00:02
Kristian Riis
This untitled photo by Pia Arke from '92. It's the Thule Air Base. You see these two planes on the landing strip. It reminds me about my own time in Greenland when I performed there with Nephew. I really fell in love with that country.

00:19
Kristian Riis
There's a lot of feelings around it. I think what we did through the years for the Greenlandish people has not been the best for them. And I found when I was in Greenland, you can see that the ice is melting, that it's getting warmer.

00:31
Kristian Riis
Pia Arke, she was a little bit torn about being half Danish, half Greenlandish, maybe not really belonging somewhere, but still feeling that you belong in both places, so to speak. I have a Danish dad and a Danish mom and I grew up in Denmark, but I have always been longing for something out there. And Los Angeles gave me something different. That's something Bhutan is giving me today. 

00:55
Kristian Riis
For me, a photo like this tells me much more than a thousand words.

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 Kristian Riis, a Danish musician in the band Nephew, an artist, and an entrepreneur.

01:33
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Welcome Kristian.

01:35
Kristian Riis
Thank you so much.

01:37
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
We're very pleased to have you here. So I'm in Los Angeles and you are in Denmark now as we speak online. Where exactly are you? Describe it for our listeners. And what is the weather like where you're at?

01:51
Kristian Riis
Yeah, that's funny. Speaking to Danes, we talk a lot about the weather, and actually, why I moved to LA ten years ago was partly because of the weather. Actually right now it's sunny, it's still cold. I would guess five degrees Celsius or something like that.

02:07
Kristian Riis
So I've been out on my bike today. I love biking everyday, something I didn't do much when I lived in LA, but that's something I do everyday in Copenhagen. Right now I'm sitting in my home, actually in my studio. I work from here sometimes. I usually go to the office and sit with my colleagues, but I also enjoy sitting at home. So yeah, I'm here in Nansensgade in Copenhagen, near the lakes. If anyone has been to Copenhagen, they should check it out. It's a very nice neighborhood.

02:36
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Would you mind telling us what it is that you have behind us?

02:40
Kristian Riis
Behind me I have some of the gold and platinum albums that I received through the years. My band Nephew, we've been going on for the last 28 years. Right now we're on a break. We usually do that. We release an album and then we tour and then we have some years where we don't do anything actually.

03:01
Kristian Riis
I do have a couple of posters. One of them is from the Danish magazine Gaffa, which is a music magazine. I also have a couple of Danish Grammys and so on.

03:12
Kristian Riis
I also have a photo from one of my favorite places in the world, Joshua Tree, where I've been writing music and have friends and that's one of the places I miss almost every day. I'm here. I brought a bit of Joshua Tree back to my apartment in cold Copenhagen.

03:26
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You have said that you fell in love with Los Angeles in 2005 when you came to visit the first time. You moved here for a while, a few years later in 2014, but then you moved back to Denmark. Was it just a short love affair with Los Angeles? What happened?

03:45
Kristian Riis
I am one of the Danes that love Los Angeles. When I meet Danes that go to LA, they're like, oh, it's such a big city and it's hard to find my way around and nowhere to go and so on. For me, I definitely fell in love right away. Of course, with the palms and the sun and the nice weather, but also with the people. I think LA for me has been one of the places where I really felt at home right away.

04:13
Kristian Riis
I really feel that everyone is welcome. I think people are really open. And when I'm in LA, no one is owning it, it's everyone's, no matter where you come from. And I love LA in terms of exploring the city.

04:26
Kristian Riis
In a day you can go to the beach, you can go to a red carpet event in Hollywood. You can go to Koreatown and have authentic barbecue. There's so many things to do in LA, not only within music, but in general, culture and so many people from all over the world. It's a lifelong love affair and I can't wait to get back. Yeah.

04:48
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Yeah, some people say that Los Angeles is superficial, but there is not much beneath the surface. Did you get to dig deeper? Did you get to feel the pulse? You talked about multicultural Los Angeles, there's not only a Koreatown, there are many communities in Los Angeles.

05:05
Kristian Riis
Yes. Some of my best friends are in LA, Danes and Americans and people from other places as well. So no, I don't recognize that perception of the city. I hear that though many times. And yeah, of course, LA and especially Hollywood is still the entertainment capital of the world. And people know if they want to make it, they should at least pretend that they're living the most glamorous life in the world.

05:32
Kristian Riis
I think I can look through that. I grew up in Nordjylland, the northern part of Jutland. And people from there, they are very down to earth and they think a lot about things and so on. So I think actually for me coming from that part of Jutland all the way to LA helped me a lot because I connected with the people I resonated with.

05:51
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And you are part of the band Nephew, and we will talk more about that later. You wanted to create a solo album in Los Angeles. Was LA the right place for that? And why solo? You seem to be someone who likes teamwork with all the projects that you do.

06:07
Kristian Riis
Yeah, back in '17, when I released my solo album, I actually did that together with the keyboard player from Nephew, René. We made the project True Nord. We wanted a lighter setup. When you're in a band, we have five people in Nephew, that's a lot of people that have to agree on things. We could move forward faster. We could make decisions.

06:26
Kristian Riis
And the album was hosted by a lot of different singers and a lot of guests. And I worked around the world. I met people in South Africa, in Columbia, around the US, UK, and the Nordics. So it was more of a playground. It was easier for me and him just to agree on things and do it the way that we wanted. It was a great experience.

06:47
Kristian Riis
Music is a pretty universal language. For example, Columbia, I don't speak Spanish. When you sit down and you jam with people, that's mutual understanding somehow. I remember me and René, we went to Sri Lanka, and we had a session in a cabin in the jungle with people from four different countries. And it was amazing because we didn't talk much, but actually sitting there and creating music together, it was a great way of connecting.

07:15
Kristian Riis
And even today, doing a lot of stuff on the side as an entrepreneur, building companies and educating cultural entrepreneurs and so on, music is still a language. I went to South Africa this and last year, you tap into the music scene, you have a network. People understand you pretty fast if they're also in music.

07:36
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And what is it that Los Angeles and the US could offer you, not only as a creative person, but who thinks and has visions and thinks in terms of business?

07:47
Kristian Riis
First of all, when you come to LA and you meet people and you hear about their visions and dreams, within music and business and everything else, there's no limit to how far you can go. It's a very open space and nothing is impossible. Maybe something about the American dream, very inspiring. I definitely have that in me too. So I resonated with that, maybe on a little bit more conservative side than other people I met. But I really like that.

08:16
Kristian Riis
I think it's much harder to have a breakthrough as a musician in LA and the US than in Denmark, but if you make it there, you basically have the world as your playground because so many people are still tapping into music and other cultural outputs from the US. So if you make it in the US, then you can make it anywhere, right?

08:38
Kristian Riis
We see that also with other Danish artists that they go to the US. They have a decent career, but not a big career. But suddenly in Denmark, when people hear about that, Hey, I'm played on American radio, you get big in Denmark. So you can use it as a way of branding yourself in that way, because I think America is still the dream for other people from around the world. And it's been a dream for me as well. I still dream about LA, even though I'm not there. No doubt about that.

09:04
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
At one point you worked with Timbaland. How did that come about and did you work with other American artists while you were here?

09:11
Kristian Riis
Yeah, Timberland, he was co-hosting the European MTV awards in Copenhagen many years ago, together with Justin Timberlake. I didn't go to the show, I just wanted to watch it on TV. And then he was on the red carpet and an interviewer asked him, so is there any European bands you like? And he's like, yeah, I really love Nephew.

09:31
Kristian Riis
And I was like, that's strange because we play rock music and he's hip hop or more urban artists, R&B and stuff like that. A few days after, he called us, and he said, I want to work with you guys. And then we did some stuff together. He tried to sign us worldwide for his label Mosley Music Group on Interscope.

09:51
Kristian Riis
At the end we were like, we don't think that's our game. We sing mainly in Danish. We're happy to be in Denmark. But it was great. We were hanging out with him and working with him and he's a very creative person. Besides that, we've been working with other artists, like for example, a German artist called Polarkreis 18, and also other big artists out there.

10:14
Kristian Riis
For us, it's interesting to collaborate with people. Also in Denmark, like a Danish rapper called L.O.C., Liam O'Connor. So for us, it's been natural to connect and work with other artists to put some different spices into the sauce. And in the US, I've been working with different artists as well. It's enriching my life in many ways.

10:34
Kristian Riis
I think when you sit in a studio in a writing session, you get close to people, because you have a break, you talk about things. I have a tendency to befriend people that I've worked with, and that's not a bad thing actually, because work is such a big part of my life. So I love that I can be friends with people as well.

10:52
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And in LA, you created NordicLA, a venue in the city which was a cultural embassy in Los Angeles. It had a great location on Hollywood Boulevard and functioned as a platform for Scandinavian artists. Talk about the vision behind this and how it was practically to create something like this.

11:18
Kristian Riis
Yeah. I moved to LA in 2014. At that point, I was the director and the manager of a theater in Copenhagen called Bremen Teater, or Bremen Theater. I was running a nightclub there, and I had a very busy life and a lot of employees. And I decided to go to LA actually only to write music. That's what I wanted. I want to leave the busy business life behind.

11:42
Kristian Riis
And I had a couple of months where I was in Venice, surfing, writing music. I had a great time. But after only a few days, people started contacting me saying, Hey, I'm coming to LA. Can you recommend a place to stay? I would like to meet some people to write with — a lot of questions.

11:57
Kristian Riis
I used to work for the Danish government. I started the Danish National Music Export Office. I worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well back in the days. So it was totally natural for me to help people. But after a while, I'm like, instead of me just helping people, why don't I create a platform where people can help each other and expand the network?

12:18
Kristian Riis
So I created NordicLA and as you said, yeah, helping Nordic artists, but also Nordic creative companies within film, TV, design, and stuff like that. We had a great location. We did a lot of really fun events. I still today meet people that had been to our events and that's really nice.

12:35
Kristian Riis
We also did art projects. We did a project out in the desert in Palm Springs at the Ace Hotel, where we brought five young contemporary artists from Denmark, and we paired them with local artists. And it was super fun and something that really makes sense to me.

12:51
Kristian Riis
At that period, I was between Copenhagen and LA, but when COVID hit, I had no other option than to move back. And then I couldn't enter the country for basically two years. And after that, I was like, we have to start all over. So today it's not completely dead, but we're not active within the NordicLA brand. I'm super proud I did that.

13:11
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What were the pros and cons of this endeavor?

13:17
Kristian Riis
First of all, I was actually in the beginning a bit surprised about coming from Denmark and finding a country so advanced in many ways and in other ways, a little bit behind. For example, I remember, to pay my rent, I had to pay with a physical check and I never used a check in my life. I spent a lot of time with the practical stuff that I didn't expect.

13:40
Kristian Riis
And I actually realized that in Denmark, I guess it's also that this is such a small country, it's easier to adapt to new technology and make platforms people can lean into. Of course, the US, it's such a big country with different laws in different states and so on. So that was definitely some of the challenges I had there. I did learn a lot.

14:00
Kristian Riis
On the positive side, when I invited people, everyone showed up. Our opening party had more than 500 people and I expected two, right? So people really leaned into this and I think people really want to network and socialize. In Denmark, it's, oh, okay, you're going to another party, maybe you should be more serious and do some work. In LA, this is where you meet people. If you want to do something, networking is essential and it's crucial for you if you make it or not.

14:27
Kristian Riis
On the outside, I'm pretty extroverted and on the inside, maybe a little bit more introverted. In LA, I don't have a chance to hide. People are talking to me in the street, in the elevator, having a conversation. And I really love that. And that's something we Danes are a little bit, we are in a way, we're more shy.

14:45
Kristian Riis
We're not good at integrating new people in the country, not because we're not open, but we're a little bit shy. And I really got into that and I love that. Every night I went out. I didn't go out every night, but quite often, to be honest, because there's so much going on and for me to lean into things.

15:01
Kristian Riis
And also people really wanted to support me and my vision. If they believed in me, they're like, okay, let me know what you need. And I miss that in Denmark sometimes. What I've been doing after moving back to Denmark is definitely bringing some of that attitude and openness back because that's something we can learn a lot from. I had so much fun. I met a lot of great people. So that was a very positive experience.

15:25
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Nordic LA was a project which was part of the company Volcano that you started in 2008 in Denmark. Volcano is doing a lot of different things that are very impressive. The last one was Home.Earth, a European real estate company with a focus on sustainable solutions to key challenges in urbanization, climate, and inequality. Please elaborate on what you actually do there.

15:54
Kristian Riis
Yeah. Home.Earth is a company that I co-founded with a group of real estate people, also some other creative people like architects and so on. My main activity and where I really put my focus today is in Volcano. For many years, we were doing a lot of stuff within music, managing around 20 of the biggest Danish artists.

16:17
Kristian Riis
We were running the venue by Bremen Teater, the nightclub there. A lot of activities. The reason for me to move my focus from only music into some of these more urban planning projects is that when I was touring with Nephew looking at a crowd, sometimes 5,000, sometimes 10,000, sometimes 50,000 people standing there, arm in arm, smiling, dancing, hugging.

16:42
Kristian Riis
And the day after going home to my apartment in Copenhagen and not even saying hi to my neighbor or the other way around, I was like, how can we use that kind of togetherness, that community feeling in our everyday lives?

16:58
Kristian Riis
We live in a world where, as everyone knows, there are more and more things going on out there that's pretty scary for us. It leads to more and more loneliness, increasing also for people in cities. Mental issues is also a subject that's real. A lot of people are struggling.

17:20
Kristian Riis
So I thought, if I really want to contribute to hopefully creating a better world somehow, how can I use my experience creating these communities and building those around music in our everyday lives? So both in Home.Earth, but also in Volcano, we are really focusing on how we use art, creativity, and culture as a driver for togetherness.

17:45
Kristian Riis
We gather in cities for many reasons and we have to share space. We have to come along with each other and we have to offer something that creates a value for people in a sense of community feeling, that someone sees you as a human being. We see in Denmark now that a lot of our retail stores are challenged. They close down. Suddenly, centers of the cities are slowly dying.

18:10
Kristian Riis
There's still stuff going on. But maybe we go out and we look at stuff and we go home and we buy stuff online. That's also happening in the US. We need to come together. That's a basic need of human contact, like offline activities. So we are working a lot also in Volcano, with how do we activate people through events, culture, happenings, stuff like that.

18:34
Kristian Riis
And that's also kind of my contribution to Home.Earth. How do we create these communities? And for me, the tool is art, creativity and culture, because that's something that hits people, not only in the head, but in the heart. It's heart-driven. As a culture consumer, as a fan of an artist, you can't exactly explain why, but it feels right.

19:00
Kristian Riis
And we also live in a world where you have to document things, you have to put it into the Excel sheet and make the budget. When it comes to art, it's not rational. And that thing is so important, for us to have a feeling that things make sense. Often going to a concert, visiting a museum, that's something you do because it feels right. And then you bring your friends or you meet new friends. You are together with other people often doing this.

19:27
Kristian Riis
You can do it on your own. I love listening to music on my own and going to the cinema or something like that. But, it is a very strong driver for a sense of belonging into a place or community or something like that. So, basically what I do today is building community through different activities.

19:46
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Is sustainability an important thing for you? Is it an important thing for you in your daily life? Do you think about it a lot? Not only in terms of Home.Earth, the company?

19:57
Kristian Riis
Even though I'm getting older like everyone else, of course I think about it. I also know I'm challenged. For example, like I said before, I do travel quite a lot. So yes, I'm definitely looking into how can I contribute to some of the agendas that hopefully can create a better future.

20:15
Kristian Riis
I think when we talk about sustainability, it's also a word that's used a lot, also misused. When I talk about sustainability in the sense of what we do, especially in Volcano, it's social sustainability, like sustainable communities, making sure that if we want to work more with a shared economy and stuff like that, we have to come together.

20:36
Kristian Riis
So I would say my contribution is very much about how do you connect people in the right way, in a meaningful way, and how do you encourage them and give them the opportunities to make better choices?

20:47
Kristian Riis
For example, we do a project called Danish Creative Industries, where we help creative startups with their business models and so on, but also exposing them to investors and so on. And when we educate them and take them through our incubator programs and so on, we talk a lot about how they can make the better choice.

21:08
Kristian Riis
Because I think a lot of companies and individuals, they would like to make better choices, but maybe they don't know how to do it. So it's also a process about educating and I definitely feel and I'm super happy about meeting younger generations that have this on top of the agenda.

21:27
Kristian Riis
Why don't we create malls today that have only secondhand clothing where you have the best restaurants, where you come together around something that's meaningful to you? Luckily, we see that people in general are more focused on not so much materialism, but more life quality. And that's very much what they find in culture and yeah, could be museums or something like that.

21:53
Kristian Riis
So actually spending money on something meaningful is not necessarily buying this thing that makes you feel good for a moment and then you're on to the next thing. So yeah, I can definitely improve a lot on that agenda too, especially when it comes to traveling. But at least I hope to contribute in other ways that can contribute to something better for the reality we live in today.

22:13
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Talk about your creative way of thinking with your more business oriented way of thinking. How did you make sure that you got the most out of both worlds?

22:24
Kristian Riis
I think those worlds have to work together. I created a program that is still running called Royalties in Denmark, where we've been educating around a little bit less than 500 young music and cultural entrepreneurs for the last 13 years. And the reason why I started that program was because when we started Nephew, it was super hard.

22:49
Kristian Riis
We went down to the bank to get a bank account and a little loan. And they're like, no, you can forget about that. Running the band as a business has always been important to me, not because of making money, which there's nothing wrong about that, but to make a living and be smart like everyone else.

23:07
Kristian Riis
If you have a job, you do it to earn money. If I could turn my music career into a job or at least make a living out of it, that would give me some freedom to make more music or travel or what I love.

23:20
Kristian Riis
So, for me, the business part has been not easy. I don't have a business education. I'm educated in music and media, but actually understanding the business around you is something that's very useful for everyone, because I've seen a lot of artists that are so stressed out about, okay, can I afford to pay my rent? And suddenly they lose their creativity because all their time goes into figuring out how to survive.

23:48
Kristian Riis
I think if you do a little bit of work and focus on the business side, you can create a foundation where you actually can live a life where it could be creative and you can have time and space and energy to do something else than business. So for me, the business was to get rid of the business, so to speak, and focus on what's important.

24:06
Kristian Riis
Over the years, I've been super excited about building businesses. I think I've been building more than 15 companies through the years. And I feel creativity has been a big advantage to me when I do that, because if you want to create something new, exciting, you have to be innovative, and for innovation in general, creativity is such an important part of it.

24:32
Kristian Riis
If you're not creative, you don't get anywhere. So actually right now, through the DCI program, the Danish Creative Industries programs, I'm working on starting collaboration with the DTU, the Danish Technical University, which is one of the best in Europe.

24:45
Kristian Riis
And what we work on now is, actually, when the engineers are digging deep into the solutions and products and services, to give them access to more creative people that can challenge them on the innovation side, but also the whole communication side.

25:02
Kristian Riis
One thing is to create a good product that can contribute to a more sustainable, a greener world. Another thing is if people don't adapt to it, it doesn't matter at all. So again, you speak to people's hearts. If people lean into something because they feel it's right, then we can make a change. If they only understand it is right, then suddenly they're busy doing all this stuff and they forget about it.

25:26
Kristian Riis
So a collaboration like that, hopefully can give us in Denmark some advantages when it comes to creating new products and services and so on. And when you look at Denmark in general, we are a little bit less than 6 million people. We are like an average sized American city, but despite that we're a small country, creativity has been the foundation of our country.

25:48
Kristian Riis
People know LEGO. That's super creative. We have had a lot of great architects. For example, one of the architects I'm working with is Bjarke Ingels. He has a company called BIG. That's one of the top five leading architecture firms in the world now. We have cool clothing designers, filmmakers. Bang & Olufsen, that's a brand a lot of people know, and we were actually doing an incubator for sound companies together with them as well.

26:12
Kristian Riis
So yes, I think, don't underestimate the power of creativity in terms of innovation, but also in terms of business. It is a job creator. And it's a damn good branding tool as well. Noma, the Danish restaurant, that's of course within food, but it's a very creative setup. The way when you go to Noma, it's not a meal, it's an experience.

26:37
Kristian Riis
I really want to push that agenda. And I do believe that the creative industries are maybe not the answer to everything, but it's a very important factor if we want to create something that's both good for the future and also a good business.

26:54
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And I want to go back in time a little bit, to when you were 12 years old and you started to play the guitar. Talk about what this meant for a 12-year old boy to discover the guitar and what did it mean to you, playing on this thing and realizing at one point that this is not just fun — this could be my job?

27:18
Kristian Riis
First of all, to be honest, I realized quite early that if you play the guitar, the girls are more interested in you.

27:25
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Oh my goodness. I was looking for something romantic in terms of, you know —

27:33
Kristian Riis
That can be romantic too! Actually, my mom taught me how to play guitar. That was the beginning. And the reason why I started doing that was because once a month, my mom had fifteen of her hippie friends over, everyone with a guitar in their hand, sitting around and playing guitar.

27:49
Kristian Riis
I'm like, I want to be part of that community. I want to be part of that social group. That's why I started playing guitar. I'm also ambitious. I didn't have an urge to become a rock star and be on stage, but I had an idea that if I find the right people and we create a band, I can make that band big.

28:08
Kristian Riis
I got to work hard for it. I'm going to be smart about how to promote it and so on. And when I founded Nephew together with Simon, our singer, from the beginning, we were ready. Before we had five songs, we had merchandise. We played at parties and stuff like that.

28:24
Kristian Riis
So for me, playing guitar was because I wanted to be part of something big. I wanted to create something bigger. But also, the idea about actually making a living out of playing music was something that I was really fascinated by. So, of course it was the urge to be creative and play music, but at the end also to create something bigger.

28:43
Kristian Riis
During high school, of course, I played in several bands. Before we had a breakthrough, Nephew, we had seven years where nothing happened, where people left when we were playing live and so on. So I'm not saying it's easy, but I understood that to become a successful musician, you should know how to run the business around that too.

29:00
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And you became a very popular band, Nephew. It still exists, as you say, with little breaks here and there. You did six studio albums and you won many Danish Grammys, which are all behind you and look very impressive.

29:14
Kristian Riis
Yeah, a couple of them.

29:15
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Yes.

29:17
Kristian Riis
Yeah. Again, a band, we have to distribute the awards so everyone can bring one home. When you win a Grammy as a band, you get one. So yeah, that's why we're sharing.

29:26
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
So you had to divide them. So it's even more impressive because I see quite a lot behind you. But how did you guys have to reinvent yourself? You said you started out in 1996, you were 21 years old, and now you're a bit older. How does one stay alive for that long and keep being relevant?

29:45
Kristian Riis
I think for a band that's very hard and that's why we are on a break now and we are actually looking into other sides of life as well. We've always been doing other stuff. For example, our bass player, he's a doctor, PhD doctor doing cancer research. Our keyboard player, after we went on the last break, he went back to his studies and he's doing a PhD in quantum physics right now.

30:10
Kristian Riis
Our drummer, he's producing a festival. Our singer, he's doing comedy tv shows and he's doing another music project and so on. I am playing with a Danish hip hop artist called Carl Knast. We've been out touring.

30:24
Kristian Riis
And I'm challenging myself digging into hip hop, I never listened to hip hop and suddenly I'm learning a lot and I'm so fascinated by that. I've also been doing quite some electronic music. The album I released with René in 2017 is an electronic album.

30:39
Kristian Riis
Something that I'm really keen on, like I mentioned before, is how do I use that experience in other ways of life, in other industries? Like now I'm building cities. Volcano is part of building a city now in Bhutan, for example. I'm super fascinated about that. When I'm in Bhutan, not only because I'm a friend of the king, the king of Bhutan. Also when I'm there, I do writing sessions with local artists. I meet artists, filmmakers. Music is still my language.

31:05
Kristian Riis
So, for me, I feel so lucky that I can live a life where I achieve as much as I can in Denmark, at least as a band, headlining the Roskilde Festival three times, playing gigs up to 60,000, 70,000 people and so on. And now actually being part of building a new city that hopefully can be an example of how to build a mindful, green city built on art and culture.

31:29
Kristian Riis
So that's a big challenge for me. What I do in Bhutan now is a little bit like what I did in LA earlier. Connecting, helping people, but also learning. I had a period last year where I was pretty burned out and stressed out. And then I met the king of Bhutan. He invited me to Bhutan.

31:46
Kristian Riis
I stayed for four weeks. I went to temples. I went a lot out into nature, doing hikes and so on. And I was pretty much cured after that trip. I found peace and I found that mindfulness feeling that I think a lot of people in the Western world are longing for.

32:05
Kristian Riis
A lot of my friends, both in Denmark and LA, they spend a lot of money on psychologists and life coaches and so on. And that's great. Nothing wrong about that. But it just came to me in Bhutan. It just hit me, even though I was not, maybe I was looking for it, but I felt some real mindfulness that I hadn't experienced before.

32:28
Kristian Riis
Back to your question, how do you stay relevant? For me, it's not so much about trying to hunt the last fix, it's about that I have one life, and if I can actually both learn from the Bhutanese people, but also help them develop the country, that is meaningful to me.

32:48
Kristian Riis
How I stay relevant is actually doing something real. Not that music is not real, it is, we make people happy and so on, but I feel that I'm digging much deeper now, and actually helping a country and I'm super proud of that.

33:00
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You said you are creating a green city. What did you mean by that?

33:05
Kristian Riis
The master planner of the city is BIG, the Danish architecture company headed by Bjarke Ingels. It's a city built mainly on hydropower and solar power and stuff like that. It's a city where art and culture is very important, and the livability in the city as well.

33:23
Kristian Riis
It's still early stage. If you Google "Gelephu, the mindful city," that's a little intro video behind that. And then you can get a pretty good sneak peek into what's going to happen there. For me, as a friend of the king, I'm offering my service and I'm really keen on placing artists and creatives as a central part of that city.

33:45
Kristian Riis
Because again, back to what are we longing for today? We are longing for something meaningful, not only materialism. So if you can experience great art and music and togetherness and events, then it's going to be a place that people want to live and want to visit. And again, I'm super proud if I can push that in the right direction, so to speak.

34:08
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And treat the planet well at the same time.

34:11
Kristian Riis
Climate change is real. It's happening. It's happening everywhere. We see that in Denmark in terms of towns getting flooded and a lot of storms and so on. We see it in LA. We see that all over the world. Bhutan is the only carbon negative country in the world still, which is super fascinating.

34:30
Kristian Riis
But it's a country where people have access to technology. You see the monks, they have cell phones and smartphones. They're connected to the world. And last fall, I traveled up to the Royal Highland festival in the mountains. That's in 4,300 meters. And I was talking to the local people. I said, Oh, so beautiful, the snow and the peaks. And they said, yes. But it's much less snow than we used to have.

34:52
Kristian Riis
It's happening. So you cannot live in isolation and say, the world can just deal with the issues. Bhutan has to take responsibility as well. And I hope with Gelephu that they are actually building a city that can be a lighthouse and an example for other cities, how to use green energy and mindfulness and culture to create a better living for people.

35:17
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Do you think sustainability is something that's in your Danish DNA in some way?

35:23
Kristian Riis
I am not sure that we particularly have sustainability in our Danish DNA. I think we are consumers like everyone else, and we like to buy stuff. With that said, I definitely feel a movement. I think it's a movement rather than defined by countries and borders and so on. People are getting more and more aware about how much they consume and what kind of pressure they put on the climate.

35:52
Kristian Riis
We have a lot of issues in Denmark. We are consuming too much. I think a personality like Greta Thunberg from Sweden, our neighboring country, she's been opening a lot of people's eyes and she's been creating a movement among young people. So I think definitely, it's something that most people think about.

36:13
Kristian Riis
And also in terms of how to live your life and what's cool. People think it's cool that you buy secondhand clothing and you think about how you're living your life. In that sense, it's becoming more and more part of the Danish DNA.

36:28
Kristian Riis
But I feel that basically, many places in the world, I would say I have just been to Singapore, and flying into that amazing city, that's a little bit more than 50 years old, a young city. I saw maybe a thousand oil tankers out in the ocean. And I was like, Oh, that's a lot of oil right there. The world is challenged. And I find it so fascinating to kind of see how we can come up with greener solutions for the way that we live and the way that we consume.

36:56
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
To return to music. One of your songs that you created with Nephew was called "The Danish Way to Rock." It's from 2010. It was a song done in collaboration with the Danish national soccer team. Yay. I would like to know how the Danish national soccer team really sings. But I'm also curious about what you think is the Danish way to rock in a little broader sense. How do Danes rock?

37:26
Kristian Riis
Yes, that's a good question. Maybe it's better to ask non-Danes about how we rock. First of all, about the team. It was at the World Cup in South Africa. It was a really bad World Cup for Denmark.

37:38
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Yes. I was there. It was terrible, when Holland beat us.

37:42
Kristian Riis
Yeah. They were actually pretty decent singers. Of course, today the team is generally different because people get older and so on. They were decent singers. We went with them to Vienna where we had the whole team in my hotel room and recording them singing. We wanted them actually to be on the song. And that was a great and really fun experience.

38:00
Kristian Riis
I'm not a big football, or I'm generally not a big sports fan, but meeting professionals, it's fascinating. It's a different way of being in the world and it's fascinating. When it comes to the Danish way to rock — I remember after we did the recording, we were in the hotel and some of the players, they invited me down to the players lounge.

38:19
Kristian Riis
And they said, so Kristian, would you like a beer? And I'm like, yeah, why not? Let's have a beer. And then they called out to reception and that beer didn't show up. After half an hour, they're like, what's happening? And then they're like, yeah, we're sorry, but your coach is not allowing you because you have a match tomorrow. You cannot have a beer. And they're like, ah, damn.

38:37
Kristian Riis
And I actually think that shows a side of the Danes that, yeah, we do drink, I would say too much alcohol. And there's a movement now with more non-alcoholic products and more non-alcoholic parties. I enjoy having a drink once a while. I am a rock musician, of course.

38:53
Kristian Riis
But I would say the Danish way to rock changed a little bit, moved from being a lot of drinking now today to a little bit more, I would say responsible drinking, more about communities again, like I talked about before, life quality instead of just going out hammering drinks, actually enjoying great meals, enjoying culture.

39:15
Kristian Riis
I would say one thing that strikes me also moving back to Denmark, is that you are responsible for your own life. That's not a lot of rules here. You can basically do what you want as long as you respect other people. And I like that.

39:28
Kristian Riis
Sometimes in the US, I do feel there's a lot of rules when you're in some place. So you cannot, I don't know, skinny dip on the beach. In Denmark, you can basically do what you want to do as long as you respect the other people. And I would say that's the Danish way to rock.

39:44
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Oh, that's very nice. You created a very popular song that I think is the one that I think of when I hear the name Nephew. It's called "Hjertestarter" and that is about Vesterhavet, which in English is the North Sea. And it's how you call out the ocean to blow some life into you and your heart, because it is called "heart starter." The music video was shot on the beach on the coastline of Vesterhavet, the North Sea. Is this what Vesterhavet does to you too?

40:19
Kristian Riis
I grew up in that part of Denmark. I moved later to Århus, the second biggest city in Denmark, and then to Copenhagen. And I must say, I love Copenhagen. I became a Copenhagener. I also have a summer house in Zealand, north of Copenhagen. I love that area as well. But I would also say that when I go back to Vesterhavet and to Jutland, I definitely feel a connection.

40:44
Kristian Riis
It's pretty windy. And it's pretty big waves and it's a lot of sand. But it really strikes me right in the heart. The atmosphere, the people, the smell, it's wonderful. So I would say when I recharge my batteries, I'm going back to Vesterhavet, especially the northern part of Jutland and maybe go for a surf, maybe go for a walk.

41:08
Kristian Riis
I think something today that's a luxurious thing for us human beings is to be able to be alone. And if you go there in the winter, you can walk on the beach for hours without meeting anyone. And that can be a nice feeling. Some of the same things I feel when I hike in Bhutan, there's almost no tourists there. So actually having a time to reflect and dig deep into yourself and just being, that's something you can experience at Vesterhavet.

41:38
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And my last question for you. I started talking about falling in love with Los Angeles. What else have you fallen in love with during your career or maybe had a business crush on? What is your biggest love, biggest passion now that you can put it all into perspective?

41:58
Kristian Riis
I think that my Bhutan adventure is where everything comes together. What I'm doing in Bhutan is what I've been building up in Denmark in terms of educating cultural entrepreneurs, helping creative industries, and building livable cities. So I'm definitely in love with my Bhutan project.

42:22
Kristian Riis
I will also say that on the music side, working with Carl Knast, the Danish hip hop artist, I found some kind of home there in his music and his way of writing that I didn't know about before — again, I didn't listen to much hip hop — the aesthetics and the way that he sees the world and the way that he can describe it.

42:43
Kristian Riis
Unfortunately, he's rapping in Danish, so English speaking listeners wouldn't understand it. But that's something that really excites me. So I would say right now, Carl and Bhutan is where I really feel it right now.

42:55
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Thank you very much for your time, Kristian. We really appreciate having you on Danish Originals.

43:01
Kristian Riis
Thank you so much.

43:06
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
For today's episode, Kristian Riis chose Pia Arke Uden titel (Thule Air Base) or Untitled (Thule Air Base) from 1992–1993 from the collection of the National Gallery of Denmark.