Life and Inspiration: Jon Hopkins
June 12, 2009Handpicked to perform at Sydney’s Luminous Festival by ambient music godfather Brian Eno, London innovator Jon Hopkins is a rising star. He chatted to MAG about his new album, and former life as a classical prodigy. By Dan Rule
You were trained in classical piano and attended the Royal College of Music in London. What made you turn away?
“I realised I wasn’t going to be a classical pianist when I won this concerto competition. I had to play a piece with the orchestra, in front of an entire classical crowd, at the concert hall at college. It was the most terrifying thing I’d ever done.
Have you seen Shine? It was the same concert hall, and the same conductor.
The difference is that I didn’t go mental,
at that particular point.”
Who really inspired you to explore electronic and ambient music?
“Groups like Plaid, on Warp Records, were a massive influence. They have this real delicacy, but also a real brutality. It’s funny though, I didn’t know much about ambient music – I didn’t even know Eno’s stuff until I got these reviews of my first record saying I sounded like him (laughs). Of course, I then realised that his influence was in everything else that I’d most likely heard.”
How did the songs on Insides arise?
A myriad of sources? Or do you start
with piano?
“This almost feels like a piano album.
Things grow out of one element, there’s a huge level of improvisation around that – just chucking ideas at it and seeing which ones survive. I keep the idea of playing, as opposed to programming, at the forefront.
I don’t want it to become too abstract, like it’s been composed in a vacuum.”
Do the titles convey a physiological themes?
“Insides is about the body. Like, Vessel is just another word for the human body – the vessel that carries your soul, or whatever. I like having that vaguely graphic element and visceral connotation. With Light Through the Veins in particular, I wanted to conjure up this idea of being electrified by euphoria; those moments when something incredible’s happened and you’re just so alive with it.”
Experimental music explores new language. Yours seems more traditional?
“If you allow yourself no rules at all, and stretch everything as far as you like, it can be less effective than saying, ‘I’m going to stick to a song structure’ or ‘I’m going to incorporate this instrument’. I find it more exciting to put a few restrictions on myself.”
Insides is out through Domino/EMI.
