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Sondre Lerche


A Conversation with Sondre Lerche (continued)

PM: I hope you'll indulge a question as a fellow member of the male species. What's Juliette Binoche like, both as a friend to hang out with and an artist to work with?

SL: Oh, she was terrific. Of course, meeting her and sitting down to work with her as a musician, I didn't exactly know what I was supposed to do, but Peter wanted me to sit down with all the actors and work on one song that he wanted them to sing. Then I sat down with Juliette Binoche. [laughs] It was completely absurd, but of course she was a joy to work with. She was so professional and so determined. Just watching her on the set, you can tell that she's one of the great female actresses in the world.

PM: Ever.

SL: She was very determined to get the song right. We were doing "Piece of My Heart" by Janis Joplin.

PM: [laughs] Oh my God!

SL: It's a challenging song, but she took it really seriously.

PM: This Peter Hedges is just an unbelievable dude.

SL: He is really quite something. I feel blessed to have met him. He's a terrific guy.

PM: So it was kind of a device--if he wanted everybody to sing a song, not only to bond you to them, but also to bring them out of their safety zone and to bring them out of their bag and say, "Okay, I know you're a great actress, but I need you to sing 'Piece of My Heart' now."

SL: Exactly. He wanted all of them to perform their songs for each other in sort of helping them relate to each other as a family as well.

PM: What was Steve Carell's song?

SL: That was the thing--he was doing another film before this, so he was the only one who couldn't be on the set a week or two before they started filming. What Peter had them do was to have all the other actors do songs that, when Steve came on the set a day or two before shooting started, they would welcome him by having dinner and then having these performances of their songs, and they would all sing them.

PM: [laughs] It's totally incredible. What did Dane Cook learn to sing?

SL: We did "The Wind Beneath My Wings." [laughs]

PM: [laughs]

SL: He was a good singer. It was really funny.

PM: Oh, that's really funny. "The Wind Beneath My Wings." Oh, that's incredible. Speaking of cool women, I thought Regina Spektor's duet was really good, too, on "Hell No." What's she like?

SL: She was terrific also. I'd been trying to find out who I could get to sing on this song. I thought it was really, really important to get it right. There are a lot of talented singers out there, but I needed to get a singer who's sort of streetwise, you know?

PM: Right.

SL: Regina has that great sensibility where she can be both very romantic and sweet, and at the same time really rough around the edges and really sassy in a way. I thought it was so important that that element was brought out of the song, 'cause if not, it could be just sort of another pedestrian--it's a sweet song, but I didn't want it to just be a sweet song. When she agreed to do it, I was over the moon. I think she's one of the very, very best contemporary singer/songwriters in the world today. She's really an artist.

PM: Yeah, very special.

SL: She was so sweet about it. She really liked the song, and she was excited to be there. Peter came in the studio when we were doing the recording and he really lightened the mood as well. I think she had a good time. Everyone was just really proud that she wanted to do it.

PM: Wow. Since your well-deserved success with Dan in Real Life, I know you've been spotlit in gigs at Sundance, and Tribeca [Film Festival] is still coming up, right?

SL: Yeah.

PM: How was Sundance? Was that a gas? What kind of a gig is that like, when your material is being listened to more specifically by a different community?

SL: I was wondering about that, but it was a lot of fun, actually. It was fun to be there. You feel sort of out of place, 'cause it's not really my scene, but when I'm on stage I have a good time, usually. People seem to enjoy it. I think it's good, also, to give people a break from watching films and talking film, and to have somewhere where they can go and just hear some songs and hear a show.

PM: When you went to Sundance, how long a set were you given to play? What'd you do?

SL: I did like 40, 45 minutes, I think.

PM: Solo?

SL: Yeah.

PM: Oh, cool. Did you meet a lot of cool people there? That must have been a good time.

SL: Yeah. You meet a lot of weird and cool people, and then all of a sudden, you bump into Jody Foster.

PM: Wow.

SL: Which was funny. She was gorgeous, but of course I didn't know what to say to her, so we didn't speak.

PM: Right. [laughs]

SL: Things like that make you feel sort of out of place--but in a fun way, of course.

PM: Wow.

That was a very cool video on youtube.com for the song "Phantom Punch." Would you say something about the director of that?

SL: Yeah. It was a young director. We had a competition, basically, in Norway. We announced a competition on the radio, asking aspiring directors to send their ideas to us, and the winner of the competition would get to direct the video for "Phantom Punch." This guy was really great. He was 21 years old--had a really cool idea that we did in just a day in Oslo. Yeah, the video became really cool, I think.

PM: Maybe if you don't mind, you'd tell us a little bit about your wife [Mona Fastvold Lerche]. Are you guys living in Norway these days, or in New York?

SL: We live in New York. She's an actress. She's been going to school here. We've been more or less based in New York for the last two years, I guess. I travel a lot, of course, so I go to Norway a lot of the time, but we like it here a lot.

PM: I've been staying up in Union Square when I go up there. My brother's got digs up there. What part of town are you guys in?

SL: We're not far from there. We're in the West Village.

PM: That's great. I love that. There's so many cool people living in that section of town.

SL: Oh, yeah.

PM: We recently interviewed another fine Norwegian songwriter, Hanne Hukkelberg. Are you friends with her?

SL: Actually, I have met her once or twice, I believe. I don't know her. I do know her manager quite well, though, and I've heard that she's been doing really well in America--or all over the world, but especially in America.

PM: Yeah, she's making some inroads now.

SL: Yeah. Her stuff seems really, really cool.

PM: She's an interesting artist. [see our interview with her here]

So would you call yourself a spiritual person in any way?

SL: Well, potentially.

PM: [laughs] That's very interesting that you say it like that.

SL: Well, yeah. I feel really young still, so I probably have a lot to learn about spirituality.

PM: That's very interesting. I always ask that question because artists' reaction to the question is singularly interesting. No one ever answered it like you.

Does your busy schedule leave much time for reading, and if it does, are you inclined to do that in English or in your native tongue?

SL: I do read mostly in English, I find. I wish I read more books, but I find that I like to read the occasional music magazines, and my guilty pleasure is Entertainment Weekly--

PM: [laughs]

SL: --which I subscribe to. But besides that, I find myself reading music bios. I was just reading this book about Peggy Lee, because I became a fan of her music after listening so much to "Fever" when I was producing that song. My wife got me this book about Peggy Lee's life. She was really quite something.

PM: "Fever" is an amazing song, isn't it? It's amazing how hip and how timelessly hip that song still is.

SL: Yeah, it's very true. It's still so cutting-edge when you hear it today.

PM: Absolutely. It's almost spooky in that way.

SL: Yeah.

PM: Well, it's very kind of you to give us this much of your time, Sondre. Thanks for talking with us. We're really, really big fans of your music now, and we look forward to seeing where your tunes are gonna end up next.

SL: Thank you so much. Thanks for supporting my music.

Sondre

listen to clips
print interview (pdf)

sondrelerche.com

his myspace
astralwerks.com
 
Dan in Real Life at imdb
soundtrack on Virgin
photo thanks:
Ruvan Wijesooriya
Timothy Saccenti
 
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