Preparation of questions and Interview: Marina Fumina (Librina)
Translation and text editing: Marina Fumina (Librina)
Interview date: January 22, 2021
Translation and text editing: Marina Fumina (Librina)
Interview date: January 22, 2021
Anton Eriksson is a composer from the Swedish town of Gimo, writing music in the genre of Spacesynth since 2016. He is the author of the projects Rigelz & Spacehawk. He got acquainted with the style on a streaming service Last.FM. He considers Laserdance & KOTO his favorites, saying that they had the greatest influence on him. Anton kindly agreed to give an exclusive interview to our portal, in which he told us what we should be interested in.
Interview with Anton Eriksson for Spacesynth.ru
Hi everyone! Let's start.
First of all, tell us a little about yourself: who are you in your main profession, what do you do in your free time and what inspired you to create your own music?
I work as a maintenance electrician, in a cemented carbide factory called Sandvik Coromant. I troubleshoot and repair the electronics in robots and CNC machines. I'm also working as a part-time firefighter every four week (24/7), I'm mostly drive the fire truck. In my free time I spent a lot of hours in my studio. When I am not making music, I make service of my synthesizers and other studio equipment. Exploring new cool sounds and other studio related stuff. What inspired me to make my own music was Laserdance & Koto, before I heard them I listened to music from the Commodore Amiga ProTracker (MODs).
Your first project was called Rigelz. Was it inspired by one of the brightest stars in the constellation of Orion?
Yes, exactly! I think the name (Rigel) is cool so I used it and added a Z.
As I understand it, within the frame of this project, you now do remixes and release joint tracks with other composers. Which of the works could you call the most significant for yourself and why?
Yes, that's correct. I think that would be the Amateras remix (Alone In The Space). He is a great composer and it's so sad that he just disappeared and no one knows what happened to him, so my contribution for that remix album is the most significant.
Let's move on to your main project, called Spacehawk. Where did such a militant name come from and do you consider yourself a warrior who wants to promote Spacesynth so that the style can win the hearts of many listeners in the world?
It is inspired by the "Made up Records" logotype. I wanted to have the word "HAWK" in my artist name, so I was playing with words and thought "SPACE" would be cool. So the result was Spacehawk. The logotype is made by a italian guy called Kenzo. Yes, I consider myself as a warrior to promote the Spacesynth music. I use several medias to show people our music genre.
Under this name, you have released four full-length albums, and they have already been able to please both loyal fans of the genre and new ones (including me), receiving many positive reviews. Judging by them, what is more hooked fans of your creative: bright melodies or groovy rhythms?
I think the melodies... but mostly it is because of the melodic chords in the old Spacesynth sound of the 80's. That's the feedback I have heard.
Of course, you were also praised by the recognized master of style Michiel van der Kuy, and I know how important his assessment is for you. Tell me, how often do you communicate with him, and what kind of person is he?
We do not communicate that often, maybe 1-2 times a year via e-mail. I don't want to bother him too much. When I'm finished with a new album, I always send him a copy and he reply me via email. He is very friendly and a great person!
Our community knows you as a follower of the traditional sound, because you mostly prefer Laserdance and KOTO, especially highlighting these projects. When did you first hear their compositions and how did they influence your choice of creative direction?
I heard them for the first time on a streaming service called Last.FM, Spotify and other streaming services were not available then. I was listening to Italo disco and had the shuffle mode on. Suddenly Laserdance was playing and I really liked it. I started to google and found more music from them and later on discovered more Spacesynth music and the Spacesynth.net forum. In that forum, I started reading about how to start with the basics and what sounds were important to use for the Laserdance style.
They like what I'm doing. Especially my girlfriend, she is very understandable and letting me buy stuff even though we have a common economy. Many of my relatives, friends and co-workers have no clue what I'm doing. When they come to my studio they have no idea how this stuff works, all the buttons, sliders etc etc. They think that I' am a little bit crazy when collecting all this stuff. They always saying: "You can only play one at a time". But they don't know what MIDI is and how recording with this kind of equipment works...
They also always laugh when I'm telling them that I'am going to drive very far to buy a synthesizer, but they like it! It's my hobby and you also need to be a bit crazy to be discovered and make some progress in this music world.In your PM you told me that your studio is located on the site of the old synth studio of your friend Linus' father. This is really cool, and I want you to tell other representatives of our Portal about this fact. I think they'll be impressed by your story.
Yes, that's correct. Linus and I have been friends since we were really young. Our houses were almost next to each other (which means I live very close to my parents now). Linus father was a synth musician at the time and expanded the house to be able to build a studio. Linus and his family moved when we graduated from high school, which is about 12 years ago. A family lived here in between, before me and Linn bought the house. It was actually Linus' father that made me interested in playing synthesizer. I got a Korg Poly 800 from him when I was around 8-10 years old. Today I have my own studio in the same room but with much more stuff than he had.
From your Facebook account, I learn that you periodically fulfill orders for the repair of synthesizers and other instruments received from other musicians, as well as put your own in order. Tell us how long it takes you to repair one of them (on average), and which elements are the most difficult to restore?
It really depends on the extent of the damage, but it usually takes a few days. Troubleshooting can take a long time and you have to dig into the electrical drawings and understand how everything is built. Some equipment that has been challenging have been a Korg Polysix, Korg Poly-61 and an Elka EK-44. The Korg synths in particular are known to suffer from battery leakage, which usually destroys the entire circuit board and creates other strange problems with the rest of the synth as the battery acid finds its way through the electronic circuits. I am also very picky with the outside and usually refurbish everything as close to new condition as possible, and that it should be as original as possible.
You can, of course, take a very long time to list all the great equipment that is in your studio, since it is of exceptional value to you and is your property. But still, what tools do you use more often, and how can you describe them?
The equipment I use most is the same as Michiel van der Kuy used back then. Roland MKS-70 for chords and certain types of melodies. Roland Juno-106 & Casio CZ-101 for bass. Korg M1r, Roland D-550, and Ensoniq ESQm for pads / melodies. Lots of sounds from E-mu Emax and E-mu Emulator II. From song to song, I use different sounds from the rest of my collection of synthesizers. But the ones I mentioned above are the keys to make classic Spacesynth in hardware way.
But in the modern world, there are also special programs designed for writing music. What are they called, what are their advantages, and what are their disadvantages? Judging by your penchant for hardware devices, I conclude that various VTS's are an additional help for you to produce your own tracks, and will never completely replace you with "live" synths. You made your choice because of the special sound of real instruments, and how is it better?
First of all, I use a Digital Audio Workstation to create the music (DAW). There are lots of different types of them. I use FL Studio and I'm really satisfied with it. Then there are different types of softwares that emulates a hardware synthesizer. A few that are used extensively in Spacesynth today are SQ8L, Synth1, Nexus, Sylenth1, TAL-U-No-LX etc etc. The advantages are that you can open a synth fast in your DAW and play with it. Also for programing sounds and save them digitally. They also work all the time and do not break as hardware does and they do not need to be tuned/calibrated. I can not come up with so many disadvantages. Usually the software synths lacks of the warm and analog sound from the SSM/CEM filters (a analog integrated circuit inside a hardware synth) and the crunchy sound of a 8-12 bit sampler. It also lacks the "hands on" experience of a hardware synthesizer which give me more inspiration than working with software.
And now I am interested in the creative process itself. How exactly does inspiration come to you, contributing to the appearance of such gorgeous works?
I always get inspiration from old movies and computer games. All my albums have a theme inspired from it.
I would say the name of the track... always. It also tells me if I can do some cool voice effects and vocoders for the track. I always start with the chords. I like to play melodies with chords, a good example of that can you hear in the track "From the Shadows" from the second album "The Last Guardian". So when I have found some good ones I start with the rhythm / drums, then the rest of the melodies usually flows.
In our time, there are certain disputes among authors regarding what is more important: melody or rhythm. And in your opinion, which of these components is more important, or are they equal in value?
Melodies for sure. Without catchy melodies the track will turn out to be boring very fast. Spacesynth is all about melodies.
And what would you like to advise new Spacesynth authors? What do they need to do in order to fully realize themselves, what should they pay attention to? How much work and talent should be invested here?
Spend a lot of time with making the tracks especially the melodies... and make a good mixing. Believe in yourself and do not look for attention / confirmation (I see this a lot on social media). I have seen so many producers do reworks and several versions of a track because they made it in a hurry without listening to it several times and make adjustments.
By the way, you have a very attractive project created together with Henrik Vikberg, called Retro Beat, in which you and he produce music in the genre of Italo Disco. Tell us how you met, how the idea for the duo came about, and what styles do you like besides Spacesynth and Italo Disco?
I would not call it Italo Disco... maybe more like modern Euro Disco or something. I want it to be Italo Disco but it always ends with something else... Henrik is 4 years older than me, I knew him in school but we was not hanging out. It started about 5 years ago, Henrik lived next to the house of apartments were I lived before. A friend of my (Robert) also lived in a apartment in the same house and he was on a party at Henrik's place. He asked me what I was doing the same evening and asked me to come over there. Henrik and I started talking and he asked me about my interests. I told him that I was making synth music and he got interested in it since he also loved to play keyboard and guitar. So I invited him later to come over to my old apartment and try my synthesizers. He didn't know FL Studio and how you could make music in it with software synthesizers. So I learned him and also showed him Italo Disco and asked if he maybe would be interested to make something similar. That's how it started.
Do the vocals on your compositions belong to Henrik? Is he the author of the lyrics?
In the Retro Beat project it belongs to Henrik but we both are the authors of the lyrics. For the Spacehawk project, many vocals are sampled or made by me.
I know that your life is not only creativity, but also visiting various events. Tell me, please, which of them did you particularly remember and left a lasting impression?
It would be the Italo Disco party at Nalen in Stockholm 2014. KOTO was performing (Anfrando Maiola) and I was able to meet him for the first time, shake hands and get a autograph. I also talked with Vince Lancini from Scotch.
What would you like to wish to the entire world Spacesynth community?
I hope people will listen to Spacesynth music for many years, of course, I will always love this kind of music. I would also like to say thanks to all the fans and also encourage them to buy/support the artists in this genré.
Thank you for your good wishes and for taking the time to answer our questions!
This interview was published on 01.02.2021.
