Trentemøller interview: ‘There’s some beauty in the melancholic feelings’

In an exclusive interview, the Danish producer talks about the catalyst behind his competitive spirit and how ‘a miserable vintage piano’ started his long love affair with music

Trentemøller speaks ahead of the release of his new album ‘Fixion’ (Sofie Nørregaard)

Anders Trentemøller sounds like a nightmare to live with when making an album, agitated by a steely determination to prove his critics wrong. “My girlfriend says I’m terrible to be in the same room with, because I’m thinking about the music all the time.”

Still, it’s hard to imagine the Danish electronic producer in such a state. Dressed in a spotted navy shirt and black skinny jeans with his dark-brown fringe flicked over to one side, he’s chatty, impeccably polite and seemingly keen to geek-off about music when we meet in a plush east London hotel. His thick, Danish accent is punctuated with a mild stutter, and his expressive hands dance around the table between us as he speaks.

Trentemøller admits that he reads reviews and that he gets angry when coming across a bad one, but having received little negative press in a career that spans nearly 20 years, what drives this competitive need to quash his doubters? He thinks it might be because he was teased for his stutter at school.

“When I was a child it was terrible,” he says. “I really felt like an outsider back then and I think music was my place to go when I didn’t want to be in school.” Music was the thing that he was good at, and it still means so much to him today. “I’m very caring about doing the best I can,” he says, sincerely.

This dogged spirit has certainly served him well in his adult years, with a handful of awards, three critically-acclaimed albums and a catalogue of remixes for the likes of Depeche Mode, Pet Shop Boys and Moby. His fourth album, Fixion, is set for release next week and continues to showcase his unwavering ability to produce melancholic electronica that bridges boundaries of genre; comfortably experimenting with dubstep one minute, dabbling in Eighties punk the next.

Long-term fans might wonder if tracks on the new album can match the visceral, cinematic pulse of his previous work, but I don’t think they’ll be disappointed. Fixion is a continuation of his artistry, with precision bass parts and glistening synths on tracks like “One Eye Open” and “River In Me” carrying a touch of Joy Division; the latter features Jehnny Beth from Savages. Others, including “My Conviction” and “Spinning”, capture Trentemøller’s haunting melancholy through tribal beats and heavy electronics.

So, where does this melancholic sound come from? “I think it’s just part of the way that I am,” he says, before adding with a laugh that “normally I’m actually quite a happy boy. I don’t feel melancholic at all, but it’s maybe because I have the output of doing music.”

It could also be a part of where he’s from and what he’s been listening to. “If you listen to Danish, Swedish folk music from the last thousand years, it’s all in minor [keys], it all has that blue vibe to it,” he explains. “For me it is not a depression thing, it’s more like there’s some beauty in the melancholic feelings.”

He speaks fondly of how Danish acts have grown in popularity abroad, having started to trust in their own sound. “We’re actually sounding quite Scandinavian,” which he clarifies as being that sense of melancholy. It’s a stark contrast to the exports from 20 years ago, as Trentemøller points out.

“We were only known for Aqua’s ‘I’m a Barbie girl’, stuff like that,” he says, with a mischievous smile. “Things have really changed with the internet. It’s getting much easier to get more alternative music out to people.” When I ask him later if there are any Danish acts he recommends, he points me in the direction of Iceage, a ramshackle punk-rock band with a suitably snarling lead singer.

Trentemøller is more relaxed about the minute details of each song in the live arena (Getty)

Having grown up in the rural ferry town of Vordingborg in the 1980s, around 60 miles from Copenhagen, he recalls how people weren’t listening to much beyond American and British music from Top of the Pops. “Back then it was very much divided, you were either listening to disco or rock.” And he wasn’t raised by a family with a strong musical tradition either. “I’m the only one doing music in my family,” he explains.

His parents bought “a quite miserable vintage piano” when he was four-years-old, and he can remember being around five or six when he discovered his ability to play songs on it, after hearing them on the radio. The next step was a drum kit before, at the age of 11, being asked to write the music for a school production of Orla Frøsnapper, a Danish children’s tale. A teacher encouraged him to take on the challenge, after noticing that he was shy about being on stage, but more confident with music. “So I find out after that school play, that this is something that I’m really good at.”

Still, he’s by no means infallible when making a record. He describes how he can leave the studio one evening, thinking that he made a fantastic song, “then I sleep and I go back to the studio in the morning; I’m really eager to hear that thing again and it just sounds s**t,” he says, jokingly, before adopting a more serious tone. “It’s really something that you have to cope with, because that’s happening a lot of times; sometimes your mind is doing small tricks on you.”

Trentemøller mostly works in isolation when making a record; he perfects everything to his personal taste, before letting his band play around with the tracks on tour. He played in bands before deciding to become a solo artist, but found that he was having to make too many compromises.

However, he now sees his recorded work and live shows as separate entities. “It’s kind of a relief for me to say, ‘Ok, let’s do whatever we feel is right for these songs’,” he says of taking them on tour. “It sounds wrong that I don’t have feelings for these songs anymore. I don’t know if the band members feel the same way,” says Trentemøller, momentarily unsure of himself.

While the chirpy Dane initially gives the impression of a meticulous artist with a work pattern that has been finely tuned to suit his needs, scratch the surface and he’s surprisingly open to new ways of making music. “I love playing live, because that feedback from the crowd is even more direct than a review, because you can really feel if something is working.” He’s fascinated with how tracks can completely change when they’re played on stage. “Sometimes I think it would be great to do an album the other way around; you start by playing a lot of shows, then you go into the studio.”

But that means he would have to bring the band into the song writing process. Does he think that could happen? “Maybe,” he teases, “I’m not sure…” Perhaps not yet, then. After all, he would have to make some compromises.

Trentemøller’s fourth studio album, ‘Fixion’, will be released on 16 September. He plays Islington Assembly Hall, London on 18 September.