Johan Reinhold talks about Shoot Me Down and breaking new ground

You have been ‘reintroduced’ to the music scene, and we now get to see a (quote) “darker side” of you and your music; how would you describe the previous you in terms of music genre? Did past material have a similar feel?

My last effort which got me nominated for a Grammis Award (equivalent to Grammy) amongst other nominations was more soulful overall I think. More organic in its soundscape. It was more hip hop beats back then and less of the electronic elements that I’m working with today.

I think that my music as of now is a natural progression from that time. Some of my friends have even said that they somewhat expected me to evolve towards where I’m at now. So I guess you can hear fragments of the same feel in my music from 2-3 years ago even though its quite different now.

Can we expect the rest of the tracks on your debut album Beautiful Loser to be like Shoot Me Down?

I think you can definitely tell that it’s me and that you will recognize a distinct soundscape in all of the songs we have recorded so far. But ‘Shoot Me Down’ is probably the one that stands out the most with those 80’s rock style guitar riffs. We haven’t used guitars like that on any other songs since. Not that I don’t like it but more because the other songs didn’t need it. All in all it’s more piano based I would say. The album will also be more uptempo in general.

What or who inspires your musical creativity?

As cliché as it may sound, life inspires me. People that are involved in my life in one way or the other inspires me. In particular my lyrics. And since I grew up in the 80’s I fell in love with a lot of the classic stuff from that era from the music to the movies. All this have had a huge impact on me and so I guess its somewhat reflected in my music.

The artwork for the EP cover seems to relate to the title of your forthcoming single release; was this a coincidence or did you think about this? Are you involved directly with choosing your cover art?

I do all my artwork myself. I did the artwork for the single first. Then when we decided to package it with the remixes and put it out as an EP I wanted to tweak the artwork a little, to remix it so to speak. I wanted a resemblance to the original artwork but still be nice enough to live on its own.

I found Shoot Me Down to be reminiscent of soft rock sounds of the 1980s, infused with the electro synthpop feel of artists such as ‘Hurts’; is this the type of musical genre you are working towards?

The rock sounds that I agree is infused in ‘Shoot Me Down’ is probably a one time fling? It isn’t what I’m aiming for if I may put it that way. But to answer your question I guess I’m working towards some type of stadium status indie-electro-pop feel if you get me.

I want it to sound big in every way possible. I want my voice and lyrics to really mean something and to be given the room it needs to reach out to people. It want there to be lots of drums, pianos and 80’s synthesizers without it sounding dated. I want to break new ground with the music I’m doing. That is what I’m working towards.

My-Yen Butler