An Interview with Vinyl Floor

A new album release from Vinyl Floor just dropped, and this record showcases such a wide and in-depth array of rock approaches from indie-rock to folk-rock, and even this sort of theatrical undertone that shows face a lot through the record.

Now, don't get me wrong, the record does get a little heavy at times and certainly has its anthemic moments, but it also has a lot of warmth in its tonality.

A lot of the record combines different guitar tones to create something that just feels welcoming, in a sense. Some songs focus more on clean or acoustic guitars, and those, of course, have the strongest sense of warmth in their tone, but some of the rock songs even have this inviting feel to them as well.

What's more is that a lot of the songs actually tell stories. The lyrics can be really descriptive at times to the point where you can paint pictures in your head as songs unfold, which I found amazing.

The album opens up with a song called "All This and More", which is an amazing door opener for the rest of the record, simply because you're getting some of the great staples that the full record boasts.

You have a lot of this experimental rock underbelly combined with those warm guitar tones and uniquely displayed vocals, giving it the hint of a theatrical touch I mentioned earlier.

This is definitely a sort of indie rock record. You can hear a slew of influences under the belt coming through differently with each track, and there are no two songs that are seriously alike.

Some of the songs dig a bit deeper and get more serious, while others feel more lighthearted, but there's always a bit of a story to tell.

It doesn't really feel like this is a concept record per se, but a lot of the songs lyrically feel like they came from genuine places. This is one of the aspects that gives the record charm and character, which you end up getting quite attached to throughout its course.

"The Helping Hand" is certainly one of my favorites on the record and does continue on with the slightly experimental and almost cinematic backbone, but this one just has its own feel. You can hear the indie rock influence in this one, too, but it leans more towards that experimental, almost Radiohead style, but done differently.

The song is very lush with loads of layers and plenty to chew on. Different textures sit on top of each other and give the song a certain liveliness.

Tracks like 'Land of the Desert" hit with this beautifully displayed approach and soundscape, vast undertones, cellos that come reeling in and give the song a heavier hand and emotion, and this is where you start to get even more of that warm tonality that almost has a touch of Americana in there.

I loved this track in particular, just because it really did an amazing job lyrically of pulling me in and musically of setting an incredible mood and atmosphere.

"Back of My Hand" is a gorgeous single. This one is incredibly melodically driven, and it sounds like violins going across it, delivering you with this incredibly addictive hook and sort of surprising progression changes that just stick with you for hours after the song has ended.

Because of those progression changes and the way the song feels, as a whole, you still get that theatrical feel, simply because it sounds almost like a score of sorts. It's almost orchestrated, bigger, and has a way of surrounding you and keeping you right where it wants to.

There is a certain elegance to songs like this one. It is quite beautiful and very memorable, giving you the feeling that these guys really pay attention to, not just the final product, but more the aesthetic that they're trying to deliver.

I feel like atmosphere is a really important aspect to this band, and they certainly pinpointed a particular one for this entire record.

The record closes out with a track called "Balancing Act", and this one definitely has a particular and unique mood to it. It's piano-driven, and a lot of the vocal Melodies are performed following those piano hooks.

The drumming on this record is so important, simply because the drummer doesn't just drive the record or sit in the pocket; he adds a liveliness to everything. The energy on this record is somewhat electric but not over the top.

This is not a heavy rock record but rather a more melodic and intricate one with beautiful work guitar-wise and vocal wise come up with the entire band coming together to create something very specific.

I really got pulled into the album, and I can definitely suggest that you should listen to the entire thing, straight through, from start to finish.

There are more than a few surprises around its corners, and I definitely feel like it's well worth your time, especially if you really enjoy experimental rock that's influenced by some really vintage, classic stuff, but ventures and branches out and off into different areas.

Really, a wonderfully done album.

With the release of this one, we wanted to have a chat with the band to find out where it all came from and what might be next.

So, while you listen to the record, have a read through of our interview with Vinyl Floor below.

BS: How long did it take you guys to create ‘Balancing Act’, and what studio did you do it at?

Daniel: That kind of depends on where you start counting. The songwriting for what eventually became Balancing Act really got going shortly after we released the Funhouse Mirror album in September of 2022 - although some ideas properly go back a bit further than that. We demoed all of the songs before rehearsals even began.

Since we are a duo, we can only play the drums and one additional instrument (usually bass) at a time for the main live tracks. So, we rehearsed the basic live parts to fully pre-arranged demo tracks, just to get a sense of what the final result was going to be like. All in all, it took us about two years to write the songs, arrange the demos and rehearse the 13 tracks.

By September 2024, we felt ready to cut the basic tracks. We’ve worked at Studio Möllan in Sweden, many times before and we really like it for its vintage sound and its highly skilled owner, Emil Isaksson – so choosing that studio felt natural to us. We left Möllan with drums and bass recorded on all the songs (plus a few guitars) and took it to our own studio for overdubs – additional guitars, vocals and so on.

We also wrote out the already arranged parts to our guest musicians. Sara Andreasen’s vocals were recorded at our place, while Bebe Risenfors, Daniel Hecht, and Christian Ellegaard recorded horns, guitars and strings at additional studios. It all became a bit of a jigsaw puzzle.

BS: With the release of this record, will you be going out on tour to support it?

Daniel: We’ll be playing a few shows, but in a pretty minimal setup – mostly just the two of us with guitars and vocals. We’re not heading out on a full tour as such. That said, it would be fun to do a run of shows with a full band. Currently the challenge of performing the album the way it is on the album (complete with strings, horns and all) is too big. It would mean more people, more equipment and a whole lot more logistics than are currently available to us. Playing live is a fun thing but usually it is also a lot of work especially in a full band setting. At the moment, we’ve set up a small release party for Balancing Act, and we’ll be playing at that gig in Copenhagen on February 27, 2026 – which is also the day of the official album release.

I think our current lives served as a big inspiration for this record, along with the idea of creating music from a place that goes a bit back in time – to when music was played almost exclusively by hand, on real instruments. We’re both fascinated by modern technology and everything you can do with computers and digital tools – heck, we use it all of the time – and we also like to play around with tech and stuff in the music itself, which is definitely audible on the album. At the same time, we’re mindful of not losing craftsmanship and artistic integrity along the way. Insisting on this may be among the reasons why some people think we have this vintage sound to our music.

To us, music is really about spirit. Creating from the heart connects you to something deeper.

That’s where the magic happens. Technology can be incredibly helpful and fun to work with, but if the process becomes too detached, something human may get lost. Tools like dragging and dropping prefabricated chords into a program can be useful, but they don’t always create that direct connection between the artist and the music.

That conversation feels especially relevant right now with AI becoming part of the creative landscape. It challenges our idea of where music actually begins — with the tool, or with the human being behind it. AI can generate complex and convincing soundscapes very quickly, which is fascinating, but it also raises questions about intention, authorship, and emotional presence. For us, those human elements are still at the core of what makes music a meaningful language.

And to me, this tension really sits at the heart of Balancing Act — figuring out how we can use the technology in a way that supports creativity rather than replaces it. The challenge we face is how to move forward without losing touch with ourselves and/or each other. On a bigger level, the album is about finding a balance between humanity and technology. At least that is one way to look at it.

Thomas may see this in a different way.

BS: There are a few approaches strewn together throughout the record! What genre would you consider yourselves?

Daniel: We don’t really think of ourselves as belonging to one specific genre. I understand that genre labels can be helpful for new listeners—just to get a sense of what to expect and where to find us, catalogue-wise. And in that sense, we’re mainly rock, maybe alternative rock.

But from an artistic point of view, genres and boxes tend to feel more like limitations. If you want to explore new ground, limitations don’t really help. It’s a bit of a classic paradox: fans hear something they like and naturally want more of the same, while artists usually don’t work that way. It’s not a consumer product where you get the exact same thing every time.

Vinyl Floor has always been about exploring new territory—that’s just how we work. Personally, I think experiencing an album is a lot like reading a book. It would be pretty boring if the characters were either happy or sad all the time, or if they stayed in the same place, ate the same food every day, and only talked about the weather.

BS: Do you find it more fun to record or to perform live?

Daniel: They’re two very different experiences. We really enjoy playing live when the audience is actually there to listen. If people mainly want to talk through the show, I’d honestly rather be somewhere else. But when the setting is right and there’s a real connection, playing live can be incredibly rewarding.

The studio, on the other hand, is where we get to create new things, and that’s what I personally find the most fun. It gives me a lot to dig into. I also tend to think of myself more as a music creator—a writer and a composer — than strictly as a performing musician. Instruments, whether it’s drums, guitar, or piano, are important to me, but they’re really just tools for creating – more than they are performance tools as such.

For me, creating something new is more enjoyable than playing something that’s already been created.

BS: What is your favorite aspect about doing all this?

Daniel: Mostly it is about creating something I enjoy myself. When I start writing a song, I’m trying to channel certain emotions and moods. I do that first and foremost for myself, and maybe for the people closest to me.

At the same time, I do believe that music can do something good when it’s shared. If other people connect with it, then it feels like it has served a higher purpose.

I think I’ll always make music in some way. I don’t think it’s something I can just turn off. But recording and releasing it is a different story. It’s hard work and it’s costs and expenses, so sometimes I step back and ask myself what I really want to put my energy into.

BS: Are you already working on more material?

Daniel: Always. I’m constantly working on new material—and I think Thomas is as well. Whether it ends up being recorded and released… we’ll see.

BS: Do lyrics normally come first, or does it go the other way round for you?

Daniel: Almost always, it starts with a melody for me. Thomas may work a bit differently. A lot of the time the melody just forms in my head before I even touch an instrument, which is why I have so many recordings of myself just humming things into my phone.

Once I have a melody, I’ll usually find the chords that fit afterwards. Sometimes I just get the feeling that something will happen if I sit down at the piano—and more often than not, it does. It’s very rare that I write a song from start to finish in one go. Usually I’ll have a part, maybe a verse or a chorus, and then I’ll wait for inspiration to kick in before writing more. Because of that, I have a lot of different fragments lying around.

Occasionally some words come along with the melody, but most of the time I wait and write the lyrics once the overall structure is in place. For me, it’s more important that the lyrics serve the mood and the melody of the song than just what the words are saying. Lyrically, I also tend to leave space for interpretation.

BS: Did this record come out how you expected? Were you all happy when you heard the final product?

Daniel: Yeah, it pretty much came out the way we hoped it would. We’re happy with it and proud of the result. Of course, there are always small things where you think, “we could’ve done that a bit better,” but that’s probably inevitable. Overall, I think we did the best we could within the framework we were working in. Doing more or doing things differently would really just come down to having a bigger budget—plain and simple.

BS: Do you guys sit in on the mixing or mastering process?

Daniel: We usually sit in on the mixing process, yes. This time around we weren’t physically present when Søren Vestergaard mixed the album, but we were still involved—listening closely, commenting, and suggesting small adjustments along the way. We also spent a lot of time preparing the tracks beforehand to make the mixing process as smooth as possible.

Mastering is often done in the US, so we don’t usually sit in on that part. This time Søren Vestergaard also handled the mastering, but even then, we weren’t present for the session.

BS: What's the plan from here for you?

Daniel: Honestly, we have no fixed plan. We’ll see how things unfold. Hopefully Balancing Act is well received out there and helps lay the groundwork for the next project at some point. If not, we’ll adjust our course and do things in a different way. We’ll see.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=RDITYt6HU1ivU&v=ITYt6HU1ivU

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