HE IS ONE OF THE MOST RENOWNED PERSONAS OF DENMARK’S ELECTRONIC MUSIC SCENE, HAVING REMIXED TRACKS, APPEARED AT FESTIVALS LIKE BARCELONA’S SONAR AND HAVING JUST RELEASED HIS FIRST ALBUM AND ALL THIS BEFORE “ADULTHOOD”! MIKE SHERIDAN IS JUST 17 YEARS OLD AND WE TALK ABOUT EVERYTHING HE’S ACHIEVED SO FAR WHILE HE LOOKS CALMLY TO THE FUTURE.
What is your first memory of attempting to make music? I remember getting my first piece of software.
Originally I wanted a mixer, because I thought it would look cool, so when I got something virtual, naturally I was very disappointed. But I soon learned what I could do with the software, and started thinking about the way a track is build up. I must have been around 9 years old at the time. No one could relate to my new interest, so I just did it for my own satisfaction.
What made you focus on electronic music? How did you end up getting professionally involved with it? I had been producing for a couple of years, trip hop, some really horrible attempts to make rock, and one day on a family vacation I asked my dad to turn on the radio. Out of the radio came some of the most wonderful music I’d ever heard – electronic music from Sonar festival. It was completely mind-blowing. So I started making this sound and got more and more into it. From here it was slowly building up to some of the first gigs, my first record deal was signed when I was 14 – and the past many months I have been making an album, and now it is released – it is all starting to turn into a carrier and that’s pretty cool!
Could you name some of your influences? A friend introduced me to the German label “raster-norton” and I have been listening to a lot of Alva Noto, Ryoji Ikeda, R. Sakamoto and COH. I am very into the early Basic Channel stuff and rhythm and sound as well as just deep Detroit techno. Depth is very important for me, I find it exciting and a little bit scary. Also I am a big fan of Nick Drake, Devendra Banhart, Jon Brion, Cliff Martinez, Thomas Newman, Matthew Herbert, and a lot more.
Is there a certain “process” that you follow in order to concentrate and produce music? I make music for myself, so it is coming from inside. I just sit down, and something starts happening. After a certain amount of time I can judge whether I can use it or not. I write down some notes while producing to keep my head clear while sitting in the studio. There are a lot of things happening in a 10000 sound / 120 track composition, so it is important for me to keep control.
You have just released your debut album “I syv sind”. What was the experience like? Α little weird, actually. When you are letting go of a project – now you can’t do anything more about it. Ιt is just finished and is leaving your system, leaving you in a vacuum. The first two months I couldn’t really make anything new, and I was just making a lot of PR and playing a few dj jobs in Copenhagen. Now it feels like I have made an impact, I just haven’t realized the size of it yet.
Which do you consider to be the most important moment in your career so far? There are a lot of important moments all of the time so, instead of picking one – which is literally impossible for me – I would like to say that the last six months have been the most important. It feels like I have been following a specific series of events on this path that I’m walking on, and that all of this wouldn’t have happened exactly the way it has if it weren’t for the order of these events.
How does it feel to have achieved so much in such a young age? It feels good. Lots of teenagers in Denmark don’t know what they want to do, and haven’t really set some clear goals for themselves. That had always provoked me towards doing something a little more creative and I’m just lucky that my parents have given me that freedom and support.
Do you still have the time to be a teenager? Ha ha, nope. I’m working a lot. I don’t drink, I don’t like coming to parties, my mind is just set in work mode. But this is all very new for me, so I just need to learn how to balance things right now.
How do you imagine your future? Whoa, big question! I don’t know. I will continue doing this for some time, and see where it all takes me. If I play my cards right I should be able to make a living out of this, and that wouldn’t be a bad thing to reach for a start!
