Of course, I will have to start with interviewing myself to see if the questions will work!
This should be interesting; and I’ll try to keep it short…
What’s your real name?
My name is Johan Eckman.
Where are you from? And where do you live?
I grew up in a small town called Arvika in Sweden. When I was around 20 I moved to my current city with is Malmö in the south of Sweden,
How did you come up with your artist name?
When I first started making piano music; I made it for the kids at work (I work as a preschool teacher for kids in the ages of 1-5). Usually we had some kind of calming music during nap time, but I wasn’t very happy with the old CDs my workplace provided. So I decided to make my own relaxing music. Sleepy Songs was the name I choose when I finally released those songs on Spotify and has stayed with me since.
How long have you been playing the piano?
I started playing the piano my second year of what we in Sweden call “gymnasiet”. I guess you could compare it to high school in America. I was about 16 years old. I’m actually more of a drummer…
How long have you been making piano music?
Since around 2011 when I started my first job as a preschool teacher.
Tell me something about that moment you realized you could make songs yourself!
I guess it’s pretty common as a kid to think that rockstars and artists arn’t human. They’re something else. I started making music with my computer when I was around 14. Thats kind of how I learned to play instruments; by “composing”. That’s still how I learn and get better with my instruments; by composing. I don’t know that many songs by other composers…
Have you made music in other genres before?
I have made so much music in my days… From singer songwriter to Swedish schlager. When I was about 20 years old I got a publishing deal with a company that tried to pitch my “hit-songs” to Asian record companies. They didn’t succeed. I have made songs in pretty much every genre you could think of. I consider myself to be a better songwriter/producer than a piano player. I’ve also made a gold selling children’s music album called Prinsessans Rockband.
What are your favorite artists in this “piano genre”?
Olafur Arnalds. He’s the only one I get back to every time.
Is there one song which you play over and over again as soon as you sit down by a piano? Your own or someone else’s?
There is three songs I always come back to. One of them is my own song 0334. Another one is Tomorrows song by Olafur Arnalds, and the third one is a song called Längtar, which is written by my buddy Dan Sigurdson for our band Broms Friskusen.
What song inspires you the most when you’re making music? Can you name just ONE song/composition?
That would be Tomorrow’s song by Olafur Arnalds.
Tell me something about you latest release.
My latest release was the single Arvika (7th december 2018). During the summer vacation of 2018 I only brought with me my Maschine from Native Instruments and a tiny keyboard (only two octaves). I’ve has
my Maschine for many years without knowing how to use it properly. I figured it was time. But I couldn’t do another one of my piano solo songs, so I decided to make something more electrical, but still with the piano as the main instrument. So down in the basement of my parents house in Arvika I made this song. When I got back to Malmö again, I decided to make a piano solo of the song as well, so this single contains two versions of the same song; one with electronics, and one with only the piano.
What’s happening next? New releases etc.
I have one single coming mid January, another single late February and a four track EP coming in March. At the moment I’m doing the last finished of another EP which hopefully will be released in May.
Thank you for reading! I think it went pretty well, didn’t it?
I’m not going to bother you with social and streaming links here. They can be found all over the place.