2016 didn't turn out badly for everyone.
Last year, Lukas Forchhammer, frontman of the Danish pop-soul band Lukas Graham, had his first child (a daughter, with his longtime girlfriend), released his self-titled major label debut, and earned three Grammy nominations (record of the year, song of the year, and best pop duo/group performance) for his band's mammoth hit single, "7 Years."
Forchhammer grew up in a rough part of Copenhagen called Christiania, a utopian collective founded by squatters and roiled by constant confrontations between its citizens and the police. Growing up, he sang in a boys choir, acted (in the popular Danish family movie series "Krummerne"), and wrote songs. He formed Lukas Graham with friends, signing first to a local label and then to Warner Bros. The hits came quickly: "7 Years," in which Forchhammer imagines his life from 7 years old to 60, "Mama Said," about his childhood dreams of stardom, and "You're Not There," about the death of his father several years ago.
In a recent phone interview, Forchhammer talked about his strange childhood and his even stranger grown-up life as a freshly-minted pop star.
The following is an edited transcript of that conversation:
Q: It seems like nothing happened in your career for years, then everything happened at once: a baby, album, Grammys, fame.
A: Very much so. Mark Twain says, life is gonna test you by letting nothing happen, or letting everything happen at once. We were slowly and steadily growing back home, then we were suddenly forced onto the world stage within a matter of months. A year ago, no one in the U.S. knew who we were, now we have a quadruple platinum single, we have three Grammy nominations, and we're halfway through our second headlining U.S. tour.
Q: Did you feel prepared?
A: I don't think you can prepare yourself for this kind of success, and this kind of travel. It's tough on the body and the mind. But there was definitely some sort of anticipation throughout all these years, of writing songs and getting better and better.
Q: Did you know "7 Years" would be the song that did it?
A: I had an idea. I had an inkling of a feeling of a hope, because the song was so unique. It doesn't have a hook, it doesn't go back to the same lyrical themes, it's a very different kind of song than anything else that's out there at the moment. ... People actually respond to the lyrics, not just the music, and that's a really great feeling.
Q: Does "7 Years" make you think about aging differently than you did before? You confront it in a way a lot of people in their 20s don't.
A: No, I think it's because of the way I look at my life that I could write a song like "7 Years." I had some very unique parents, and grew up in a unique part of the world, with a lot more focus on community and friendship and family than on economic success. In my world, a success is a lot more than a person who had money.
Q: Did you know your community was different, growing up?
A: You could feel it when you met other kids, and other kids' parents. (They'd say), "Don't share all your things, don't share all your food." It's like, why not share? If you're sharing, it means more people are happy.
Q: Would you have become a musician if you'd grown up in a normal _ for lack of a better word _ part of town?
A: That's a Catch 22 question, honey. I can't answer that. I don't know any other way of growing up than the way I grew up.
Q: You might have been a lawyer, right? At one point you were interested in that?
A: Oh yeah. I studied law until I got my record deal, but studying law is performance as well, selling your standpoint to a jury and making people believe your story and your way of twisting the laws. I've always had a knack for performance.
Q: Do you ever regret having the band named after you? It does make you the focal point.
A: I think I would've been the focal point no matter what the name was, since it's my stories, and it's mainly my lyric writing and my prism of observation. Yeah, I think about it sometimes.
Q: Your new single is about your dad. Some nights, that must be hard to sing.
A: I've never felt like that with songs. It's usually a cathartic moment. If it's hard to sing, it becomes a more beautiful performance in some way. You transcend the pain, and you're back on top. It's hard to explain, but when you write these songs about loss and pain and sorrow and love _ which it essentially is, it's a love song, it's just written when the person is gone _ I find it cathartic. It helps when I talk with music lovers and the people who come to our shows, it helps them, also.
Q: Do you get a lot of people coming up to you after shows and sharing their stories?
A: It happens. Less and less. People are a little shy now that we are a big and famous band. It's a little unfortunate, that the girls start screaming and the people start becoming shy.
