Tor Hermansen

Excerpt from Tor Hermansen's Mentor Session "Best Advice"

When you do something that's different people notice you, If we had done something that sounded like Timbaland or that sounded like Neptunes or sounded like whatever else was hot at the time, I don't think we would have gotten the same attention as we got. And, this is one of the things I think about today with trap music and where everyone has the same exact drum packs and the same exact sounds. How are you going to stand out? And I'm not saying that anything was better before because it wasn't because it’s easier now to make it, but if it's all the same, that's why the producer tags have come back. It's my theory because the only way to stand out is to say your producer name in the beginning? No one knows it's you.

Timbaland never had to say Timbaland in the beginning of the song. You knew the moment that you heard that. When you heard "Drop It Like It's Hot" that beat could only have been done by Pharrell. So I think there's something valuable to that. There are guys out there today using traps or drums and stuff that are better than everyone else. I think Jetson is amazing. I think Louis Belle is amazing because he's you know, he's more versatile. But I definitely think there's distinct producers out there using sounds in an original way, but I also think it’s easy come easy go. You know you see guys that are on Drake's album and they have the big single and you see the next album, they got zero songs on there because he's now switched you out with the next guy that kind of can give you some of the same stuff. So I definitely think there’s something that's gotten lost in that. You know that the producers aren't as distinct when you're all using the same sound. So I would encourage you to seek for that one little thing, like this is my thing. And when you found that one thing, keep it there. Stay with it for a minute. Do a few more that sounds like that. Don't feel like you have to reinvent the wheel. You just came up with something that's amazing. Don't run away from it.

I used to think of us as, you know a lot of times I would go through Union Square, and Andy Warhol used to be at Union Square, right? That's where the factory was. So I would look at that building and think man that was Andy Warhol, he used to be in there making all those Marilyns and all those things. And it was distinct. So when Mick Jagger came down to Andy Warhol to get one of those prints done. Andy didn't say aw this time, I'm gonna do oil and canvas. He was like, I'm gonna give you one of those prints that looked like Andy Warhol, that's what people came there for and it was a distinct style. Imagine how many times he must have heard that from people that said, oh you got to change your style now, you should reinvent yourself. You should do something else. Reinvention has a place but only after you're big, right? When you find something try to stick to that for at least for a little while and let that be your calling card and I oh those are those guys that do that or that's her stuff sounds like that. Imagine how Billie Eilish did the whisper vocal when she discovered that right? She's stuck through it. And of course now she's singing and on rock songs and going all out, but for a while there it all had the same very distinct vocal quality and you instantly knew it was Billy Eilish and I think there's real value to that.

So I guess that became our calling card in America was, we were more melodic, we couldn't help it. But at that point, we really embraced it. And what was a learning curve for us was that we had to come to America to find ourselves and to find out what was great about us. And and through So Sick and the following songs, that’s when we really discover that. And when we discovered that people liked those songs. We thought we can do five of these a day. This is so easy for us. But you've got to remember at that point we had done hundreds of songs, we had done years of work in Trondheim and grinding it out in pop  songs. Mikkel had even grinded it out before that as an artist and as you know, making the commercial and jingle music, I mean so so there was thousands and thousands of ideas to get to that point to strip it back down. I'm sure there would have been a quicker way. We could have made it there quicker, but we didn't that was our journey. but but that was really a real lesson for us that what comes to most natural to us? That this is what you should be doing. Don't force yourself to copy someone else do what's natural to you. So and that was really the start of our journey in America.

I guess we're lucky because we just like what's on the radio. We like pop music and we're we kind of internalize what's going on around us. if you hate everything that's out, maybe you know, you should just be an underground artist, right? But if you're still like some stuff I think that stuff will influence your music anyway. So we  never had to think about that because our stuff was always, I guess had commercial viability and appeal just  from our own personal taste. I like the intro to be catchy and I want the chorus to make sense and I like for the punchline to be clear. And you know, I like for the melody to be beautiful. It does not have to be pretty, but I like for it to make sense. And so I guess maybe that's like the Scandinavian background that we have. We've heard a lot of good pop music growing up, but that stuff comes easy, natural for me. I don't think you should be too conscious of it, but maybe if your natural instinct is to make an eight minute trance the deep trance song. Maybe you should be like, let me make a two minute edit of this, so it fits into an easier format for people. But sometimes you got to break those rules too to find it. But, maybe there's one section that's better than the other and you can be like, this is probably the section I'm going to use for the main version and then I have this crazy ridiculous version that only me and people at a festival would love, and you can use that for that. That's one way to look at it. Like what's the best part of it? Let's just use the best part. So there's nothing I'd have to think about really just because of my natural Instincts.

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