In May of 2009, I had the pleasure of doing an interview with Keith Canisius. Keith is the genius behind the Copenhagen, Denmark band Rumskib. As of recently he's mainly been concentrating on a solo career & has released a lot of awesome music

One of your songs is called DREAM POPPERS TRIBUTE. It's really reminiscent of the Cocteau Twins. Are they one of the groups your paying tribute to in that song & how much have they influenced your music?

I discovered Cocteau Twins by coincidence around 10 years ago and I was completely fascinated from first track on (Cherry-coloured funk). During that couple of years from 2000-2002 I bought all their CD’s and must have played their music almost every day on my CD player.

I was working with a similar guitar sound on my 8 track recorder at the time so I was stoked to find a guitar sound which took the idea’s, I was playing around with to perfection. Well later on, I remember, that I wrote words down from their song titles and words from songs, which I found on the Internet. I was pretty into it and found it very special during those years.

So at a point (2001) I wanted to make my own kind of CT track, so I composed the music and wrote the lyrics from all the words I had gathered on my papers. If you listen carefully, you will hear, that all the words are CT related.
Around – then I re-recorded the track, with singer Tine Louise, 4 years later for fun and it then got produced once more for the Rumskib album in late 2006.

It was kind of hard not to give it a name like that, because of the lyrics and also because of some of the guitar licks. So I thought what the heck, it will be a fun thing and a thank you for the inspiration to CT kind of thing.

Who are your musical influences?

I grew up with 60’s music from my parents, but more inspiration came from my brothers room. He played 80’s synth pop and New wave everyday and pretty loud too. So I know all those bands from my early childhood (1980 and on) I liked Howard Jones a lot and guess he was my first music idol. It’s so hard to talk about influences, because I liked certain bands at different times in my life.

But 80’s New Wave & synth pop, obviously CT, Sonic Youth, MBV, later on bands like Boards of Canada, Animal Collective. I listen to a lot of different things.

How did Rumskib come about/form?

I wrote a note and put it up at the local music library, that I was looking for a female singer around 2002 maybe. Tine Louise responded and we met up once in a while where she sang on my music. Sometimes she wrote melodies and lyrics on her own, other times she sang mine.

What does Rumskib mean?

Spaceship

Has myspace helped you to better promote your music internationally & has the online radio show Auralgasms helped too?

Yeah Myspace has been good. I’m not that eager in using it anymore, but I get interesting requests and make new music friend’s once in while. I don’t know much about Auralgasm, but I know they like us a lot and play our music, so that’s nice.

Does Rumskib have any plans to tour North America?

I'm not sure what the plans for Rumskib are at the moment, because the live band stopped playing, so we don’t have a band at the moment. And Tine and I are also on some sort of break on working together, but I’m still making music as much as have the energy for it, so of course something new will come at a point. My second solo album is coming out soon (September I hope). I would like to come and play in North America though, but it seems expensive and maybe a little complicated.

At what age did you start to show an interest in music?

I loved music from a very early age on, maybe 3-4 years old. I always had music around me. I remember that I wanted to have the same haircut as Howard Jones, when I was 4 years old and also be a pop star. When I actually started playing guitar around 12-13 I was huge fan of Eddie Van Halen and practiced all day long to play like him during my teens.

If you could attend a concert by any musician who has passed away who would it be & why?

I think Jimi Hendrix, because he did unbelievable things for the guitar and I also like his music.

What song by another artist do you wish you would've written?

I don’t really know what to answer. I’m mostly inspired by music or songs that put’s me into a strong emotional mood of thoughts. I pick up ideas from music which I get passionate about I guess.

Which of your own songs is your own personal fave?

I’m writing, recording & producing music as much as I can, so it changes all the time. I’m pretty glad about all the tracks I made on my solo album and Rumskib album, because I loved them when I made them. But I guess some tracks gave more excitement than others. It’s a feeling I get when I’m working on it. Like Springtime; that melody got me out of bed a very early one morning in the summer of 2006, because I wanted to hear it, I remember. Stuff like that tells me that the songs will be good and have some impact.

[i]Check out Keith's music at the following links:
Keith Canisius: link
Rumskib:
link