Life of a Busker
Danish pop duo Life of a Busker has just released their new single “Hated Your Guts”.
Catchy and colorful, “Hated Your Guts” is the perfect pop record. Combining memorable melodies and an efficient pop production, the duo created a smash record.
Produced by Luke Alvin, the song is about the beginning of their relationship and how complicated it used to be.
"Hated Your Guts” is now available everywhere !
Photo credit: Alec Andreev
Hey guys, how are you? What's your story behind "Life of a Busker?
Hi we’re good!
In 2018 we decided to go on an adventure across The States. We rented a camper van in LA, and the mission was to busk our way all the way over to New York City. We had practically no money, so streetmusic was the only way for us to make it work financially. After nearly 3 months we learned the ins and out of busking, and decided then and there that we wouldn’t stop. So now we have been full time musicians ever since then and travelled the world with our music.
"Hated Your Guts" is your new single - how does it feel like to release this new song?
It’s always a bit nerve-wrecking to release new music, and the fear is not what people think about the song, but more will people even find it in the huge stack of songs that are released every day. We feel great about the song and we will do whatever we can to get it in front of people. So, yeah it’s exciting!
What's the story/inspiration behind "Hated Your Guts"? When did you start working on this song?
We started this project as friends, but slowly I (Patrick) started to get feelings for Sarah, and she had just gotten out of a relationship, and was more interested in having a friend in me. In other words, the timing was way off and it created this weird love/hate relationship between us. It was quite complicated, to be honest, and it’s a bit surprising we managed to make things work and in the end became a couple. So in many ways, “Hated Your Guts” is an extremely honest song about the start of our relationship.
Could you please describe us the songwriting/production behind this song? Who helped you create it?
Quite early on we learned, that we were good at the songwriting part of the song creating process, but the production side, we were absolutely hopeless. Then we came across this prodigy producer called Luke Alvin, who was hiding in a small suburb to the little city of Herning. It changed everthing. On top of the production side Luke was also an excellent cowriter and helped lift our vision immensely. We still make all our music with Luke, but others like America’s Got Talent, have now also found him and use his production skills a lot these days, so it’s bit tougher to book him. He’s a great guy, so he still manages to fit us in.
What's your favorite thing about this song?
We like how it contradicts itself a bit. It promises this good vibe, but as soon as you hear the lyrics, you notice straight away it’s a bit more complicated than you would assume.
What made you want to release "Hated Your Guts" as a single?
It would be a lie if we said we haven’t thought a lot about it. We have made a lot of songs, but we found it so hard to choose which song to release. A lot of our other songs are slow-paced and not as radio friendly, and in that manner “Hated Your Guts” sticks out quite a bit. It feels like we have a song that feels exactly like us, but also works for other people. The other songs will also see the day of light when we are ready but “Hated Your Guts” fits perfectly for what we want to do right now.
What can you tell us about the artwork?
Ohhhh the artwork. We love the artwork. We played a gig where there were these heart balloons and we just felt it had this cool nostalgic feel to it, and that gave us the idea to the art work. At the same time heart balloons are a bit too romantic for our taste, so it was important for us, to get away from that. That’s also why Sarah punctures one of the hearts to symbolise the theme of the song.
What do you want people to feel when listening to this song?
We want people to be okay with the complexities love can have. Life is not a romantic chick flick and we hope this will make people feel okay with having complex relationships, with whatever people go through cause in the end that’s inevitable and just a part of it.
As artists, what is the hardest part? And what is the best part?
The best thing is that we get to work full time with what we love most, and we have no boss. Honestly though, the artist life is so tough. We get by with music and have done that the last 6 years, but we never know when the next gig comes or how much we earn in the streets when we go busking. So the uncertainties are insane and we don’t know anyone in Denmark that have experiences that look like ours at all. We often find it tough to keep going, and question quite often if it’s worth it, so either it’s persistence or stupidity that makes us go through with it all.
What are your thoughts on today's social media? How does it impact your music career?
We have a decent Instagram profile with 27.000 followers, and we thought that it would be so easy to release music to all our followers and we thought they would put us on the map, but social media is not that easy. Algorithms change like the weather, and the engagement, we receive these days are worse than when we had less than 5.000 followers. You have to be relevant and sometimes compromise in your content to get peoples attention, and we hate that. We’ve started to make stuff we like and then we hope it will reach people. Social Media is the game changer in the modern day music market, and it’s hard to be succesful without it.
If you had to change one thing in the music industry, what would it be?
Hmmm. The music industry is quite a closed party and it feels like either you are the next big thing or you are nothing. It would be easy to blame the major labels, for choosing who to focus on, but the truth is, we as consumers of music don’t give space to smaller fish. We think we like to support smaller artist, but at the same time we might only go to a concert if the name/act is big enough.
Could you list a few records that influenced the music you are making today?
Whatever Ed Sheeran has made is pretty much the vibe of the song, but we’ve definitely also been inspired by artist such as JP Saxe and Julia Michaels.
What biggest lessons have you learned from performing on the streets?
The biggest lesson we’ve learned is that you can make your dreams come true if you are willing to think creatively. For a long time we dreamed of living off music, but it wasn’t until the day we tried playing in the street that, that dream came true. The streets were in no way glamorous, but it got the job done better than sitting in a room, playing songs for no one, hoping that you would be discovered. So maybe also, dreams never come true in the way you would have imagined.
What advice would you give to anyone who'd like to form a duo?
Don’t do it. It’s easier making decisions for yourself. nah…just kidding. Some things are harder as a duo, but the good thing is when you work, you have responsibility for your partners dream, and that in it self will make you work harder, than you usually would for yourself. If someone wants to form a duo, make sure you define what’s important to yourself and your partner in crime and on top of that, define what’s important for the duo. What values do you want to shine through, how will you get the music done, how can you make sure you are financially covered. Other than that, just start if that’s what you want to do.
In your opinion, what would make the world a better place?
If people did more of the stuff that made them happy…or maybe more street performers!
What can we expect to hear/see from you next?
We are working on our debut album, and when that is done, we’ve talked about going on a big travel with our music in our backpacks, but who knows.
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