00:04
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
I picked this picture by Asger Jorn, called Coupures de table. It's very simple, and as soon as I saw it, it spoke to me.

00:15
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
And I think I relate a little bit to art that has some moodiness in it. And maybe what I've been through in my life, sometimes the colors can represent a certain happiness, I feel. When you have more subdued artwork like this, with less colors and more abstract, I feel there's a little bit of pain, and I feel there's a little bit of extra thoughts and moments in your life where you reflect.

00:44
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
I can't explain why that's what I get out of this, but that's what I get out of it. It reminds me of myself closing my eyes before going to sleep. It's underplayed, minimalistic. I absolutely fell in love with this.

01:08
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
My name is Tina Jøhnk Christensen, and I'm the host of Danish Originals, a podcast series created in partnership with the American Friends of the National Gallery of Denmark and the National Gallery of Denmark. Our goal is to celebrate Danish creatives who have made a significant mark in the US.

01:26
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Today our guest is Carsten Schack, a Danish DJ and music producer, also known as Soulshock. Welcome Carsten.

01:33
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
Thank you so much.

01:34
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
It's so lovely being here and maybe I should actually say welcome to us because we are at your house in Los Angeles.

01:41
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
You sure are.

01:43
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Would you start by explaining to our listeners where we are in the world and how long you have called this location in Hollywood your home?

01:51
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
Absolutely. We are in one of the most historic areas in Hollywood Hills, the beginning of Hollywood Hills. This place is right above Hollywood Boulevard, and it's right above Hollywood Bowl.

02:05
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
I used to live in Sunset Plaza. I went through a traumatic experience losing my wife in 2015. She fell on the patio in this house we had just designed. And I realized that everything was her, and my son was home when she fell. I couldn't stay there because that was where she passed away.

02:25
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
I was so messed up from losing my wife. I was driving around. I really wanted a modern place because, you know, being Scandinavian, we like our minimalism and all that stuff. All the places I went to had these real estate ladies and they would say, is it just for you? And I was like, me and my son. And I would even say, I just lost my wife. And they would reply, Great! Anyways, this is a four bedroom. And I was just, okay —

02:50
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
No way. But they didn't even recognize what you said?

02:52
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
No, they didn't even listen to it. So I was up seeing a house and I drove by this house. And this is a house from 1929 with a lot of history. Jim Morrison used to live here, from The Doors. We're sitting in Drew Barrymore's old place. And it's untouched almost from 1929. And it's completely different for me. Very bohemian. Very relaxed. Very soulful because of the age of this place.

03:23
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
And I walked in and felt the energy right away. Was supposed to stay here a couple of years, and I'm in my eighth year. I just love this place so much. I knew eventually I needed to get back in and buy a house and I'm looking right now. But this has been my little oasis, my sanctuary. It saved me this place. So, very special.

03:43
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Understand. You took us on a tour and the tiles are amazing, the wood is amazing. Everything is beautiful, the view here is amazing. We can see downtown. We can see Hollywood. And we will return to your beautiful wife who passed away. And we are obviously sorry about this tragic story in your life.

04:01
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
But let's continue on the location that we are because in a book in Danish that you recently published in Denmark, which we have here in front of us, called Soulshock: Succes, sorg og store stjerner, which means success, sorrow and big stars, you talk about your life and your career.

04:22
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And you say in this book that LA is not a beautiful city, but it's beautiful at nighttime, when you are in the hills and you have a view of the city and you're above the city. How would you describe the feeling that you have when you look at Los Angeles from above at nighttime with the light flickering?

04:41
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
It's a very magical place to start this interview because it meant so much to me. That quote is actually Roman Polanski who was visiting Jack Nicholson and he drove through the city coming from France and he's looking at all the buildings and as we Europeans can probably relate to, it's not necessarily pretty driving through LA.

05:03
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
You know, architecture and history has been put aside. Someone wants to open a new CVS, it's a historical place, down it goes. It's a different feeling where in Europe, we really treasure our history and so forth. But I will never forget the first place we lived when we came over here, me and my partner, it was Soulshock & Karlin as a production team, was in Encino. And I discovered Mulholland Drive.

05:30
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
When I was young sitting in Gug in Aalborg, I would feel a little bit different than other kids, 'coz I was so ambitious and I had these dreams. And if I shared those dreams and ambitions with anyone, it was just like, you're crazy, especially in Denmark, where we have this Janteloven, like, definitely don't think you are anything.

05:51
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
And I would sit outside on my mom and dad's staircase and I would look at the stars, just dreaming. And that exact feeling sitting outside in Pinjehøj in Gug Aalborg, looking up at the stars was the same feeling when I came up on Mulholland Drive and I looked over the city. It looks like stars, flickering lights, endless dreams, endless ambitions. It doesn't stop.

06:19
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
Everybody has come here and achieved something and it became my safe haven to have this view in front of me because it inspired me. I felt related to it looking at the stars from my hometown. And it was so important for me, no matter where I lived in LA, to always have a view.

06:40
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Mulholland Drive to us who live in Los Angeles is more than a David Lynch movie, which is a fabulous movie, of course. But it's a road that runs in the hills and it's zigzagging its way on top of the hills. Can you explain a little bit to the listeners who haven't been on Mulholland Drive, what this drive is about?

06:59
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
It is an unbelievable magical drive. Around here by Hollywood Bowl is the beginning or end of Mulholland Drive. What people don't know who doesn't live here is we got a valley. We got the main Hollywood area, Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, and on the other side is a valley. That means you are now on top of that mountain.

07:22
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
So not only do you have the view over Hollywood, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, when you reach the top, on your right side, you will have the view of the valley that's just as big. I would suggest going up there when the sun is going down. Because you start just feeling the breeze being on the top of the world of LA. As the sun goes down, and the lights and the darkness come in, it's like a Disneyland ride, and especially for us Danes who don't have any mountains!

07:51
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
That's true.

07:52
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
And also don't have a city this big. It's such a huge city. And I just feel it's one of the greatest places to just sit and reflect and also think about what this town has achieved, what people have achieved living here, coming here, and I just think it's one of the most inspirational drives you can do in LA.

08:11
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
We are in your home in Los Angeles. Does Los Angeles feel like home to you? And what does home signify?

08:20
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
You know, it's a very good question, because I struggled with that, not just five years, maybe 25 years. I just didn't really know if home was America or Denmark. I'm very close to Denmark. My mom passed away in 2017. My dad's still there. My sister and her two kids are there.

08:42
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
I have a Danish partner in my company, and always felt coming to Denmark was going home. And to this day, it's still going home, going to Denmark. So I call Denmark my home. And why, because that's just where I'm from. And I just feel extremely Danish still. I love this country. I'm not even a citizen here yet.

09:08
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You are not an American citizen?

09:10
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
No, I'm a Danish citizen.

09:14
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Interesting.

09:15
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
Yeah. I'm very Danish, and proud of it.

09:19
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Yes, we are proud of it, all of us. You're from Aalborg. It's a provincial town in Denmark. It's in Jutland in the northern part. And today, you can say, you know, a little boy who grew up in Aalborg, you can say that you worked with people like Whitney Houston, Beyoncé, Pink, Tupac, Mary J. Blige, and many more. I can't even list them.

09:44
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Talk about back in the 1980s when you discovered music and started planning for it to become your career path. You've spoken about dreaming the American dream. When did that dream start?

09:58
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
I have always been so fascinated by this country. And I know I just called Denmark home, but in some way it would be impossible not to say that this is home as well. My dad still has this little letter — when I was nine years old, I could barely write, and it said, I'm going to the USA.

10:17
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Nine?

10:18
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
When the USA performed at the Olympics, I cheered for the USA. Wherever the USA was in the world, that was my heroes. I looked up to this country and still do. I know it's going through a phase that's separated people over here, but I think this is the most incredible country in the world, especially if you have dreams. Because it's probably the only place where your dreams can really come true on such a large scale.

10:42
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
It was in me. Why was it in me? I don't know. Very early on, if we played sports in the garden, I would be in the USA. So, it was so deep in me. As a teenager, I had friends and first I was a little bit of a tough little boy. You are that in the suburbs and in Jutland, you better be.

10:58
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
They would play AC/DC and I'll come home going, I have no idea what this is, what's going on here? And then I'm gonna go to some kind of new wave punky thing. And they'll play Dead Kennedys and Sid Vicious and Sex Pistols. And we wear military boots and we have to kick each other over the leg. It's called pogo dancing. And I'm like, I'm good, thank you.

11:19
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
And I tried to go in and listen to Wham! and put on a pink shirt and whatever. And I just didn't fit in anywhere. It was so weird. And I was a very strong, confident boy. So it wasn't like I was an outsider. I just wasn't fulfilled inside at all.

11:33
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
Until Al Jones, a DJ on the Danish national radio played a record called Grandmaster Flash, The Wheels of Steel, which is a record that's not a normal record with a singer or band. It's a DJ putting together 8, 9, 10 different songs, scratching, mixing them together with sounds I'd never heard before.

11:57
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
I became obsessed at that moment. It was like lightning had hit me. And I called everybody and no one knew anything about this new thing called hip hop. One of my friends on Gug Skole, Henrik Milling, who now is doing radio and stuff like that. And he was my great friend growing up and he was a really nerdy guy.

12:17
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
So if he was into something, he was into it and he knew about hip hop. So we became best friends and we started running around in Adidas suits and God knows what, and my mom and dad were like, are you okay? And Henrik changed his name to Doctor Jam. And I became Soulshock because we saw all these names, Grandmaster, DXT, DJ, Mix Master, Ice, and all this stuff, and I'm like, Carsten Schack is going nowhere.

12:46
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
And actually, it was Henrik who came up with the name Soulshock. And in the beginning it was Scratchmaster Soulshock, because I wanted to be Grandmaster Flash. That was it. That was my new mission. And I studied and I didn't have the money to buy this special turntable called Technics SL-1200. If I'm too nerdy, stop me —

13:07
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
I'm sure some people who listen will understand.

13:10
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
Okay, I will make it short. So I had a Bang & Olufsen turntable, which you cannot scratch on. And then I could purchase one of the SL-1200 turntables that's sitting next to me actually. And that meant I couldn't mix records together, but I could scratch on that one turntable and I spent eight hours a day scratching.

13:30
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
And I could all of a sudden afford also a second turntable. I worked at a clothing store called Wagner. Funny to think back. And I became Danish champion in 1989 and I went on to the world championship and became third in the world in 1989. And that actually started my career.

13:52
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And you have described yourself in the book as a little white boy in hip hop. And you went to London — to Brixton actually, which is a part of London that I love. I did a thesis on the Rastafarians, so I spent quite a lot of time in Brixton.

14:09
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And I believe that it was there that Queen Latifah told you the wise words, don't ever let the color of your skin decide what you can do in life. How significant was her blessing for you? And try to describe the scene where she said this to you.

14:27
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
It meant everything because I was just into the music. In Denmark, we didn't really grow up with a lot of racism. I know later on in Denmark, taking in people from Syria and Iraq and Iran has created some tension. But when I grew up, we didn't even think about it.

14:43
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
There would be a black kid in school. Not many. But it's not something we really — it was just, Hey, that's Tom, cool, let's move on. So I didn't really relate to music as a race and I didn't really understand what hip hop was.

14:56
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
And it wasn't until I came to New York after I became third in the world, DJ Red Alert, who's a legendary DJ, started this management company and he signed De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest, Jungle Brothers and Queen Latifah. And little did I know that they had an idea for me to go on tour with them.

15:16
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
And I don't know if you can imagine how big that was. I was very young and they called from New York and I remember my dad picking up the phone. They're like, Yo man, we need to talk with Soulshock. And he's like, I'm sorry. Okay. Excuse me. And he's like, Carsten, this is for you, I think. And I picked up the phone and they said, we really want you to be the DJ on this tour, not only just doing the show you did in Royal Albert Hall, but we want you to be Queen Latifah's DJ as well.

15:45
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
And True Mathematics was another rapper. And I also stand in for Jungle Brothers sometimes when the DJ couldn't make it. So here I am going on a world tour with these hip hop acts. That's when I realized the depth of hip hop music and understood that I liked the music, but actually it was a serious, serious, serious way for the ghettos and the poor areas in America to be heard because no one would listen to what was going on in the ghettos.

16:14
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
And the police would barely drive into South Central LA or Brooklyn back then or the Bronx or whatever. And so this hip hop represented a serious cultural and deep level of resistance of how black people were being treated, which I had no clue about. I just loved the music and on this tour, I started realizing the depth of it.

16:36
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
First of all, the tour was called Straight Out the Jungle. Jungle Brothers is wearing jungle outfits and throwing out bananas and stuff. Queen Latifah is wearing full-on African dresses when she's performing. And here I was. And particularly in England, I found out, they also had a segregated society and they paid some money to go in and hear these hip hop acts.

17:02
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
And the first thing they saw on stage was a white boy. And I got booed nonstop. Every show I got booed. And I had to really start scratching and mixing really fast to show how good I was. And I had to win over the crowd pretty much every night. And I did, because I was serious about being a good DJ and scratching and mixing, but it started getting to me.

17:26
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
And we are sitting on the tour bus and I'm kind of sitting in the back and Latifah like —

17:30
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Do you remember where you were?

17:31
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
I actually think that conversation was in Holland, to be totally honest with you. We had just been in Brixton and we'd just been playing this Hammersmith, I can't even remember what it's called. It was really a brutal crowd to me. And now we were back in Holland. We drove all night.

17:47
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
We had another show in Amsterdam and I'm just down. And Latifah comes next to me and she says, what's going on with you? And I go, man, I don't know if I should be doing this, and I said it's not that I don't love the music, I just didn't, maybe I'm not, shouldn't really be doing this.

18:03
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
Am I really allowed to represent the culture with that significant kind of political message that was really happening more and more? Public enemies started to come out and stuff like that, it was really getting very political and aggressive. And she slapped my hand, grabbed me by my neck. I'm serious.

18:23
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
And she goes, don't you ever let the color of your skin make any decisions in your life, which was insane because of course I haven't been through anything remotely what you go through, especially back in the '80s, growing up in America as a minority. And when she said that, that's it. I never went back. Latifah was a legend already. And I was good. I was okay. If she was okay with it, then I was. I woke up the next morning smiling and it was a big moment in my career.

18:57
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Yeah, wow. That's an intense moment for you.

19:00
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
Yes. Very. Yeah.

19:03
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
I've met her, she's a lovely lady, but she's also like a tough cookie.

19:06
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
Very, very, very tough. As I said, I almost got beat up.

19:12
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Well, in a good way.

19:13
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
Yeah, exactly.

19:15
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And you ended up moving to New York and later on to Los Angeles. Initially, was it everything you dreamed of? Or was the American dream not attainable right away?

19:30
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
Definitely not right away. My first attempt was New York. And again, this is early on, this is around this tour and Red Alert says, yeah, yeah, come to New York. And I fly into New York and little did I know, MC Lyte and Audio Two, was the new up and coming hip hop act and I stayed with their parents. And we all lived out in Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn.

19:52
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
Now I know if you go to New York right now and you're like, oh my God, that's so fancy. Let me tell you. Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn, back in '89, there was nothing fancy. It was a culture shock. You know, burning things outside the buildings, crack dealers going up the stairs. My mom called and said, how is it? And I go, Great! and just like, what the hell's going on?

20:18
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
But I lived hip hop culture. I was spinning at a club called DJ Mars, which was also a challenge because, what's the white boy doing up there playing hip hop? So I had to convince them every night too, but I did it because I was really into it. I think I was so pure. And I think they actually accepted me more because I was European.

20:37
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
I remember Q-tip came up, from A Tribe Called Quest — I was actually the first guy playing the first A Tribe Called Quest record — and he goes, this guy's just clueless, I love him. He doesn't even fucking know. Sorry, excuse my language. But that's what he said. And I think that in some way helped me a little bit.

20:55
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
So it ended with me getting shot on one night I was DJing. And Chuck Chilla, who's a legend, was there as well. And I remember he started coming up and the atmosphere was bad. He's like, you white — and I won't say, you know, the curse word. And this club started getting intense.

21:13
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
They always did. It's the Bronx in the house. Yay. It's Brooklyn in the house. Yay. But this one is more intense and the promoter comes running up and he goes, they're starting to fight. I need you to keep playing the music.

21:25
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
And I said, okay, he goes, don't stop. If you stop playing the music, it's going to turn into craziness. And I start hearing what sound like gunshots, but in Denmark, you don't know what a gunshot is unless you're there as a hunter. So the promoter comes running back and he says, oh, by the way, you need to dive under the turntables and under the table because they always shoot at the DJ.

21:53
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Wow.

21:54
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
So I run back and he runs back and I'm like, oh, noted. And I go under the tables and I stand here and I had just gotten under my turntable and three shots came right over me, hitting the wall behind me.

22:10
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Goodness.

22:121
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
I remember it. So if my head had been up just two inches more, it would have hit me right in the forehead. And I wish I could tell you some Superman story. I went up and I took care of it. No.

22:21
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
No, you stayed down.

22:23
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
I crawled out of this club with all my records into a phone box that we had back then, called my mom and said, I'll be home tomorrow.

22:33
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
So I go back to Denmark. And we start like a record label in Denmark, blah, blah. And we made music and we did great and had Cut'N'Move and Yasmin and all these Danish acts that were really successful, not only in Denmark, but also here. We made deals. But I had tasted hip hop. I've been on tour with Latifah and Jungle Brothers. I love all these Danish acts, but you're not hip hop.

22:54
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
So I found out that this place, Los Angeles. And there's two things I loved. We were brought over here for a session. Actually, Patti LaBelle brought us over here for a remix. And that was also funny. Because we show up and Patti LaBelle comes in with her 20 people. And she's like, give me some tea, give me this and give me that until Soulshock shows up.

23:16
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
And I'm like, Oh, well, oh my god … I'm like, I am Soulshock. And she goes, that's funny, just go get my fucking tea, okay? And I go into the kitchen and the assistant tells Patti LaBelle, Miss LaBelle, that is your producer. And it just went on and on, this thing, you know, because I was in serious black culture, again, not really knowing it, I just loved and adored the music.

23:40
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
But I came over and I saw palm trees. I saw sunshine. And I also noticed that New York hip hop was where the toughest competition was. You had DJ Premier, Marley Marl, Puff Daddy was starting to come up. Over here, it was West Coast and it was Dr. Dre and everybody else I felt I could beat. Which was like, okay, we're going to give it a second shot. So no, it wasn't just the American dream right away at all.

24:10
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
No, it was a gunshot and a get out of here message to you. But you persevered, and you came to LA —

24:20
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
I'm still here.

24:22
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
— as you said, and you moved to Encino. And I want to tell the listeners that this is not the most fantastic place in Los Angeles. I'm sorry, Carsten, but it isn't —

24:32
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
Thank you.

24:33
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
—and you moved in with your partner, Kenneth Carlin.

24:397
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
We didn't know anything.

24:38
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And I apologize to all the people living in Encino.

24:40
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
In Encino, yes, God bless you. We rented a house out there because we realized we were going to go for it. We couldn't afford having a studio and everything, so we put everything in one. Studio into this house, and I remember the guy who was renting us the house looking at us, really, what is up with these two little dudes here? What are they doing here?

24:59
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
I was very tough, because I went through something early in my life, losing my best friend, his name was Rune, and he was 17 and I was 18. And we just clicked, not fitting in. As I said, being a teenager, finding someone who's like you is heaven and losing him became just, it was really tough for me.

25:22
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
So I was very tough and I'd run this record label at 21 in Denmark, and Karlin is totally the opposite. He is full music. But I had this whole thing — at nine o'clock, we'd meet over in the studio, which was not a studio, that's the library in the house, and we start working all dressed and ready.

25:43
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
And you fast forward six months when Karlin said to me, Hey, listen, if you want to compete over here, you got to devote yourself to music. You gotta let go because these guys are really good. And they are in their music, and creativity comes when creativity comes, and you also have to feed and inspire creativity. You can't get up at nine o'clock and say, let's make this hit record.

26:12
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
And if you fast forward six months, we're smoking a water bong with chronic weed. It's seven at night. We haven't showered for three days. We're still wearing the same underwear, and just made hip hop music. And we just made music and I let go of all my Danish upbringing. I let go of structure, anything. I knew this was only a period for me cause I'm just too structured already, but I really needed to devote myself to the music.

26:43
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
And that's when we became Soulshock & Karlin, and we started making hit records. We started working with Brownstone. But the big one was Tupac. As I mentioned, being accepted in hip hop culture was not easy being these two white boys with an accent in blue shorts and Converse shoes.

27:03
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
I can just picture that.

27:05
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
And Kenneth is from Rødovre. We're not cool at all. And I was so devoted to hip hop. And I remember I said to my manager, can you please send the beats out and I really want to send it to Tupac. And he's like, I don't think so, but I didn't think like that. I said, I think so.

27:22
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
And he sent it out and he called me one day and said, you won't believe this. And he goes, Pac heard one of your records and he wants to rap on it. And you need to show up tonight at his studio. And I'm like, where's that at? He goes, Compton. And I'm like, okay, let me just tell you one thing. I've been shot at in New York, whatever. I am not driving to Compton.

27:41
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
I've seen N.W.A., whatever, I've seen Tupac. I love him to death, but you need to call his manager and say, hey, I'm white. And if it's an issue, you have no idea how much I understand. I've been through so much. I understand every angle of hip hop. I won't even get disrespect or anything. I would just say, good, we'll move on.

28:01
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
So I'm driving on Sunset and the phone rings and I pick up. And someone says, yo, this is Pac. I know who the fuck you are. And I'm thinking, that's it, I'm going back home. That's it. I can't handle it again. So I'm thinking I'm going to get it now. And he goes, who do you think put your turntables when you were DJing?

28:22
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
I said, I'm really sorry, Mr. Tupac. He goes, don't call me Mr. Tupac. And he said, I'm the one who set your turntables up. I go, I don't know what you're talking about. He said, did you and Latifah do shows with Digital Underground? I said, yeah. He goes, I was a roadie for Digital Underground and a dancer. And he had set up my turntables and he said, get your white ass to Compton. And we went down—

28:47
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And you did.

28:48
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
—and started an amazing friendship. And the whole point of this, is that once Tupac took us in, we did a record, not just doing a record, but also him calling me one day saying, the title of my next album is your song, Me Against the World. I mean, I still get chills to this day. It was the biggest moment in my career ever. And all the white stuff, all that stuff was gone. These were Tupac's producers.

29:14
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Biggest stamp of approval.

29:15
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
Yeah, yeah. When it comes to credibility with Tupac, he is considered one of the greatest rappers ever there was on this planet.

29:23
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And now that you're talking about him, how was it hanging out with somebody like that? People might know that he actually got shot in 1996, right?

29:31
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
Yeah.

29:33
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
As an insider to that world, what was it like?

29:35
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
We made a record called Old School and to my surprise, even though we were on the West Coast, he was paying respect to all the East Coast hip hop music. I knew every producer, everything. So we were like fifty people in the room. And everybody had to put down the guns, which they would do next to me at the board.

29:55
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
So I had AK-47s and Glocks, and God knows what's sitting next to me. And Karlin at one point goes, I'm leaving. Cause he hadn't been through the hip hop kind of life I had. So he left. 50 people in the studio getting more and more drunk, Hennessy, whatever, and of course, very intense.

30:14
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
Tupac was — if he was in this room, we wouldn't even talk — we would just sit and look at him. I've never felt the presence like him ever.

30:22
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Charismatic?

30:22
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
Maybe Whitney, but Tupac was even more charismatic than Whitney. I know that sounds crazy. He was such a presence. So anyway, this Old School record, he's like, I need to know some of the names because he's actually from New York. He's from Queens. And I knew everything.

30:39
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
And he goes, this little white boy, and he started calling me, this little ninja, that's the only thing I can say. We just became friends. And actually, he was very intellectual, and very intelligent, because he grew up with Afeni, his mom, a Black Panther, very politically involved, an activist doing the Civil Rights era and stuff like that. So we could have stories about everything in history and stuff like that.

31:04
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
I feel a lot of the stuff he was rapping about because actually he was very positive. Dear Mama is a beautiful record about paying respect to your mom who raised him and stuff like that.

31:14
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
I didn't feel any danger until Suge Knight came in and his Death Row Records. And after Suge Knight came in, it became really dangerous and Tupac changed and I unfortunately am not so surprised he got shot and killed. I was with him two weeks before.

31:34
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
How did you feel when that happened? It seems so surreal to know somebody so well. And then something like that happens. In Denmark, we don't carry guns. So even a simple handgun in the studio would make the producers go, what is that doing here? I just wanted to tell our American listeners this to put it into perspective.

32:00
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
Yeah, I had been in hip hop. It's just, you know, people got shot. And there were gang members around. And one thing is, you can be a tough rapper, and you can be a really tough rapper, but once you get into gangs, it's a completely different area. And the Bloods came in.

32:19
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
When Suge Knight started his record label, he got involved with the Bloods gangs, and they don't care who you are. And life, human life, it's the same as this cup of coffee. And you feel it, and that's scary. So that's when I really — it wasn't him, it was the change of surroundings when Suge Knight came in.

32:44
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
The world of music is not boring in LA, I would guess. What were the highlights in terms of the memories of being part of this business and maybe share some juicy stories from what has been going on in your life?

33:00
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
Well, I have to say the ultimate thing for me was Clive Davis. Clive Davis took me and Karlin under his wings. And that was not an easy task. We were still hip hop producers and we finally got a meeting with him. And the first meeting was at the Peninsula Hotel. And we had three songs.

33:19
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
We came in and Clive is sitting with all these assistants and the biggest sweets I've seen in my life and food and God knows what. You go in front of Clive. There's no really chit chat. And he goes, play the songs. We had three songs, we played all three songs. And I'm so impressed, he's listened to all three songs. And he looks at me, he goes, it's probably the worst three songs I have ever heard in my life.

33:47
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Goodness.

33:48
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
And Karlin just almost broke down and he goes, thank you. His assistant at that time was Keith Naftaly. He comes over and he goes, Clive wants to see you in three weeks. And I go — why did he… okay.

34:03
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
So we go back and we do three more songs, and this time it's at the Beverly Hills Hotel, bungalow #8. That was Clive Davis' bungalow. And we walk in again and Prince is walking out. Hello. Okay, great. And Wyclef is sitting over there and I'm like, oh my God. Like this is the highest level you can be on, like what?

34:28
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
So I'm a little bit nervous. We have three new songs. We played three songs and I'm like, okay. And he's quiet and he goes, you know what fascinates me, Soul? — And I go no, Mr. Davis. — how it's possible coming with three songs that are worse than the first three songs you played me?

34:46
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You're kidding me.

34:47
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
Thank you. And I get hooked. And Keith Naftaly comes over and I go, no, no, no, you better not say anything. He goes, Clive wants to see you in three weeks. And I'm like, what, is this like torture? Karlin is like, that's it, I'm done.

35:00
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
Clive brought us back in and said, let me show you what I'm looking for. And he played L.A. and Babyface, "I'm Your Baby Tonight" with Whitney. He played Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. He played Teddy Riley, who were all massive big producers, which is what we wanted to be. And I could hear, they killed us.

35:20
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
At this point I got a house up in Laurel Canyon, the magic Laurel Canyon. You need to do Laurel Canyon if you want to do music. You've got to stay there at least a year. I had a house up there and I turned the guest house into a studio.

35:34
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
And I was starting to see Maxee because she was in Brownstone, a very big R&B band, and we worked with them. And the first time I saw her, it was love at first sight. Let me tell you, it does exist. It was love at first sight.

35:46
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
We have this songwriter called Andrea Martin coming, and she's worked with Karlin in a totally different environment, a little more back to the hippie days in Encino, where we're sitting in underwear, a little less stressed, I want to be good, I want to go on the top, I want to be the best.

36:02
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
We wrote this song called "Before You Walk Out of My Life." And we went back to Clive and this time we didn't play three songs. We only played that one and he stopped it halfway in, which he has never done before. And he goes, I need Roy Lott. Roy Lott was his attorney and Roy Lott came in. He goes, we're buying the song. We're taking the song right now.

36:24
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Cool.

36:25
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
And it went to number one with Monica. It was our first number one.

36:29
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
So he did the opposite of what I usually hear that people are smooth-talking, and saying, this sounds great, come back. So in a way, it was good, he wasn't playing you.

36:39
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
And that stayed with me. You know, people in my company think I am ruthless. But actually, I am saving time. You know, there is no need to sugarcoat someone. Actually, in the end, you much rather hear it. You know what? It's just not up to par.

36:52
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
It's just so much easier than all this, let's have lunch tomorrow. And then you never have lunch. And you actually get so hurt by all this smooth talking. Clive had zero smooth talking, let me tell you.

37:05
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You mentioned Laurel Canyon, which we should explain is a road that goes through the canyons and through the valley to the city.

37:15
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
And you pass Mulholland Drive —

37:17
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And you pass Mulholland Drive — and it was a haven for musicians. Can you talk a little bit about the history of Laurel Canyon?

37:23
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
One of the most historic areas, actually, because the record business at that time, very controlled by major companies, was going through a transition. And David Geffen comes in, and he goes, let's not do this, let's do something else. You know, '68, the '70s, the hippie environment, he came in and changed the music scene. Really devoted time to art and started creating albums.

37:48
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
He started making The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Janis Joplin, Jackson Browne. They all lived in Laurel Canyon. And Geffen really changed the music industry in those years focusing on art, lyrics, expressions, deeper messages, but also album concepts that didn't really exist before. And this whole singer-songwriter era of the music in Laurel Canyon and Los Angeles will never go away. It's one of the biggest things we have in LA when it comes to music.

38:21
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And it's incredible. It's in the middle of the city. Whitney Houston — you had an intense sort of recording session with her that didn't go so smoothly. Talk a little bit about Whitney Houston not being in good shape when you met her.

38:36
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
This was a big moment again. We came up to Clive's bungalow #8. We play a song and he smiles. We don't know why. And he goes, guys, I'm taking this song, "Heartbreak Hotel" you've written, to Whitney Houston. And we went crazy. I'll never forget when I drove down Sunset Boulevard, no one could stop me. Are you kidding me?

39:00
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
And he goes, you're going to New Jersey at her house. And that's where we're going to record it. We flew to New York. He put us in The Waldorf Astoria. Biggest, no doubt at that time, biggest superstar in the world, Michael Jackson. But I think at that point, she might even been bigger because of The Bodyguard.

39:18
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
It takes a while going from Manhattan out to New Jersey. We drive out. And we get to this massive gate, it's a very wealthy area out there, and we were told, Miss Houston is not ready.

39:29
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
Now, that we did every day. And we also had Babyface out there, David Foster, they're all staying in the same hotel. And we started talking, did you work with her today? Nope. Did you work with us today? Nope. So I'm like, what's going on out there, man? And I started hearing stories that Bobby and Whitney were enjoying their success, to say the least, and I don't think there was many boundaries.

39:53
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
On the seventh day, we come out, and now, I'm just sitting in the limo, stretched out, and just like, whatever. And all of a sudden they say, Miss Houston is ready, and the doors come up, and we go into this massive compound. And her assistant Robin, who is always around her, greets us when we come in.

40:13
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
And it is packed in there. Mom is there, girls everywhere and just family members and catering service. And she's showing us a studio, which is the biggest studio I'd ever seen. The biggest board, the best equipment, in her own house. And I'm just like, Whoa. There's an inside swimming pool. And I said to Robin, where, where, where's — is Whitney upstairs?

40:36
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
And she goes, what? Honey, come with me. We go outside this massive house. And there's literally a golf court. And at the end of the golf court, there's a castle. She goes, that's where Whitney lives. And she goes inside. So Whitney had two houses, one for the studio and one where she lived.

40:55
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
And I am just starting to get a little nervous because this is really out of control. I see this golf cart coming and it's Whitney and Bobby. And let me tell you, I think the golf cart was supposed to drive straight. It was going all over the place.

41:11
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Ziggaging.

41:12
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
And I just see a bottle of Hennessy in the hand of Bobby. And I'm like, whoa. And they come up and they are fucked up, excuse my language. And Bobby's like, let's go, I'm gonna go record. And I remember Clive said to me, whatever you do, don't put Bobby on the record. That was just because he wanted to be in all the records. God bless him, he was a sweetheart. And Whitney is just Whitney. And she keeps taking breaks. I don't want to go on record for anything. She took a lot of breaks.

41:42
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
And we started recording. She comes out and it's just like over the top. Bobby is rapping and going in front of the microphone and Whitney is now singing and she does her first pass. And it sounds horrible. We did this kind of bounce thing we've done with Tupac, "I Wonder If Heaven Got a Ghetto." So she's singing what's called double time in some way.

42:06
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
And she's not used to that kind of hip hop swing at all. You know, she's from traditional R&B and church music. And when the record was over, I said to Karlin, I am not telling Whitney. She doesn't sound good. And he goes, you think I'm going to tell Whitney Houston it doesn't sound good?

42:23
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
So we're sitting there having an argument in Danish and she's like, hey, what do you think? And I'm like, let's do one more take. She does one more take. It's just as bad. She goes, that's it, done! Bobby, let's go back to the house. And they go in the golf cart with another bottle of champagne. And I'm just done.

42:44
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
Clive calls me and goes, how's it going? And you gotta keep in mind, we got a lot of money as producers back then, like we're talking real, real, much more than I think anyone gets now. It was the heyday. And there was only one guy who was responsible. And that was me because Colin was the more creative guy. And you got everything you want?

43:05
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
I go, yeah. And I'm just going, oh my God, I'm going to be in trouble now. This was a record where Faith Evans was appearing on this record together with Kelly Price. And Clive wanted to show all these new R&B divas. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You guys ain't Whitney, but let's get you on a record. You know, he wants to get her with the new generation.

43:26
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
The problem was, she was not singing at all. So Kelly comes in, kills it. Faith Evans, amazing. I have the most beautiful record ever, except Whitney's vocal sounds like, you know, and Clive's still calling me.

43:41
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
And on this one particular part of the song, she goes, this is the heartbreak hotel, which he really wanted Whitney to do because it was almost rap. He wanted to get her back into the hip. Now, the only version I had was Bobby saying, this is the heart — And I'm just lying through the teeth and I'm like, I got to come up with something. It's five o'clock. We're leaving. We only have Saturday and Sunday. We're done.

44:05
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
And I call up to the house. Can I talk to Ms. Houston? And she gets on the phone. She goes, yes? I go, I just want you to come and listen to it. And she goes, no, no, no, we're done. I love it, honey. You're so talented. And I'm like, cool. And I'm like, just thinking in my mind, what am I doing? I go, Clive Davis just called, and he is insisting you come and listen to the song.

44:25
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Smart move.

44:25
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
I can't leave without you hearing the song. And Clive was Clive. Whitney was Whitney. But Clive Davis was Clive Davis. And here they come. Golf cart. Hennessys. Party time. Coming in and I'm just looking, Karlin's looking at me, shaking his head. I'm shaking the head too. And her mom was there and I go, okay, I'm going to put her on the spot.

44:52
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
I said, Whitney, why don't you sit in front of the board? No, no, no. I think you should sit in front of the board. She goes, okay. She sits in front of the board and I press play. And Kelly is killing it. Faith, killing it. And on her own Whitney Houston song, she's the weakest. I noticed as I'm playing this song, Whitney is sinking down the seat. Bobby goes, I'm going to go — Shut up, Bobby. And I'm like, okay.

45:20
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
She knows.

45:20
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
And the song was over and she looked at me like you, what the fuck, and she goes, okay, Roberta, get my inhaler, because she smoked and just lived very unhealthy. I need this. And I want this. Change the microphone. Get the Sony microphone. I'm like, wow, what do you know all this from? And Bobby goes, yeah. She goes, Bobby, shut up.

45:40
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
She almost doesn't look like herself because she's wearing sweatpants now. And she goes in, she goes, press record. I'm like, okay. And she goes in and gives me Whitney Houston. Three takes. She was sweating. The wig was falling off. She gave everything she had left in her at a time in her life where there's no doubt she was going into the dark side. And she was still Whitney. We worked with her on the next album too and we never finished the vocal. It was over.

46:12
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
But when she came out, I cried. It was so beautiful. And she goes, that's it. And I go, by the way, I said, before you leave, she goes, what? And I go, I really see how much you're in love with Bobby. And she goes, um-hum, and I said, I think that part, the heartbreak hotel, you should do it together as a couple.

46:34
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
She said, oh that's cute. And he goes, this is the heartbreak hotel. She goes, no, I don't like it. I said, that's fine. And she left. I go, that's it. So on that record, it's the same line. I just repeat, repeat. She only said it once, and it goes through the whole song. And that, it was just a risk I took. And Clive called, and I said, I was on top of the world. I said, Clive, I'm coming in. You want to hear it now? He goes, no, no, no, that's fine.

46:59
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
But that's the job as a record producer. And I'm sure directors or producers working with creative talent, there is no such thing as this bossing around. It's really a massaging of getting the right thing and getting the artists excited about what they do. And it's not an easy task. So that's a big part of being a record producer.

47:20
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
I want to talk to you about Maxee. Talk about when you met her.

47:26
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
It was really interesting because we were recording in the same room as Michael Jackson did "Thriller." And it's called Westlake Studios down on Santa Monica Boulevard. And we were in that room. When those three girls walked in, in the middle was this tall, beautiful, unbelievable girl with long braids. And I just stopped.

47:50
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
I don't know what happened. There was a song, like a reggae song. Nicole goes, Maxee's from the islands. She's originally from Guyana. So we want her to do the vocal.

47:59
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
I'm like, she's doing the vocal? I'm doing the vocal. Kenneth? He's setting up to do the vocal. And he goes, what are you talking about? You don't know how to do vocal. What are you talking about? You do the beats. I go, I'm doing the vocal. He goes, you don't know how to do a vocal. I'm doing the vocal.

48:13
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
And he looked at Maxee and he goes, oh. And I sat in front and we did this song called "Sometimes Dancing," which is on the first Brownstone album. That was it. And the day after I called and she was a little bit shy. And I lived in that house up in Laurel Canyon. And I said, can I take you out for dinner?

48:30
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
And she's like, okay. And she came to the house, and we're supposed to go to dinner at 7:00 pm. We never left. We talked until 7:00 am in the morning, and it was so beautiful. We were so young when we first met. And she moved into Laurel Canyon and we moved to another house in Studio City.

48:49
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
We were so much in love, but she was touring, I'm flying around everywhere. Love was never an issue. We were so much in love, but the surroundings were really, really hard. And around that Whitney Houston record where that goes number one, I'm losing it.

49:06
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Your ego is going off the roof or what's happening?

49:08
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
Oh god. I'm driving in a Silver 911 Porsche down Sunset Boulevard, walking in with the valet, ordering them around.

49:16
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
With a cigar in your hand?

49:17
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
Absolutely. I still have the cigar. And I want the best table and blah, blah, blah. And I couldn't control anything. And Maxee really wanted to settle down at this point. All of a sudden, she leaves me. And I'm like, oh, no, no, it doesn't matter. I'll be okay. And I get more girls up in the house.

49:36
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
I started getting panic attacks. And I'm like, okay, this is probably not the way a guy from Gug really should be living. My body said, Hey, Carsten? Uh, no. And I realized I lost the love of my life. And it started hitting me. And all this success and all this money, I started realizing, great, but where's Maxee?

49:59
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
And she had moved to London. And she got engaged. After two months of her telling me if we were to get together, she wants family, kids, and everything, and I was not allowed to live the way I lived, she was very clear about that.

50:15
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
We ended up going to her fiancé. He knew, he goes, all she talks about is you. And he said, you better take care of her. And we went back to LA and she got pregnant and we had a beautiful house up in the Sunset Plaza area that we started remodeling for Nicolaj, who now had arrived.

50:37
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Your son?

50:38
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
Yeah. And that's named after Rune. Rune was Rune Nicolajsen. And so the reason why he's Nicolaj is because of his last name. And it became heaven and we redid our house and Nikolaj and Maxee and I had the perfect family and I was completely fulfilled doing great music, having the best son, the best wife, living life. And Maxee was an insane cook. So, heaven, until one night.

51:06
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
She died in a freak accident in your house and I cannot imagine what that has been like for you and your son.

51:15
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
I came home and she had made me dinner as she always had. Nicolaj was sleeping and she's on the patio and that's not unusual. Two weeks before my son had scored a goal, he was a great soccer player. And she had jumped up and fallen in this hole on the grass and broken two toes. So she was wearing this boot that she hated.

51:35
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
And that evening she had taken that boot off. She had her wine glass and cigarette in her hand and lost balance. And she fell down. She puts her hand up to defend her head with the wine glass and the wine glass hits the ground first and cuts her throat. So Nicolaj and I are now by ourselves and also have to deal with a tremendous amount of trauma.

52:02
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Yeah. I am sorry.

52:04
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
Yeah, it's so hard to talk about. And what happens after that? I was blessed enough to have savings, moved out of the house to this place where you're now, and here is the place where Nicolaj and I, we survived. And I just didn't, couldn't work. Music didn't mean anything to me at all. Nothing meant anything. Wine didn't mean anything.

52:24
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
I just learned how to do breakfast and I took Nicolaj to school every day, picked him up every day. Never missed a school day. Took him to soccer every day. Learned how to make his lunch bags, learned how to cook. And lived up here with a long beard and devoted my life to him. And that does create something beautiful. Because we have an incredible — you'll get to meet him before you leave.

52:51
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Yes, we have not met him yet. We look forward to it.

52:55
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
When he was turning 18, he came to me because he could also tell my life was not the same at all. And he put his hands on my shoulders and said, I'm good. I know what you've done. I'm good. And that was a huge moment for me. Yeah.

53:14
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Okay. Yeah, we are a little moved here. Well, that is positive.

53:21
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
That is positive. Yeah, yeah, we had each other.

53:24
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
I could go on talking to you forever, because you have so many stories. But maybe my last question to you since we talked about your son, would be. He's a Danish citizen —

53:36
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
Yes, he is.

53:36
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
— even though he grew up here. Why was that important to you? And why is your Danish citizenship so important to you still that you haven't become an American? So that's my final question to you, Carsten.

53:50
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
Maxee was very serious about him going to Europe a lot. And he got baptized in Søllerød Kirke actually. And that's where he got his name Nicolaj Schack. I think she, being from Guyana, was aware more than ever, also as a Black woman in America, that there are wonderful things about this country, but there were also some tough areas. And so it was very important for her that Nicolaj got some European culture. So we went to Europe all the time.

54:22
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
He is definitely going through a transition right now. Am I European? Am I American? And he's gotten into music now too. But I think he has seen me and my problems of being Danish. And for me, I don't know, it's my foundation. I think in some way I've leaned on being Danish so many times when I've been challenged over here.

54:43
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
Even Maxee's death, being Danish has in some way made me stronger and saved me because we just have a different way of raising our kids and how we talk to each other and how we interact and the value and priority of families is so much bigger in Denmark.

55:05
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
And it's not what's right or wrong, I love that you can come over here and be ambitious. It's tough to do that in Denmark because there's so much priority on feeling good and spending time with your family. That can be almost a problem when you want to just work all the time and have all your dreams coming true. But I could never take away my Danish citizenship. I would not be the same person.

55:28
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
On that note, Carsten wouldn't be the same person. Thank you so much, Carsten. We appreciate your time very much.

55:36
Carsten "Soulshock" Schack
All right, so much, both of you.

55:42
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
For today's episode, Carsten "Soulshock" Schack chose Asger Jorn's Coupures de table or Cuts in Tabletop from 1967 from the collection of the National Gallery of Denmark.