INTERVIEW MIT LUCAS LAUFEN

Der australische Singer-Songwriter und Wahlberliner LUCAS LAUFEN veröffentlichte Ende August seine neue Single "A Million Miles from Love". Am 6. Dezember erscheint sein Debütalbum "I Know Where Silence Lives". Wir haben dem Musiker aus Port Lincoln ein paar Fragen zu seiner Single, seinem kommenden Debütalbum und der Wahlheimat Berlin gestellt.

Hey Lucas, how are you doing?

I’m doing well thanks! Just settling back into Berlin after a few weeks on the road.

You released your single “A Million Miles from Love” almost two months ago. How has the feedback been so far?

The feedback has been really nice so far. I’m getting a lot of messages from people connecting to the video clip, which is cool. It’s interesting to hear people interpreting the song so differently. For some it’s missed childhood, others it’s lost loved ones and a few other left of field ideas.

Tell us more about the song please. What is it about, what inspired you and what does it mean to you?

The song was inspired by a dead rabbit. You can take the song lyrics quite literally. Walking out to the caravan in the backyard, I stepped all through the poor things remains. The song reflects a time of transit for me, written during a trip home to visit my father who was unwell. It’s about being very close to home but very far away at the same time. Out on the farm where I wrote the song, you can see the stars like you couldn’t imagine in the city. I felt as though I was floating around in space while I was writing this. With part of me in Port Lincoln (South Australia), part of me back in Berlin and part of me that was nowhere at all.

You are from Australia but you’re living in Berlin for quite a while now. Why did you choose Berlin? And what are the biggest differences between Australia and Germany in your opinion?

I really can’t pinpoint the exact moment I decided on Berlin. My girlfriend and I wanted to leave Australia to start a new life overseas and it seemed like an amazing center for arts and culture. A good place to shift our comfort zone be creative.

Australia and Germany are extremely different! But saying this, Germany and Berlin are also very different. Berlin is like a little island in itself. Although it still has the German bureaucracy. It took me a long time to get used to paying with cash here! It took my skin awhile to toughen against getting yelled at for standing in the wrong line, using the wrong door, filling out the wrong form. But people are lovely; they just don’t have the same (sometimes fake) outward look of approachability as Australians do!

Imagine: you’re hosting your own festival. Which three bands would you choose to be the headliners?

It would be a sleepy / folk festival and I’d choose some of my favorite acts at the moment; Gregory Alan Isakov, Black Sea Dahu and Sufjan Stevens.

Choose a superpower you’d like to have and tell us why you picked this specific one!

To breathe underwater. I’d spend my times writing songs at the bottom of the ocean.

A last message to the readers?

Watch out for a tour release with the album in December and hoping to see you at a show!

(c) Sarah, 24. Oktober 2019