- Title: Danish pop band Lukas Graham discusses Grammy nomination
- Date: 20th December 2016
- Summary: NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (DECEMBER 20, 2016) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) LUKAS FORCHHAMMER, SINGER OF POP BAND LUKAS GRAHAM, SAYING: "She is a baby so her needs are very simple at the moment. It's mostly the mom that can take of them. I can help facilitate a lot but I don't have breasts. But it's lovely. I was expecting it to be harder, definitely for her and for me, as a father. But when you are with someone that you really care about and you have good communication, it becomes easier and easier instead of harder and harder to be together."
- Embargoed: 4th January 2017 21:04
- Keywords: Lukas Graham 7 years Grammy Grammy awards Lukas Forchhammer
- Location: NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES / UNKNOWN LOCATIONS
- City: NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES / UNKNOWN LOCATIONS
- Country: USA
- Topics: Arts/Culture/Entertainment,Music
- Reuters ID: LVA00A5DOXFF1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Lukas Graham, the Danish pop band behind global mega hit "7 Years" was in New York on Tuesday (December 20) taking a short break from their Jingle Ball tour that they headline with other artists including Justin Bieber and Ellie Goulding.
Earlier in the month they learned that their hit song was nominated for three Grammy awards, including "Song of the Year," "Record of the Year" and "Best Pop Duo/Group Performance."
"It feels a little awkward, a little weird, because no matter how much you work to something or strive towards something especially the way we work, we don't expect anything," the band's 28-year-old frontman Lukas Forchhammer told Reuters about the nominations.
"And the Grammys mean a lot especially because it is a peer to peer voting system, other musicians and performers have deemed our song Grammy-worthy," Forchhammer said.
Forchhammer, the main writer of the group, grew up in Christiania, a self-proclaimed autonomous neighborhood in Danish capital Copenhagen. Part slum and part utopia, his childhood growing up in those streets without cars, streetlights and police serves as an inspiration for many songs that seem to strike a chord with the global audience.
"Take song like '7 years' for example, it's not structured and it isn't sonically anything like it out there at the moment. It's this age progression thing which I think a lot of people can relate to growing older, we all do it," Forchhammer explained about the broad appeal of "7 Years".
"And then there is this family theme that I have seem to dug up after my father's death, it was very important for me to write about these things. How I felt, my childhood had been even though society might have said, something else. So yeah, I think writing about some subject material that not a lot of people talk about these days."
The singer explained that his father passed away at the age of 61, and deliberately stopped "7 Years," that follows the life of a man from childhood to old age at 60 since he "didn't really have vision to put the song beyond 60 years".
That changed in September after the singer and longtime girlfriend Marie-Louise 'Rillo' Schwartz Petersen had a baby girl.
Not only can Forchhammer imagine a personal life after 60, Viola's birth made him shift his focus to the outside world.
"I write about what my life experiences and my life situation is, so of course there is going to be songs about becoming a father. But I feel that having a baby has also opened this other dimension where it is easier for me to write songs where the stories are not necessarily about my life. It's something about what you are looking at instead. So I think a lot of good things to come creatively speaking."
"7 Years" went quadruple platinum reaching No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and is the highest selling single from a debut artist this year.
Lukas Graham consists of lead singer Lukas Forchhammer, bassist Magnus Larsson, drummer Mark "Lovestick" Falgren and Morten Ristorp on the keyboard.
The band is currently promoting their second single "You're Not There" in the United States and will continue the Jingle Ball tour on January 9.
The Grammy Awards, to be held in Los Angeles on Feb. 12, are chosen by members of the music industry and in the past have often been dominated by rock and country music. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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