it that keeps you coming back to what you do?
I have to. It’s the only thing that keeps me happy… I still have to take shit jobs, to pay bills, but I like to challenge myself and try and do stuff I think is impossible. I’ve got all these ideas I’d like to do before I die, with a little more money… I’m not saying I’d like a million quid to realise some dream. I just want enough cash to be left alone for a couple of months, and not have to worry about anything else.
So it’s time, really…
’Cos most of the people [involved] are friends, or friends of friends, and I use their old stuff in their garage, which is fun and you can do a lot with that… The thing I love most is when I sit with Steven and Carl and we work out all these concepts and it grows into something, and after a year you have something you can hold in your hands. It’s the best feeling in the world.