Stormflod

Location:

Denmark

Style:

Heavy Metal

Use:

Writing

After starting up again after 30 years Danish metal band Stormflod needed a new way of making music together. We got the opportunity to talk to musician and producer Tommy Pedersen to find out more about how Elk LIVE reunites a couple of childhood friends and assists in a comeback.

Hey! Tell us a bit about the band. What's the story?

Well, like many other kids, we started a band when we were about 13 or 14 years old. Just guys playing metal together. We were quite active back then and played a lot of shows in our small community in the five or six years we played together. But we’re from a small town in the north of Denmark called Skagen. So when we got older, we moved out of town to study and work. As a result of that, the band fell apart and we stopped playing together. 

But when I got into my late 30s, I really wanted to get back to making music. So I contacted some of the other guys to try to get started again. That was about five to six years ago. But we now live in separate parts of Denmark. So if we want to rehearse or write music in the same room, one of us would have to drive for about 4 hours. It's not really doable.

How did you make it work before you guys found Elk LIVE? 

Well, over the last five to six years I mainly wrote the music, I made up the parts for a song and I sent it to our drummer Jacob. Then he recorded the drums and sent them back as MIDI files. But we couldn't play together. So we were investigating the idea that we get a rehearsal space in the town where I am, and he gets either in the plane or in the car and joins me once in a while. That was the plan until I saw a YouTube video with your product. I saw that and it seemed like it was working, it seemed authentic, unlike all other software-based products. I’m really skeptical about those.

So are you using Elk LIVE to jam or rehearse or what's your thing?

So now we use Elk LIVE to come up with ideas together. I'm always running my guitar through my DAW and from that to the Elk. Often we just jam, and when we get an idea, I just simply press record. So I get a lot of snippets of things that I can use later to build on.

Cool. So you basically use it for songwriting?

Yeah. There’s a lot of that. And also if we have a new song, that's maybe a little bit boring and needs some new parts. I just play that from the DAW to Elk so we can listen together and play along and come up with some new ideas. Or I'll leave a blank space between parts, where we can play around as many times as we like until we find something that works. 

Just having the opportunity to record new ideas together whenever we want, in the evening or on the weekends. That's a game-changer!

So what do you think is the biggest difference to being in the same room? What are the pros and cons of not being in the same place? 

Well, for us, it's only pros because we haven't been in the same room playing for over 25 years. So it's a big step for us. Once we got set up it was fantastic, to be honest!  

The main thing is we can just say, "Okay, we're going to do it this Sunday morning at 10." And from when we sit down till we are playing, it takes two minutes. It's not like it was in the old days when you had to travel with your guitar on the back. You spend all afternoon and maybe you were active on your instrument for one hour, if you were lucky. 


Yeah, so it's great to be back making music again after all these years. It's a fantastic creative hobby for us. And I'm surprised that people all over the world actually listen to what we do. Maybe not that many, but we are so grateful for each and every one. It's pretty fantastic!



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