Lukas Forchhammer
I don't know how to thank all the people listening to our music. It's so amazing to come home to my friends who resist conformity, because they're so happy that I've made it.Collection: Amazing
My biggest influence is rap. It spoke to me, probably because of my upbringing in Christiania. You listen to 'The Chronic' and you can hear that anger and frustration.Collection: Anger
When you get frisked by the police at the age of 10, and they empty your schoolbag out in the street and kick your books around and calling you names because of where you live, you just get an anger towards everyone who is outside of your neighborhood.Collection: Anger
Christiania has a lot of strong, nuclear families. It gave us a sense of empowerment and belonging and richness. We had so much love; we were never in doubt that we were wanted in this world.
'7 Years' seems to have attracted a lot of age groups - people seem to see their own lives in the song, and it's great to see so many people reacting in that way to it.
It's not that I'm trying to write another '7 Years' or a new version of 'Mama Said.' Songs just kind of come out of nowhere, and you need to catch them when they do.
Our art, in a sense, is quite revolutionary.
We're talking about growing up in regular families, dreaming about better things, instead of popping bottles in the club and spending a lot of money that you don't have while living in your mother's basement.
I find it a very, very powerful thing to be yourself and not to try and be something else and to use that as your biggest shield and your biggest attack in the world - to just be you.
I think it's an important thing, if you grew up in a neighbourhood that's different from the rest of the world, to remember what was different about your place and keep that in your heart, because that's what made you.
I never watched any award show.
It's always more fun when something happens outside of a script.
When we perform music at TV shows, we always try to do something that's not scripted because anything that's a surprise for the audience and the crew and the other performers, it works better on camera and for the people back home, too.
The neighborhood where I live has little canals, and there are a lot of houseboats there.
Seeing my child born is so much more important than anything else I've got going on.
I always saw law as a performance, just like being on a stage.
I just thought it would be awesome to become a lawyer, especially being from a neighborhood seeing the police rough up so many people unnecessarily, people who haven't done nothing. Growing up with kids from dysfunctional families and stuff, I just felt that some kind of difference could be done. And now I'm getting to do it with music instead.
I'll probably stay in Copenhagen... I can keep writing songs about my local community and about crime.
If I moved to L.A., I wouldn't move to a ghetto neighborhood. I'd move to some posh, fancy place.
I've always wanted to release records in America. That's where I believe the music belongs, and the style and the eclectic musical mix that we put together kind of belongs here.
Listening to all these different musical genres from all over the world and listening to my father's record collection, the Irish folk influences from home. Of course they're all in there somewhere hiding within the lyrics and melodies. But rap music was the biggest influence on my way of writing and my performing.
If it was up to me, it would be nice not ever to get stopped on the street, because we just do music. I didn't do this to become a celebrity.
I don't think I can remain anonymous for that much longer. It was fun while it lasted. Very fun.
I really like singing. I believe that if I wasn't a good singer, I would have been tossed out of school.
I was writing rap at 12 years old and began writing songs as a 20-year-old. I think I wrote my first song in the winter of 2008-2009, when I was in Buenos Aires. I was writing about growing up and my boys back home.
When my dad died, my world crumbled.
What hit me in the gut about hip-hop was that someone else grew up tough enough to be angry at the entire system.
I never want to lose sight of my roots... A lot of artists want the riches and the fame. I want to tell stories you can put into the context of your life.
I don't play any instruments. I don't produce. I don't know which keys or chords I am using, so, in essence, I need the band and the production team - otherwise, I am just some guy with a hat and a song.
We're surprised, ecstatic, vibrant and exultant about the success of '7 Years.'
It's very satisfying when you see your song at the top of the charts.
I don't know why, but I don't fancy writing love songs; I never have.
I grew up with nothing, and I know that I don't need anything to be happy. We were wearing second-hand clothing and eating leftovers, and I was so happy. Five-star hotels and private pick-ups hasn't changed that.
In the early '90s, my cousin gave me a Snoop Dogg cassette tape, and the rawness of the lyrics were something new to me.
I think losing my father was OK in the sense that it's cool for me not to have a father; it's normal. I'm supposed to bury my father. But what I didn't realize was that my father was my best friend, and that still gets me... that still irritates me a lot.
I write instead of going to the shrink!
I remember getting a toilet in our house. I remember sharing a bedroom with my sister, and my little sister was sleeping in my mom and dad's room.
Our goals, our dreams and ambitions have always been towards performing live music across the globe, and so when we were told we were performing at The Billboard Awards or being nominated for a VMA, they're like extra bonuses.
We're like, 'Woah, are we even in that league where we get nominated for a VMA?' And yet our name is right down there among the other nominees. It's very, very strange coming from a country of five and a half million people.
I wish we could not ever get recognised on the streets, do no selfies, and still perform music all over the world. Unfortunately I don't think that's going to be the case, but I'm doing my best to just keep my feet on the ground and my eyes on the prize.
Dr. Dre's '2001' album changed modern pop music.
I dropped out of law school when I got my record deal.
We mix a lot of genres - soul, pop, jazz - but we most agree on hip-hop.
The lyrics are the essential part in our songs.
I bought a restaurant - that was pretty expensive.
We don't take advantage of our position. We keep saying no to free stuff, as we can afford it now.
Here in America, the big-brand collaborations kind of signify how far you've gotten. So in that sense, it's a giant kudos to us that we, within the first year, get to be the first ones to be the launchers of this Pepsi Sound Drop.
'7 Years' is, you could say, a song that eats its own children. That we need to get past the song and get to the person and get to the record and get to the music so we can keep releasing.
We have a big fan base in Australia, but none of us have been before.
We've had to be escorted out of venues, things like that. We get security guards now.