Jeppe Christensen

AM : Why did you leave Nuclear Blast and why did you choose Lifeforce ? How is the collaboration with the new label ?

Jeppe : Hi Ars Metallia, I’m Jeppe Christensen and I play keyboards and do some vocals in Raunchy.
It wasn’t really a choice we made, NB couldn’t sell enough of our albums and decided to fire us. We actually had a signed contract for the next album (this one) with NB, but they couldn’t care less, since they were pretty sure we didn’t have the funds to sue them.
Liferforce came to us with an offer for a deal for 3 albums and told us that we would be a priority on their label. So we decided to take them up on it and sign a deal with them. So far they have been really good to us and we really feel that they signed us because they actually liked our music. Also we really feel the push behind this album is much bigger than the old label ever was… much more interviews than on Confusion Bay.

AM : How about the birth of this new album ? What did you want to achieve or improve with it ?

Jeppe : Well, we wanted to write the best album we possibly could and really make this album the best of Raunchy so far. As some of you may know, we had a line-up change in the band since our last album Confusion Bay and it was very important for us to let the fans know that Raunchy still is a band to be reckoned with, despite the change of our singer. We hope that when people put Death Pop Romance on their cd player, they can still hear that this is Raunchy.

AM : There are superb tunes on “Death pop romance”, like “City of hurt”, “remembrance”, “ “farewell to devotion”, “phantoms”, how do you craft those killer songs (music & texts)? What is your favourite Raunchy song ?

Jeppe : The normal song-writing process for Raunchy is that Jesper Tilsted comes up with the basic riffs and the structure of the song. We then rehearse the tracks and add drums, bass, and harmonies. During the recordings, we then add vocals and samples in a collaboration of whoever can stand to be in the room. Kasper Thomsen writes all the lyrics in the band and once we have a good vocal hookline we change the words from blabbering to his lyrics.
Phantoms was a bit different as far as vocals goes. We had 2 studios running for the recording and a small cubase-setup for demoing vocals and keys. I was trying to figure out a chorus for the song but couldn’t quite come up with a good one so I played a little with the verse in the song. We made a vocal theme for the verse, which consisted of the melody that ended up on the album but with ‘rubbish-lyrics’. Kasper then took a long hard listen to the verse and found some words that sounded similar to actual words and found a lyric they could fit into.

AM : You have always stayed in Denmark for the recording, mixing and mastering, sounds like Danemark’s finest... Was it important for you to stay in your homeland for production of the album ?

Jeppe : Not really, I mean it has never been set in stone that our albums had to be recorded in Denmark, it was just they way things turned out. That being said, we really love working with Jacob Hansen. During the albums, we really developed a great work routine with him. He knows when we suck and he isn’t afraid to tell us. He is also a great help when we find ourselves stuck and often he has ideas for moving on. We chose Tue Madsen for mixing because we’ve worked with him before and really liked his way of working. We also knew Ziggy, who did the mastering, from the old days and knew he was very good at making crappy bands sound less crappy.

AM : How about the tour with Soulfly ? what did you learn from this experience ?

Jeppe : We learned a good lesson in respecting other bands even though they are not necessarily on the same level as you are. They could have easily treated us like shit and we probably would have liked it too, but they treated us real nice and let us have our soundcheck every day. We have played a million support jobs and not until recently have we begun to play headliners. On many of the support jobs we’ve played, the main band didn’t necessarily care about whether the support band got to do a soundcheck or not.
So, if we could take that lesson and incorporate it in Raunchy if we ever get to do a headliner gig again, it would be a very good thing.

AM : Do you think to release live album and/or a DVD ?

Jeppe : We hope to be able to do that one day, but right now there are now specific plans to do so. We have some footage laying around from the making of Death Pop Romance and Confusion Bay, which could be fun to release one day if we can find someone who would be interested in releasing it.

AM : Last question, our ritual question in fact, ask yourself a question and give the answer...

The ideal meal representing your country?

Jeppe : “Bøf med løg” or “gule ærter”. The latter is a kind of pee soup which is made from 3 to 4 buttloads of split peas + a bucket of butter + 3 pinches of thyme + a truckload of pork + 6 or 7 carrots + a little celery + half a leek + a bunch of potherbs and finally some salt and pepper, which then is mixed in a large pot and boiled until it looks like yellow puke. Served with potatoes, beetroots, a sausage similar to Cumberland sausage, boiled pig’s bladder, rye bread, Thy pilsner (a Danish beer) and finally schnapps brewed on sweet gale.
A feast for hillbillies and pumpkin farmers. In other words, us.

AM : Thanks for the interview and again my congratulations for the mindblowing album !!!!

Jeppe : Thank you for the kind words and for taking the time to ask us these questions.