Vinyl Floor are an alternative rock band from Denmark that recently released their fourth studio album, ‘Funhouse Mirror.’

The band was originally formed in 2007 in Copenhagen and is mostly influenced by legendary bands like the Beatles and Kinks, adding their own blueprint to the classic melodies. The latest album, ‘Funhouse Mirror’ is a step towards more melodic alternative pop rock and might be their most mature work yet.

“The world is wrapped in funhouse mirrors and people have gone mad”

The band has been active for over a decade now, would you like to share how it all started for you?

Thomas Charlie Pedersen: Daniel and I are brothers so we always jammed together in the living room when we were kids. In high school I played in a band which disbanded around the year 2000. During the aftermath I met up with my pals Martin and Kristian to form the band and we were called Guernica back then. We only needed a drummer and figured Daniel was too young (he was 15 at the time) so we had some drumming auditions without much success. Daniel asked if he could audition as well, and quite frankly, I thought it wasn’t the best idea since he was my younger brother and the rest of us were 19-20 years old. But he did a great job, he’s always been such a talented drummer, so he got the job and we started playing gigs. It wasn’t until around 2007 that we changed our name to Vinyl Floor. We’ve had changing members and our long-standing dear friend and guitar player Rasmus left after we finished our new album ‘Funhouse Mirror.’ So now we’re just two members using additional musicians.

What do you enjoy about vinyl flooring [laughs]?

Ha. Yeah, I know, silly name, right? It’s actually some kind of ode to our love of vinyl records. Daniel was collecting vinyl records in the late nineties/early noughties when the rest of us either still purchased CD’s or discovered Napster. So, I think there’s some kind of stubborn magic to that. Some kind of longing for the golden age of rock and our music draws a lot of inspiration from 60’s/70’s pop/rock so it just seemed to fit pretty well. The only downside is when people confuse us with a vinyl flooring company and stuff like that. And mind you, that still happens quite a lot!

You have a brand new album out, ‘Funhouse Mirror.’ What’s the story behind it?

We had written a lot of songs around 2015/2016 and recorded demos of them all. We decided to do a batch of rock songs first which we recorded for our 2018 ‘Apogee’ album. Many of the songs from this new record were demoed but not worked on further until around 2019. We knew these songs would need bigger arrangements and a bigger studio. We kept going back and forth from these demos to new stuff we were writing. An album slowly took form and when the world was in lockdown it seemed to intensify the process. We set a timeline, booked a recording studio and started preparing the basic tracks. At one point in the process Daniel suggested that we built a concept around funhouse mirrors and that it could be fun to present ourselves as distorted versions of ourselves in the artwork. Our talented cousin shot the photos and the great artwork designer Kristian Kokholm took care of the rest. The album deals with communication, misunderstanding, judgement, and stuff like that. It sometimes feels like we can’t see clearly anymore. The world is wrapped in funhouse mirrors and people have gone mad.

Can you share some further words about the recording and producing process behind it?

We self-produced ‘Apogee’ in 2016/2017 and knew we shouldn’t do that again. Some of the songs seemed to share the same feel as songs from our ‘Peninsula’ and ‘Vaudeville’ albums and those two were recorded at Studio Möllan in Sweden which is a great studio in the heart of Malmö with a plethora of vintage gear. We thought it would be a good idea to partner with producer Emil Isaksson once again and luckily he was available. But the road to bliss was marred by Covid and we had to postpone studio time a few times. Luckily, it all fell into place though a bit delayed. We share a great mutual understanding with Isaksson and we always have a great time with him in Malmö when we stay there. We booked the studio for two sessions. One for the live basic tracks and one for the overdubs and additional recordings. Then we went back to Denmark and recorded all the vocal parts ourselves. We returned to Sweden a few months later to mix it with Mr. Isaksson and that was it, really. Really focused, intense, fun.

How was it to work with Rob Stoner (Bob Dylan, et cetera) and Bebe Risenfors (Tom Waits, et cetera)?

Great, obviously. Dylan and Waits are both in my top 5 of greatest songwriters of all time and the best American songwriters IMO. It was an incredible experience to work with two musicians who have performed and recorded with them. For our ‘Peninsula’ album back in 2011 we had considered Risenfors a few times but ended up not contacting him. I don’t recall why, really. During the preparations for this album we just knew we had to try and get him on board and luckily he agreed to do so. We did the basic track for ‘Dear Apollon’ with him live in the studio. He played upright bass, was a super sweet guy and told all those funny Tom Waits stories. Later he did all the horn parts in his own studio. The Rob Stoner story is a bit more tricky since we never met him in person. He’s in New York City and I contacted him online to see if he would be interested in recording with us. We sent him some demos and he said yes. Though New York City was pretty much shut down at that point he managed to book a studio and recorded the bass parts, sent them over for us to mix and that was it. We corresponded a lot during these recordings and he was such a pro and contributed a lot of good ideas. It was important to us that their participation in this project didn’t appear as a gimmick or something. We just needed someone to do some additional recordings and we wanted the mark of other musicians and we thought why not aim for someone who has inspired us? We adore Risenfors’ work on ‘Alice’ and ‘Blood Money’ by Waits and we just love Stoner’s melodic and lively bass-playing on a Dylan album like ‘Desire’ so it seemed like a good idea to ask them both. We carefully chose the songs for them to contribute to and when you hear the album I think they fit in perfectly. We are forever grateful.

How would you compare it with your previous releases?

A bit in the vein of our albums ‘Peninsula’ and ‘Vaudeville’ but with a somewhat looser concept and two brothers who have gotten better at writing, recording and arranging. Hopefully! I think ‘Funhouse Mirror’ stands on its own. It’s my favorite album of ours and I think I will say that for a long time to come.

How do you usually approach music making within the band?

I like to write alone. The essential part – the songwriting part – is still quite mysterious to me. The songs never happen when I sit down and tell myself to write a song. They come when they’re not always supposed to. When I’m not at home with a guitar in hand and situations like that. But I write quite a lot even though I’d like to be inspired all the time and I’m not. It sort of comes when it wants to. And then I get the writing down pretty quickly. I think Daniel works much the same way as I. When something is introduced to the band there usually will be a longer period of time in which we shape it in the form of a demo and we try to take different approaches tempo-wise, key-wise and stuff. But once we enter a recording studio we know exactly what we want to do. Most of the time.

Are you planning to play some shows in support of the release?

We’d like to, yes. Daniel and I may go out and perform a bit as an acoustic duo. We’re in the process of sorting that out, as we speak.

What are some future plans?

Different ideas. We have some new songs already. And we have also talked about revisiting our backlog at some point. We may also throw a little surprise next year, you never know.

Let’s end this interview with some of your favourite albums. Have you found something new lately you would like to recommend to our readers?

Oh, I really suck at finding new exciting names because I’ve been in this bubble for so long and I’m always a bit late to the party. That said, I just gave the new Wilco record ‘Cruel Country’ a listen and I thought it was pretty good. I also listen a lot to the latest Dylan album ‘Rough & Rowdy Ways’ since I am to see him perform in a few days. Some of my all-time favorite albums are ‘Mule Variations’ by Tom Waits, ‘The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway’ by Genesis and the ‘White Album’ by the Beatles.