We had a chance to chat with Norwegian house-pop DJ WIESE about his music including his newest single “Hear Me.”
Check out what WIESE had to say.
How excited are you about your new single? What can listeners expect from it?
I’m super-excited about it! During the pandemic, most of my releases were pretty downbeat, which felt right at the time. ‘Hear Me’, however, is a deep house-inspired pop tune exploding in colors and life. Listeners can expect a summer breeze, bursting with exotic flavors and tropical soundscapes. The main synth melody is catchy, carrying a flow of energy and keeping you feeling happy and alive. After a year in lockdown and finally starting to see things opening up again, the vibe I felt when I made it was uplifting, energetic and happy. Hopefully, that’s also reflected in the final result.
When people listen to WIESE, what are you hoping they get out of it?
To be honest, I don’t believe I have any general message in my music, but I try to make music that evokes and amplifies emotions. So, I usually want my upbeat party songs to amplify feelings of joy, while my more downbeat songs can help amplify chill emotions.
Even though I don’t always incorporate it in the lyrics, I want to use whatever voice I have to spread positive vibes. I think we should all be better at reflecting and appreciating everything we have previously taken for granted. Freedom and equality for example. Right now, it’s the virus we’re most concerned about, but the recipe’s the same in the face of serious climate issues and discrimination. We’ll not be vaccinated against these challenges, but we must all commit ourselves to moving in the same direction. No matter who we are and where we come from.
You blended a lot of genres with this single. Talk a bit about about the process.
On ‘Hear Me’, I started playing around with different drumbeats and bass lines, before I experimented with different synth melodies. Once I got that foundation, I started adding and removing different sounds and effects until it felt about right. And then I went back and changed or tweaked whatever stuff I did in the beginning. It’s usually very much an iterative process.
When it comes to the lyrics, I wrote most of it sitting on a train on my way to my mum’s cabin. So, when you hear the line “Norwegian hills is the place that you wanna go” in the first verse, that’s where it came from. And then in the second verse it goes “Hollywood hills is the place that you wanna go”. That one came from laying on the sofa in the cabin watching a movie with my mum.
In the final stages, I involved a great and super-talented guy named Conner Edmunds or Callen which is his artist’s name. He’s located in Nashville, so we’ve had some awesome video-sessions to finish the song. He’s also the one who brought in Erin Jarvis for the female vocals as her voice was exactly what I was looking for; tender yet powerful. Great people and true professionals.
What do you think about all the genre bending happening in music?
To be honest, I don’t care if the music is defined as one or the other genre or if people say that you should stick to one genre. Whenever I make a song, I tailor it the way I feel is necessary to bring out the vibe and feeling I want to convey, regardless of genre. I make music to emphasize and amplify emotions, not to adapt or satisfy predefined genres that by the end of the day means nothing.
For me, it’s great to be able to mix genres and extract the best of all worlds.I emphasize that the melodies should be catchy and recognizable, at the same time as they are based on pulsating rhythms with impact and power. I believe my musical expression is in constant motion, and I’ve got to admit that my style has developed a lot over the past year and that it’s still developing. I notice that the songs I am working on right now are quite different from what I was working on just a year ago. And similarly, it will probably be like that in a year as well. That’s what’s so great about music; it’s constantly changing.
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