Summerfool
Exclusive Interview:
Exposed Vocals: How did you hear about Exposed Vocals? What made you decide to sign up?
SUMMERFOOL: Randy was so nice to write me up on Twitter – seems to be a good tool.
Exposed Vocals: So tell us your story. Where did you grow up? What made you decide to become an artist?
SUMMERFOOL: For me it always was a mix between my longing for knowing the real sense of life and at the same time I had an intuitive feeling of what it is all about. So I always wanted to learn „The Art Of Living“. Both together brought me to music and this felt so good. So I became a musician and this is a process which never stops and feels better every day. The special creative note I got from my father – he was a designer and enjoyed life as a game to try, experience and have fun with it – although there are is so much suffering.
Exposed Vocals: How did you come up with that name? What was your inspiration behind it?
SUMMERFOOL: I thought about the inspiration I mostly love – this was butterflys and they still are. But the word „Butterfly“ sounds so flat. Deep inside of me grows the wish to find another charming word for what I mean. A few days later I went to the bank in my small hometown. The clerk I know told me about his last vacancy in Denmark and also that the danish word for „Butterfly“ is „Sumafugl“ – but spoken it sounds like „SUMMERFOOL“. This was a great moment because I never guessed that there would be only a chance to get a synonymously word for my lovely vision. I was so happy about it and so I called me like the original danish word sounds like: Summerfool. And written in english it gets that special lighthearted note of lightness – summer and dancing like a wise fool, you know. BECAUSE
BEHIND THE GRAVITY OF THE EVERYDAY LIFE THE EVERLASTING BEAUTY OF THE REAL LIFE IS THE REAL REALITY AND IT ONLY WAITS FOR TO BE RECOGNISED.
Exposed Vocals: What do you think about online music sharing? Do you ever give your music away for free? Why?
SUMMERFOOL: My biggest and most true vision is that everyone realizes that nothing belongs to us in reality and we at the same time always everything at possession have what we need, virtually as a present of the life. And thus it is my biggest dream. To be able to give away everything and also to get everything as a gift because thus the life is really conceived in his deepest reality. By now this is why I started to release my music free of charge. And also not to let stagnate around my favorite songs in the drawer.
Exposed Vocals: Since everyone was a start-up once, can you give any smaller or local bands or artists looking to get gigs and airplay some tips?
SUMMERFOOL: I think that it is the most important one to discover own heart’s desires and to follow them then courageously. Then it gives pleasure to play and to practice to bring himself to the threshold of the imaginary grandeur near. And if you are persuaded then really of your skill, you can go with it self-confidently to the public and give your best – all the same what says someone else about it.
Exposed Vocals: Do you ever make mistakes during performances? How do you handle that?
SUMMERFOOL: At first – I ALWAYS DO – and if it also enjoys in latter because it thereby brings over and over again new variations in the already given structure. And at last – on stage the show must go on.
Exposed Vocals: Do you tour? Anything interesting happen on tour that you think our readers would enjoy hearing about?
SUMMERFOOL: I do not travel at the moment in the usual sense of a tour. I like the travel segments and the mostly unforeseen surprises. This is what I find nicest and most efficient – with humor and great insight to master, because then everything becomes a little wonder whatever it is. Got something to do with loving an d trusting live.
Exposed Vocals: Where do you usually gather songwriting inspiration? What is your usual songwriting process?
SUMMERFOOL: The most urgent with the Songwriting is for me that I am touched – in a deep kind so by something which I can’t let go any more, before I have done something creative with it and have transformed it therefore into something sensible new and beauty. This could be pains or also wonderful insights.
Exposed Vocals: Do you have a band website? What online platforms do you use to share your music?
SUMMERFOOL: I like bandcamp: www.summerfool.bandcamp.com because of its design and free structure. Also I got my own website www.jan-beigel.de. And I learned a bit to be reachable on modern technology, for example on Twitter you know. But Facebook is to overdosed for my favour and for real, man: My experience of success is this: The last week I played a little guitar before myself when I supervised my photo art exhibition. An old man came up thus about 60 told me that this natural kind of music brought him on very nice thoughts and gives him a comfortable feel. There I knew once again that I AM successful.
Exposed Vocals: What are some really embarrassing songs that we might find on your mp3 player?
SUMMERFOOL: You know Liquido? They are a one hit wonder and this one song I still love. Not to forget all the late night sessions on my own… you can find some of them on my bandcamp site. Not to forget, all the German New
Wave style from the early 80s… uuuh 😉
Exposed Vocals: If you were given half a million dollars and a year off, what would you do? How would you spend it?
SUMMERFOOL: I would buy the flat above me and invite my favorite girlfriend. We would insert a stair between the flat above and my flat, so that we could happily live together on two stages – lot of room to live creative in any way. Then I would buy to myself much real cool equipment to record and produce my own CD at home.
Exposed Vocals: Any planned studio upgrades? What are you working with now?
As I just already said – homes recordings and producing – only with better equipment, this is my best studio. Because I live in an old but comfortable house with over 3-metre-high covers and here a really natural sound is simply given everywhere. So upgrades I wish is better equipment and there always is possible a step to the next level of quality of sound.
Exposed Vocals: How do you find ways to promote your music? What works best for you?
SUMMERFOOL: Twitter works for me as you see. But for real I haven‘t find THIS working way in the jungle of opportunities in the internet. Bandcamp I like very much because of its many nice possibilities. A good friend on my swores on CD-Baby and I guess I will try them too soon.
Exposed Vocals: If you could perform anywhere and with any artists (Dead or Alive) where and who would it be with? Why?
SUMMERFOOL: I would like to meet Jimi Hendrix and Neil Young – they are my fonourites and I would play the bass. Then there are so many lovely musicians I would like to play along with – like Aimee Mann, the early Lemonheads and The Helicopters from Scandinavia – with these guys I‘d love to play guitar because everyone of them really rocks. And then the old blues man like John Lee Hooker – it must be amazing to jam with these guys on a sunny afternoon in my garden and a cold beer beside.
Exposed Vocals: So, what’s next? Any new upcoming projects that you want to talk about?
SUMMERFOOL: I would love to make a movie. About the life, as well as it could be if we exhausted all our possibilities – but there‘s a great chance that this idea will always be a dream. In my photo-arts I will produce postcards soon to get them to the folks. And I still get in mind to release a CD to have a hardware too of my own sound.
Exposed Vocals: If you weren’t making music, what would you be doing?
SUMMERFOOL: I would be a painter I guess. Or a munk perhaps. Perhaps it would be fun to be an actor – but then please successful because I think it could be as hard for them as it is for unknown musicians.
Exposed Vocals: Do you remember buying your first album? Who was it? What was going through your head?
SUMMERFOOL: It was Status Quo. An easy to catch Rock‘n‘Roll feeling and with good hughlines. I felt like I am grown up when I bought it. It was the last money I got and it was definitely worth. I heard the LP over half an year.
Exposed Vocals: How do you juggle the rest of your responsibilities while trying to stay ahead in your music life?
SUMMERFOOL: I love help for the dear life – who is it and what also – and thus the life also helps for me – in any regard. At the moment I decrease to photo art, music and my health – and I like this very much.
Exposed Vocals: What should fans look forward to in 2015?
SUMMERFOOL: I will still record my own songs in the best way I can do. In the right moment everything falls into place and I will hold the best recordings of my sweet little babys in my hand.
And I will play more live again.
And perhaps building a new band to arrange all these second lines and melodies always coming up in my mind when I listen once again to my recordings. I Would love to some of them with an Fender Rodes Piano and a groovy drum set and stuff like this. In the moment I really find the right musicians and it is just a matter of time when we can come together – I‘m a bit exited when I think of the full sound and the fun to play together with these guys instead of my solo guitar / singer show.
Thanks a lot for your interesting questions! It is a pleasure that you invited me to Exposed Vocals, thanks a lot Randy!
