Arne Van Petegem of Styrofoam finished a North American tour last November, returned to his native Belgium and finished a collaborative album in February, and started work on his own new album last month. He played with Death Cab for Cutie in Amsterdam on June 25th and will play with Low in Antwerp on July 29th. On his last album, Nothings Lost, released in 2004, he worked together with artists Valerie Trabeljhar (Lali Puna), Andrew Kenny (The American Analog Set), Ben Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie, The Postal Service), Bent Van Looy (Das Pop), and Alias. In addition, he creates remixes prolifically. He is one of the many strong artists on the Berlin-based Morr Music label whose passion and commitment to his craft shine through. Glitch-pop impresario Arne spoke with us recently.

“lately it seems more as if the music making itself turns into an inspiration”

PE: How did you get into music?
ARNE: I went to music school starting age six and then when I was twelve I moved on to playing guitar. I had my first band when I was fifteen, playing mostly cover versions and a couple years later I got into more noisy pop stuff like sonic youth, dinosaur jr and hüsker dü and that’s when things became more serious and putting out a record of my own seemed possible all of a sudden. After a while I got sort of tired of playing in bands, so i bought myself a four track tape recorder and started experimenting on my own, gradually adding more electronic instruments and computer production to the mix.

PE: What instruments do you play?
ARNE: I play the guitar (electric + aocustic), I sing and I play some keyboards - I guess like most “electronic” producers in that aspect I’m mainly restricted to one fingered melodies. I’d love to be able to really play keyboards, maybe I should take a course or something. :)

PE: What do you like best about what you do?
ARNE: I think the most fascinating thing is the constant search you seem to be on, which can be very frustrating on the one hand, but very rewarding as well when things end up working out. There’s nothing that beats firing up a just finished new song on the ipod and walking through town.

PE: How do you define your sound?
ARNE: I think it’s quite diverse actually. Lately I feel pretty torn sometimes between live instrumentation (as I’ve been doing with the styrofoam live band the past year) and programmed sounds - I’ve been getting more into playing instruments (guitars, but also synths, drum machines) rather than using software and a computer interface. Apart from that i guess you could say what I’m doing is pop music basically.

PE: How do you make music?
ARNE: I think the main method is that there is no method. I love doing remixes for artists and I somehow always end up treating it as a way to try out new stuff, sounds, structures, techniques… I think my production process also changes with every new record. For instance for the new styrofoam album i just started working on I’m planning to have some of the live band involved so whereas before I would work towards a finished track, I’m now sort of producing demos that we’ll take into a “real” studio later on with different musicians involved.

PE: Has touring and releasing an album affected you or your approach to music?
ARNE: With the last Styrofoam album “nothing’s lost” it was the first time I had a real band to play the songs live and it sort of got me excited again about playing live like this, to be able to rock out, have a bigger interaction with the audience, leave room for improvisation and being able to play lots of guitar again on stage. It’s definitely something I want to turn to my advantage when working on this new album.

PE: We read in an interview with Thomas Morr that you used to run a record label called Atomic. Is this true? Is there anything you can tell us about this experience?
ARNE: Yes, this is true. It was the in-house label of the record store where I used to work back in the day. We released a series of vinyl only singles and ep’s - one of those was a split 10″ with Isan and Tin Foil Star (the latter a pre-Styrofoam project), two albums by a band called Orange Black (Dieter’s band before he started the Go Find, now also on Morr Music) as well as an Amber#2 album (the band I sang and played guitar in before starting Styrofoam).

PE: How did you become involved with Morr Records?
ARNE: Thomas Morr was working for a distribution company that also distributed the Atomic recordings releases. That’s how we first got in touch. Pretty soon after that, Thomas started up Morr Music and asked me if I would like to do a release on his new label.

PE: Could you describe your influences?
ARNE: I’m a big music freak - I’ve been buying and collecting records and cds pretty fanatically for the past fifteen years. However, there are a couple of constants, bands that I feel have had a huge influence on what I’m doing - artists such as Hüsker Dü, Morrissey, Spacemen 3, The Go-Betweens and there are more… That whole New Zealand scene with the bats, the chills, David Kilgour… electronic music (the standard fare: Aphex, Autechre…) were more important in terms of showing production techniques and possibilities of playing with sound. However - I’ve always been more interested in incorporating these techniques and sounds in more conventional pop song structures and contexts.

PE: What do you like about touring?
ARNE: Mainly the idea that producing music in my studio in the spare room enables me to travel all over the world. I’m also a “big cities” type of person (as opposed to countryside) so I always feel excited about for instance being able to travel all over north America for three weeks and get to see all these big cities.

PE: Do you have any favorite places?
ARNE: My favourite cities in North America (just to start somwhere) are Seattle, Chicago, San Francisco, NYC (up to some degree), Montreal…they each have their own thing going on, very distinct from one another…Montreal definitely reminds me the most of my home town (Antwerp, Belgium)

PE: What inspires you?
ARNE: I used to feel really inspired by outside influences (books, movies, tv) but lately it seems more as if the music making itself turns into an inspiration - just being able to sit down and start creating stuff.

PE: You mentioned to us in an email that you have a day job…what is it?
ARNE: I’m running a city funded but independently run musicians’ centre here in Antwerp - it’s a huge place with rehearsal spaces, recording studio, multimedia room, lots of masterclasses, courses etc. We are also opening our own club on Sept 20th. It’s a fun job but it takes up a lot of my time.

PE: What do you love to do?
ARNE: Touring, playing with my kids, dining, producing music and performing it live.

PE: What do you love to eat?
ARNE: Seafood, asian food (especially Japanese)

PE: Is there anything you can tell us about your upcoming album?
ARNE: I finished a collaborative album with my friend Fat Jon (of the Five Deez) that’s coming out in October. We produced and wrote everything together on that one, so it’s got me and Jon collaborating on the music and the both of us singing and rapping as well.

Apart from that I started working on the next Styrofoam album a couple of weeks ago. So far I have three songs finished in the demo stage. I would like it to be quite uptempo, rocking even, lots of guitar playing and live drums. Then again, it might end up sounding totally different (as usual). I hope to have the album finished by the end of this year. I’m not sure yet if I’ll have guest singers or not this time around.

I’ve also been working on quite some remixes lately. I just finished one for an american band called the Submarines and I’m currently working on another one for Leigh Nash’s upcoming album.

PE: Who are you listening to these days?
ARNE: As I said I’m a big music geek, so I’m constantly listening to lots of different stuff. currently near my turntable/ cdplayer/ ipod: Sixtoo, Eleventh Dream Day, Ghostface, Madlib, Hefty label compilations, Built to Spill, Spank Rock, Tom Verlaine.

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Styrofoam
Styrofoam MySpace
Fat Jon and Styrofoam
Morr Music

Albums
Nothing’s Lost (2004)
I’m What’s There to Show That Something’s Missing (2003)
A Short Album About Murder (2000)

Some Remixes
“What I Want” on “Over the Edge” by The Go Find
“Casio” on “Mixed Signals” by Tristeza
“A New Start” on “The Academic Rise of Falling Drifters” by Giardini di Miro
“Drugs Or Me” on “Stay on My Side Tonight” by Jimmy Eat World
“Cool Kids Keep” on “Set Free” (Japanese edition) by The American Analog Set
“Let The People Know” on “Let The People Know” by Five Deez
“Capable” on “Capable” by Najwa Nimri
“The Postman” on “Updates ep” by The American Analog Set
“Nothing Better” on “We Will Become Silhouettes” by The Postal Service