Interview with Lars Hedelin

Up next in our interview-series, we talked to my good friend and very talented artist Lars about drummers vs. drum machines, seducing Adolf Hitler and art.


-How and when do you get ideas for your films? What would normally trigger the brilliant madness? ( Or are you always brilliantly mad?)

Oh boy. I usually get an idea for one thing when working on something else. But then I'm wrapped up in this one year project and can't get to work on it right then and later it has morphed into something else. My ideas are always ruined by time and my imagination. I also get ideas from reading books and watching films. And I also steal other people's ideas. And one more thing: I object to the term brilliant madness because it strengthens a dangerous and boring stereotype, That one which depicts the artist as an outcast, and conveys the image of someone whose creativity is a result of this unwillingness to cope with society, or mental illness or whatever. [ You're so right, my bad - ED]


-From what I hear, it's the quiet ones who always end up being psychopathic killers. Is that why Americans as a people are so peaceful while Swedes are so violent? Please elaborate.

So, like, maybe Americans and Swedes have different outputs for their rage. Maybe Swedish people get into fights after soccer games (From what I hear there aren't many baseball or football hooligans in the US but I can be misinformed) while Americans go into war with different countries in the middle east. Also I think Swedish people have found a way to blow off steam through watching American action movies, while you sensitive Americans are mostly into French new wave cinema.

-If you had to choose between the Netherlands and Florida being submerged in water because of global warming which one would you rather see go?

Well, I guess it depends if you're more into oranges or pot. Me I could never choose. Next question please.

-If I remember correctly you play drums. Who is the sweetest drum player ever in the history of the whole wide world? Will there ever be peace between drummers and drum machines??! Could some unholy union in a drummer-drum machine cyborg finally create the peace in this god forsaken war????!!

I have a good friend named Danny who is a really good drummer. Also the drummer in Deerhoof, and Jimi Hendrix's drummer. I think the only solution to the drummer-drum machine conflict is two separate states. Also America has to stop supplying the drummers with weapons and play a more active role in getting the two sides to the negotiation table.


-Which historical figure would you most want to make out with? Optional follow up: "What line would you use to seal the deal?

Adolf Hitler. I'd just ask him to feel the Arian bump at the back of my head. No national socialist has ever been able to turn me down after witnessing the grandeur of that great swelling.

-Which city do you like best, Umeå or Stockholm? Please elaborate, unless it's Stockholm.

Ah, Florida vs Holland, Drummers vs Drum machines, inåtnavel or utåtnavel, Umeå or Stockholm. Stockholm is the place where I've tried to build a life for myself for twenty years, but my girlfriend lives in Umeå. Maybe if she moved to Ulan Bator I would like it there better. But Umeå also has fabulous Marta so I have to go with Umeå.


-It's your birthday and you have a magical dinner party, to which you can invite 3 nonfictional people, living or dead. The catch; at the end of the night you have to stab one of them in the heart with a steak knife. Who are your choices. Please elaborate.

I would invite Elisabeth II, Princess Diana and Prince Charles. I would use all my skill and cunning to maneuver them in such a way that at the end of the evening The Queen and the princess would turn against Charles and they would in a joint venture stab him together. The Queen and her stepdaughter would then get undressed and make out on the table, all smeared in blood and food, while I sit in my chair quietly observing.



Lars Hedelin studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Umeå. Make sure to check out his movies and the rest of his webpage. Here's a incredibly sexy France Galle-video that Lars picked out for us. Enjoy!