Hello, Harry. You have a trio of songs currently out – The Law of Forgiveness, The Law of Thinking, and The Law of Sacrifice. What significance does each song hold for you?
- These songs each hold a very important piece of wisdom towards approaching life and growing as a human being. The Law of Thinking deals with the concept that you become what you think about. Essentially, this implies that you can change your life by changing your thoughts. The Law of Forgiveness supports this idea further by stating the importance of forgiveness. The thing is, if you don’t forgive – that is if you don’t abandon all resentment and negative thoughts – you will thus experience more of the same, because you become what you think about. Of course, learning to think in a new way doesn’t come without some efforts on our part. In order to change, you have to discipline yourself to adopt new habits. This is what The Law of Sacrifice is about – to grow, you must let something go, giving up something lower for something higher.
Can you describe your creative process to us? How does a song go from an initial thought to a complete song?
- I guess, most of the time I come up with a chord progression on the guitar that I like. In fact, I have quite a few of those chord progressions lying around, waiting for “their song” to come. If I’m then working on a project like this, I will go through them one by one to get a feeling for what might work for a particular song. This is also where I would typically begin writing the lyrics. But in some cases it’s the other way round. For instance, for The Law of Success (still to be released), I came up with more or less the whole song in my head during a bus ride. In fact, I recorded it on my mobile phone so that I wouldn’t forget it when I got back home.
Which artists are the greatest influences for you and your music?
- I have a really broad music taste. Here are just a few suggestions: Dire Straits, Beatles, Iron Maiden, Michael Jackson, to name but a few. Being from Denmark, I also like listening to a range of Danish artists. Something typical for me though is that I tend to be 10 years behind, in the sense that I rarely like new music being published. For example, in the 90’ies I like 80’ies music. In the 00’ies, I liked 90’ies music, etc. Having the guitar as my main instrument, I’m also a lot into guitar virtuosos like, Eric Johnson, Steve Vai, Mark Knopfler, Michael Angelo Batio, Tom Hess, and more.
Who is Dr. Raymond Holliwell and what role does he have in shaping your music?
- I know that he lived in Phoenix, Arizona where he had a seminary, and that he released the book “Working with the Law” in 1969, but apart from this, I don’t know a whole lot about him actually. I came across his book while studying a course from Bob Proctor and Mary Morrissey, and I was absolutely fascinated with it. I believe that I compose the best music when I’m inspired about some particular idea, and shortly after reading the book, I had a strong vision to put it into music. 11 Laws, 11 songs, one album. Imagine putting on the CD, listening to beautiful, versatile music, while being immersed in the groundbreaking messages of Dr. Raymond Holliwell. I find this to be a powerful concept.
Which sort of social media website have you had the best successes with? What about these online services are different from the traditional face to face meeting that musicians traditionally utilize?
- Until now, I’ve had the biggest audience and response on Facebook. Probably because it seemed to have so many members and such good demographic records, I also gave it the most attention of course. But apart from that I spend a lot of time developing my artist website harrythomsen.com and also on creating and uploading music videos on YouTube. The online services as opposed to meeting face to face allows me to reach an audience far beyond my physical reach. It’s incredible to get to interact with people from all over the world. That being said, I would definitely like to go touring at some point and meet people for real, but I believe I need to finalize a few more songs first.
Which track of yours do you favor the most, and what makes it so?
- Of course I like all of them, but if I had to pick one it would probably be The Law of Thinking. I think there is a certain quality to the melody and that Giddam’s performance came out in a particularly good way here.
How can individuals find samples of your music?
- On harrythomsen.com one can listen to the songs in full – either via the music player to the right or under the menu item “Music”. Please do leave a comment. I would be happy to hear what you think.
What is the next step for you as a musician and a person?
- The next step for me would be to release some more songs to finalize the album. It’s a big job composing, recording, producing, mixing, etc. – a job that I enjoy very much – and that’s why some time always goes by between the release of each song. As a person, my goal is to always keep learning and growing. Composing the music, studying to write the lyrics is one way for me to do this. After this album, I already have the next one planned. Giddam and I will compose and release an Angel Album together – one song for each archangel. A powerful concept!
Do you have any final thoughts for NeuFutur readers?
- I like to believe that I write spiritual or inspirational music. A lot of other spiritual music is either very soft meditation music or Christian gospel. I really like this as well, but it only corresponds to but a few of the feelings and moods of the human being. Something that perhaps differentiates my music is that it is versatile, melodious rock with energy, emotion and a strong rhythm – still having the spiritual message.
Thank you so much for your time.
- It was my pleasure, thanks for having me.
Harry Thomsen Interview
