Name: Henrik Stelzer aka Metro Riders
Nationality: Swedish
Occupation: Producer, composer
Current release: The new Metro Riders album Lost In Reality is out via Possible Motive.
Recommendations: I would recommend Vangelis's Beaubourg album. Incredibly good. Undoubtedly his best.
Read Bret Easton Ellis or Swedish Sture Dahlström. Watch any of Massimo Dallamanos’ or Sergio Martinos’ early giallo movies.

If you enjoyed this Metro Riders interview and would like to keep up to date with Henrik Stelzer's music, visit him on Soundcloud.



When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. What happens in your body when you're listening? Do you listen with your eyes open or closed?

Music takes me to a realm of sensory overload. Shapes morph, objects mutate, and colors bleed together in a sonic stimuli. Music has always been a way to create a mind-altering experience that grips me like a vice.

Eyes? Closed. Shutting out all external stimuli, I surrender to my internal chaos. Free to explore the depths of my imagination. The shapes take on a life of their own, twisting and contorting. Objects become symbols, laden with and without sense, colors evoke visceral responses, stirring emotions I can't explain.

What were your very first steps in music like and how would you rate the gains made through experience - can one train/ learn being an artist?

I took lessons playing a nylon stringed acoustic guitars when I was young. I bought an electric guitar some years later but wasn’t too intrigued.

Years later, after some band constellations I started to warp and loop sounds I recorded on to tape. Those sounds became a few projects and eventually Metro Riders. That process of working with sounds has been a way of constructing sounds for me since.

Talent may lurk within, and train I guess I must … I believe that not knowing everything about hardware synths for example can sometime be beneficial, opening doors to new unexpected realms. I embrace the chaos that sometimes occur during my recording process, I surrender to my mistakes, and perhaps, then I’ll find the tools to progress.

According to scientific studies, we make our deepest and most incisive musical experiences between the ages of 13-16. What did music mean to you at that age and what’s changed since then?

I probably listened to Load by Metallica at the age of 13, like every other kid at that time in rural Sweden did.



Some 5 years later I discovered the Swedish pop group The Embassy.



Them as well as duo named The Tough Alliance were bands I was heavily fascinated by. I think their style made me understand that music can be more than just songs.



Then I found out about the universe of Brian Eno, Joy Division and later all them kraut rock composers like Klaus Schulze, Popol Vuh, Ashra, Cluster, Moebius, Plank and so on.



[Read our Brian Eno Interview feature about climate change]
[Read our Manuel Göttsching of Ashra interview]
[Read our Hans-Joachim Roedelius of Cluster interview]

Where does the impulse to create something come from for you? What role do often-quoted sources of inspiration like dreams, other forms of art, personal relationships, politics etc play?

Movies. Unintentionally made sounds. Field recordings. Dark alleys. Mishaps, sonic errors. They play a partial inspiration.

But rather than listening to some weird slasher horror soundtrack I enjoy finding inspiration someplace else. Sometimes, a synth chord in an older movie that just adds a certain mood here and there can inspire me to try to figure out how the rest of such a song would play out.

Paul Simon said “the way that I listen to my own records is not for the chords or the lyrics - my first impression is of the overall sound.” What's your own take on that and how would you describe the sound you're looking for?

That’s relatable. I always listen to texture. The saturation of sounds and how they warp and wobble.

I then often forget how I went about creating a certain effect, so in a way it also becomes a kind of inspiration.

Are you acting out certain roles or parts of your personality in your music which you couldn't or wouldn't in your daily life? If so, which are these? If not, what, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to music?

In a way, yes, like the concept that Metro Riders could be anyone, in an indeterminate form.

But more than that, it's really an idea that conjures a suspenseful and gloomy, true-to-the era re-imagining of lost sounds.

Music is a language, but like any language, it can lead to misunderstandings. In which way has your own work – or perhaps the work of artists you like or admire - been misunderstood? How do you deal with this?

The abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock was known for his spontaneous and intense drip paintings. During his process, he could make mistakes by splashing paint in the wrong places or overpainting certain areas. Instead of correcting these mistakes, he left them in place and they contributed to the unique and dynamic quality of his work.

I think that mindset is very inspiring way of looking at the creative process.

Making music, in the beginning, is often playful and about discovery. How do you retain a sense of playfulness as things become more professionalised and how do you still draw surprises from equipment, instruments, approaches and formats you may be very familiar with?

I think I'll always consider it playful and I will always look for new ways to find inspiration. I don't necessarily think the process has to change.

In the end, I make music for my own purposes. I don't consider profitability or technological upgrades to be a part of making progress, not for me.

Sound, song, and rhythm are all around us, from animal noises to the waves of the ocean. What, if any, are some of the most moving experiences you've had with these non-human-made sounds? In how far would you describe them as “musical”?

For me, nature is everything in it, as well as the animals that live with it.

Have you ever listened to a female barn owl at night?



Or a fox barking call at the height of the moon?



A double sense of discomfort and haunting beauty.
 
There seems to be an increasing trend to capture music in numbers, from waveforms via recommendation algorithms up to deciphering the code of hit songs. What aspects of music do you feel can be captured through numbers, and which can not?

Wu-Tang once said cash ruined everything about music, maybe the saying of our times should be numbers ruined everything about music.

I believe algorithms and figuring out the truth or the right composition to make success can only come by doing what you love and keep doing it without the input from anyone else, including data. At the end of the day, no matter how much money you put into it, creativity can only come from within.

How does the way you make music reflect the way you live your life? Can we learn lessons about life by understanding music on a deeper level?

For me, music is a refuge, my life is probably quite different from the scenarios I try to portray with my music. Just in the same way that you read fiction or otherwise consume culture.

We can surround us with sound every second of the day. The great pianist Glenn Gould even considered this the ultimate delight. How do you see that yourself and what importance does silence hold from your point of view? What role do headphones play for you in this regard?

For me, other creative stimuli can almost have the opposite effect. That it can actually inhibit my creativity. Constantly seeing and hearing other people's ideas and solutions for art, music and design. To always have the whole world through Spotify or Pinterest present in your pocket on a smart phone.

For me, I probably find ideas in the quiet, maybe not the literal quiet but when I can think freely and independently, without the presence of others’ opinions and or solutions.

Do you feel as though writing or performing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

Some kind of similar effects in the creativity of music are certainly present in other types of experiences around me.

But for me, my own music is more like a tool that satisfies a certain part of my senses. Listening to other music fulfils part of that part, while what I do myself fulfils it completely.

Every time I listen to "Albedo 0.39" by Vangelis, I choke up. But the lyrics are made up of nothing but numbers and values which don't appear to have any emotional connotation. Do you, too, have a song or piece of music that affects you in a seemingly counterintuitive way – and what, do you think, is happening here?

I guess it depends on what feeling I'm looking for when I listen to music. I mean sometimes I can intentionally choose a record or song that changes my mood or feeling to another one.

I think unfortunately most of the music that is around us for everyone is contradictory to one's own feelings. Maybe that's why I make my own music; to fill a void.

If you could make a wish for the future – what are developments in music you would like to see and hear?

Finding the balance between doing exactly what you want and making a profit (feeling good) at the same time.