A common thread of my songs is the hero’s journey, says Robin Schenk // INTERVIEW
“My upcoming album is going to be EPIC. Not kidding. It is a collection of songs I wrote in the past few years, but a common thread of most of the songs is the hero’s journey in some sense. In our lives we are mostly not fighting actual dragons and embarking on epic quests, but somehow every life is a hero’s journey. We are fighting with our own inner demons, searching for the meaning of life, trying to find someone we are going to spend our time with on this planet and so on. These are some epic tasks in my opinion and that’s what I’m trying to express in my music these days.”
Photos by Rony Thilakan, (A)VOID gallery, October 2021
Marie: Robin, how did you get to writing songs, playing music and since when do you perform in public?
Robin: I was always fascinated by music, especially by the fact, that some people are able to write it. I played guitar since I was seven and I loved singing too, but writing songs seemed so overwhelming, so many instruments playing at once, the lyrics, the melody and the rhythm, so many things to grasp, it must be so hard! So I was telling this to a friend of mine - a musician too, how I wished that I could make my own music and he was like “why don’t you try it? Anyone can do that!” And then I was fifteen and I liked a girl and subsequently I was brokenhearted for the first time, so I picked up the guitar and instead of playing other people’s songs I started writing my own. And it did work. I could do that. In retrospect the first songs were terrible indeed. Mostly blatant copies of Oasis or other artists I liked at the time. But you have to start somewhere. Then I found out that I am actually able to write more complex music, things for orchestra, by which I was so fascinated. So I tried my luck and applied for classical composition course at Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts and to my amazement I was accepted.
Marie: How would you compare the music scene in Prague and in Brno?
Robin: Brno has a unique vibe to it. Smaller venues with underground bands is a thing it excels at. But of course much more is going on in Prague. The range of different styles and bands you can see every evening is astounding. I remember once being in Prague just for a few days and having a free evening, so I looked it up if there was any interesting show on that night. It turned out We Are Scientists - one of my favorite bands at the time - were having a show at Lucerna on that evening. What were the odds! That’s what I like about Prague, there’s always something interesting going on.
Marie: Tell us about the singles you released already. What are the stories behind the songs and what was your inspiration for this?
Robin: The first single I released is called Japanese Postcards. It’s a love song of sorts. Story of two people caught up in a situation where they like each other but the circumstances, maybe shyness maybe reluctance lead them to never actually expressing what they felt and so the whole relationship-that-could-have-been stays only in their imagination. It’s funny that this song actually started by me seeing someone - completely irrelevant to this story - posting on Facebook, that they received a postcard from Japan. It got stuck in my head and led me to writing this song, hence the name.
My second single is called Cadmium Blue. I wrote this song in the wake of my grandfather’s death. He was a biologist but a musician too - a jazzman. He wrote poetry too. I’ve always seen many similarities between us. That’s why it struck me so much. So I wrote this song, but more than about grief, the song is about coming to terms with life itself, with the fact that eventually we all die. It’s about things that were and things that might be and the risks of dwelling too much on memories and forgetting to actually live.
Marie: What about your upcoming LP, what is the plan and can you tell us what we can look forward to?
Robin: My upcoming album is going to be EPIC. Not kidding. It is a collection of songs I wrote in the past few years, but a common thread of most of the songs is the hero’s journey in some sense. In our lives we are mostly not fighting actual dragons and embarking on epic quests, but somehow every life is a hero’s journey. We are fighting with our own inner demons, searching for the meaning of life, trying to find someone we are going to spend our time with on this planet and so on. These are some epic tasks in my opinion and that’s what I’m trying to express in my music these days.
Marie: Are your songs autobiographical or do they come from your imagination, or both?
Robin: Usually the core of the song is autobiographical and then I let my imagination loose and start making things up. Lately I’ve been trying to write songs from different perspectives too, with different characters, but it’s still uncharted territory for me. Writing about my own problems is still the easiest for me.
Marie: Which of these songs have you chosen to play for (A)VOID sessions, and why?
Robin: I have chosen to play Cadmium Blue. The song is very personal for me and I like the way it sounds when played just with the electric guitar.
Marie: You’ve been influenced by artists some people may not be that familiar with such as M83. How would you identify your conscious and unconscious influences on your upcoming debut album?
Robin: I’ve been influenced mostly by alternative rock acts of the past decade but by many other bands and styles too. I am constantly going in and out of phases when I am obsessed with a certain band and I want everything I create make sound like that particular band. But over time I’ve learnt to control these urges and work on my own style instead. Of course you can hear a bit of Imagine Dragons in my music. A bit of Arcade Fire, M83, The Killers, The White Lies, The Bastille and many other acts. The bands you can hear in my music the most are usually those that I was obsessed with at a certain point but the obsession turned into a more lasting thing and it never left me entirely.
Marie: How would you like for your LP to be received? Where and when should people listen to it best?
Robin: I don’t care very much, how the album will be received, all I want is people to listen to it and give the music a chance. Nowadays we are bombarded with such an amount of content that simply listening to an entire album and paying attention to it is the greatest gift of all.
Marie: Do you listen to much music on Spotify, and if so, what are the top releases we should check out?
Robin: Yes. I was a bit sceptical in the early days of Spotify and it took me very long till I finally threw away my trusty old iPod, but now I love streaming music. Having all the music you want available at any time is a bliss. For me - the top releases of last few months are Imagine Dragons’ Mercury - Act I and The Killers’ Pressure Machine (an amazing conceptual album). Kanye West’s Donda had an unexpected impact on me (the song Jail is a masterpiece in my opinion), although I don’t listen to his music very much. Conan Gray has been releasing some great music lately and SOUR album by Olivia Rodrigo is so catchy and smart I can’t resist but come back to it once in a while.
Marie: And finally, what are your plans for 2022?
Robin: I’ll be releasing the album in early 2022 and hope to do some shows promoting the release. I have some projects for theatre coming up too. A musical I wrote with Petr Štěpán and Mirek Ondra will open in April in Městské divadlo Brno. I can’t see past that very much, because right now finishing the album is the only thing that occupies my mind.
