Jonas Bjerre is not your typical rock band frontman. Though he fronts the Danish dream rock band Mew, Bjerre is a bit soft-spoken and shy, not one who enjoys being the center of attention. In fact, a big reason that live shows by Mew double as visual art exhibitions is specifically because he wanted to do something to distract the audience from focusing on him when they perform. “I didn’t really like being front guy,” he told me during our recent interview, adding, “I was a little too shy to really immerse myself in it.”
With the band currently in the midst of the US-leg of a world tour — with stops upcoming in Denver, Salt Lake City, Seattle, Vancouver, Portland, San Francisco, San Diego, Santa Ana, and Los Angeles — in support of Visuals, Mew’s seventh studio album out this past April, Bjerre made some time to chat with me about touring, why he enjoys playing at music festivals, his inspirations, and the perils of life in the modern digital world, among other things.
I’ve been a Mew fan for a few years now and I’m really excited to finally see you guys perform live. What goes through your mind as you approach going on a tour in the US? Do you approach it any differently than touring in other parts of the world?
Well, we toured there a couple of years ago and it was really an amazing tour. It was really, really cool. It’s very clear that we have a fairly loyal fan base there. So, it was a great experience to do that tour, and I think that a lot of the energy we had from that tour was a big part of why we wanted to just keep going, to keep writing to not just take it easy for a while after it was done. We had some ideas, we had a lot of good energy and we didn’t want to go away again as we usually do, into some dark studio for like four years. We finally have something new. Basically we just kind of reevaluated the whole thing we do, and decided to really focus on not procrastinating unnecessarily about things. So it was kind of an experience for us to see if we could make an album a bit faster and without so much second guessing all the time. It was an overall really positive experience.
Was the thinking behind that to capture the creative momentum you guys felt at the time? Or is it a thing where, you’re all getting a little older and you realize that time is a precious thing and we could all go at any moment? I ask because some of the themes in some of the songs in the new album seem to be very reflective, like they come from a perspective of people who have a little life experience under their belt.
Sure, yeah. It was a bit of both really. One thing was that we have gotten a little tired of is slaving over things for a long time. I mean, sometimes it really pays off, but often times, you have the initial idea, and that’s really the thing. And then we come up with that and we tend to reevaluate it for years. Then, eventually, it becomes something, but it might not be what it was at first, and you might not even know if it’s better. Because you’re so used to it by then. You can’t really decide anymore. I’ve felt sometimes, especially on some of the albums that were quite difficult to finish, that once we went out on tour, you couldn’t really remember what the appeal was to the song. You kind of worked on it for four years and you can’t even remember anymore what the attraction was.
Wow.
You just become kind saturated with it, you know?
Yeah, yeah, of course.
And I’m kind of used to that by now, but when you then go out and play in front of an audience, it’s obviously a different thing because they give it back to you and you hear it through their ears. You experience it through them, then it comes back to you.
When you guys go out on the road and do tours, how much of a say do you have on the cities that you play, and the venues and what not? I know from having seen some of your shows on Youtube, visual effects are a really big deal and a really big component in your shows. Not all venues accommodate in that sort of thing.
This tour that we’re doing in the states, we’re going to have visuals at every show, at least that’s what we’re aiming for. We didn’t have that opportunity on the last tour we did. But yeah, it is kind of opportunistic, and sometimes you just can’t get the venue you want. You can’t get it on that day, but we were really not really a part of that. We just tell the booking agents our preference, and then they try to accommodate that as much as possible. We just played a festival in Latvia. It was at night but the sunset was very late, so it was still daylight out. So we couldn’t use the projections, but it was fine. It’s still a pretty good show without it.
Where did the use of visual effects in shows start for Mew? What inspired it?
I initially started making those animations because I didn’t really like being front guy.
Ahhhh, really? You have some stage-fright?
I was a little too shy to really immerse myself in it, so I did that, and I thought this was a nice compromise. It was a nice way to give people something, something else to look at. Then I got to just stare my shoes and nobody minded. But nowadays it’s more of a whole thing. It’s a big part of the show.
You guys have played in some really incredible places. Do you have favorites? Favorite cities, favorite venues, that you enjoy playing both in the US and across the world?
I like playing festivals. It’s fun, but it’s a different feeling. I think what I prefer most is not too tiny a club, but big enough that we can put on a beautiful visual show, but also not too big either, because then you lose a little bit of the intimacy. Especially, sometimes we’ve played sports places, like arenas, and they’re just not built for it. They don’t have any atmosphere, you know?
Yeah.
So, I like these places that look like a theater, or are actually old theaters. That kind of setting I think is great for our music.
That seems very appropriate. I’m actually kind of shocked to hear you say you enjoy playing festivals. But I guess the size of the crowd and the energy that you get back from them sometimes can be a benefit.
I like that you go there, and people in the crowd are not necessarily familiar with your music and you kind of have to win them over. I like that. I like that feeling, it’s kind of exciting.
It’s a bit of a challenge.
Yeah, but I think that we’re kind of lucky in that we can get to experience both playing really big places and very small places. That’s depending on where we are, and I think that if we didn’t do one of them, I would miss the other. So it’s a good mix, in my opinion.
Do you have a favorite song that you like to perform live? Obviously you guys have a body of work that, as the years go by, gets bigger and bigger and bigger. You can only play X number of songs at a show and you have to find a balance of old and new. I’ve always been curious by how bands and musicians with the body of work like you guys have, how you go about crafting what goes into the show?
For this album, we’ve kind of been a bit bold and we’re playing quite a few new songs.
Oh, really?
We kind of just went straight into that, usually we kind of ease it into the tours over time. But we do think, ‘Okay, these are some of the favorites that we have’ and some of the favorite that the fans have as well, they’re often the same ones. Then, if we’re gonna play somewhere that we played two years ago, we think ‘What did we do on that tour?’ Let’s play some of the ones that we didn’t do, because we kind of want to show all facets of our catalog. I think we have a pretty good bunch of songs that we’re doing, and then once in a while we’ll throw in some weird old thing. Like once in a while we’ll play a B side, or a song that’s not so widely known. That’s always kind of exciting. And something for the real hardcore fans that know all the songs.
Well, I’m hoping you play “She Spider” on this tour. It’s probably one of my all time favorite songs just in general.
Okay, yeah. Yeah, we might. I don’t think we played that on the last US tour, so…
I’ll keep my fingers crossed.
We could do that, yeah.
What were your musical influences growing up? Up until recently, I had not had the chance to spend much time in Scandinavia, but have always been a fan of music from that region, and now that I’ve gotten to spend some time Iceland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway … I really feel a lot closer to the music that region produces. It makes a lot more sense to me. It’s like, ‘Oh I know why this sounds the way it sounds now.’ But I’m curious as to what influenced you growing up in that region, besides the environment and the weather and all that?
We obviously listened a lot to Scandinavian music growing up. There is a certain melancholy present in this region. And I’m not really sure why. People say it’s the long, dark winters, but then we do have very long summer days as well. So I don’t know if that’s it.
Yeah, it’s very interesting.
It’s funny, I was just listening with a friend of mind, to some of the old like Danish lullabies for kids in that last century. They’re just so extremely depressing. They’re really just so sad and melancholy and I don’t know why you would do that to a child.
[Laughs]
But that was just kind of the tradition in this region, it’s really so sad and everything is written in minor key. So I think that obviously is an influence. I think we kind of listened a lot to ’80s pop music when we were kids. And then we got together, forming an alternative rock band when that was the thing that excited us. But then I think over the years, some of that, we’ve always been drawn a little bit to that what we call, sort of intelligent, inventive pop music that we listened to as kids. I think that seeped into the whole mix of things over the years. So it’s a strange, I think we’re a little hard to pigeonhole, maybe. But obviously it’s a variety of things.
I’m a big fan of the band Kent, from Sweden. You guys’ sound kind of reminds me of them a bit.
Oh yeah, we used to tour with Kent. They kind of introduced us, they introduced Scandinavia to us by having us as a support band on a big tour with them.
Oh, really? I didn’t know that.
We kind of owe them a bit of gratitude, really.
The melancholiness of the music from that region is really fascinating when you couple it with the fact that every year it seems like there’s some scientific data that is released that says people from that region are the happiest in the world. They always rank Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Norway are always at the top of the list, yet the music is so dark and foreboding. It’s a really interesting juxtaposition for me.
Yeah. We’re countries where that are small enough that a social welfare system really works. Like, nobody is left behind. Everybody goes to the hospital. We don’t have that sense that you could lose everything that I would probably have as an American, if I didn’t have a lot of money. So I think that’s probably a big part of it. Because I do think there’s a sort of melancholy to Denmark. Especially traveling around, like when you go to southern Europe, people seem happier. They’re happier, I think when I go there, they seem happier in the street. In Denmark, you often see people looking worried and staring at the sidewalk. I don’t have the impression that we’re the happiest people in the world.
That’s interesting.
But I think it is that safety net thing we have, which helps people a lot.
I’ve read some things where you’ve spoken about technology and how it affects our being, our overall health and what not. It’s something I’ve long been fascinated by, perhaps for many of the same reasons that you are. It’s a double-edged thing for me because technology and the internet has helped me make my living, and I know it has served you similarly.
Yeah, for sure.
How do you balance that? Obviously technology plays a big part in the band’s success and your creativity and what not. Do you create some non-digital spaces in your life?
Yeah. I do that, especially in times when we’re writing, because I find that it’s harder and harder to really just engage completely with a project and fully be in it. Because there’s so many distractions from your mobile phone and all these kinds of things. And then if you’re working, you’re recording on your computer and you have your email turned on at the same time. So I have a separate computer that I use for recording that doesn’t have internet. I think I have maybe a little bit of an addictive nature and it is very addictive, especially with the social media. They’ve researched and found it kind of has the same effect as cocaine. Like a lot of it, I think very scary, especially with kids nowadays, where they grow up with this sort of alternate digital identity almost. They have to keep that and I think it’s scary.
But you know, I think there probably a lot of things that my parent’s generation thought were scary about things that came out when I was a kid. Every generation has it challenges. But I think that it’s advancing so fast now, and that’s pretty scary. I also think from my own perspective, in my memory of my life before I had internet and mobile phones, is that I was just able to focus on things. I could actually really do things 100%, more than I think I can now, almost. I miss the boredom of just sitting there, waiting for a train, and you don’t have a book to read, you know mobile phones didn’t exist. Sitting there for 20 minutes just being unable to do anything except think, you know?
Yes.
Use your brain and think about life and think of ideas and stuff. I think the internet is really bad for creativity. But then there are some parts of it that really good for creativity. I do this often, I’ll have an idea for a melody and I’ll just take out my phone and sing it. So I don’t know, there are good things and bad things about everything.
Technology giveth and technology taketh away. I know in my life right now one of my favorite things is when I’m on a flight that doesn’t have wifi on it. I do some of my best thinking on those flights. When there’s no option for wifi, there’s no feeling any anxiety to log on and check email, social media, etc. I’m able to truly disconnect in a way that I’m rarely able to.
Yeah, it is very stressful. I actually feel the same way when, it’s been a while now, whenever in my life that I’ve had to go to the hospital. I’m in the hospital, nobody can expect me to answer an email. Or nobody can expect me to deliver by this deadline tomorrow, because I’m in the hospital, you know I broke my arm or whatever. I just think it’s so hard to sort of have that in your life now. Even weekends, people don’t really respect weekends anymore, you’re supposed to be available all the time. In your social life and in your work life as well. It’s weird. You really got to force yourself to do that. You just got to force yourself to stop.
I have friends that will literally freak out and wonder if something has happened to me if I don’t respond to a text message within a few hours.
Well, there you go. That’s a crazy amount of responsibility to carry on your shoulders. Can’t we just go to the forest for a few hours?
