From the beginning, I’ve had to choose: do I chase a “career,” or do I follow the music itself? Since founding my first band Music Spoken Here in 1989, I have always chosen the music. It has cost me. It has also saved me. And in the long arc, it’s given me more than any short-term success possibly could.

1989 Copenhagen:

A Living Scene Back then, Copenhagen was buzzing. Clubs, cafés and small venues hosted live music every night. On the encouragement of the Danish guitarist Mikkel Nordsø, + recommandations from my mentor the legenday Palle Mikkelborg ( Miles Davis "AURA") - I started my quartet Music Spoken Here—and there was actually a market for creative music. Promoters paid, people showed up, and as a composer I even received KODA royalties. When I entered the Rhythmic Music Conservatory in 1990, the future looked golden. The band was popular, and I had a reputation as a strong booker and performer.

1989. Music Spoken Here—my first laboratory. Listen to my debut album here

Listening Music, Not Dance Music

Bass: Kaspar Vadsholdt. Drums: Anders Mogensen. Keyboard: Steen Rasmussen Saxophone: David Wilscewsky "Mountain Lakes" Live at national TV show

Back then there were some fusion bands in Denmark , and most of them played fusion you could dance to. But I wanted people to use their ears - to listen. Virtuosic lines, complex rhythms, unison riffs. My parts were legendary: a single tune might stretch across 5–6 pages for each musician. When conservatory life began, I kept the band going because I knew it would shape me more than any class. Meanwhile, many classmates folded their bands within the first year, crushed by study pressure. I asked myself who I wanted to be when I grew old. Many of my “heroes” were either in a sect, chasing a guru, or battling addiction—sometimes all three. That worried me.

Those long handwritten parts for Music Spoken Here

The 90s Shift: DJs, Screens and my Wake-Up Call

During the 90s, DJs took over many stages. Cheaper, predictable, modern. A lot of the live market disappeared almost overnight. Around the same time, I was invited to a family dinner where a friend proudly asked if we wanted to hear his new song. He pressed PLAY on his Apple computer, and my world cracked—for two reasons. First: it was impressive; everyone stood there hypnotized. Second: I suddenly saw the future—our present, and beyond. I had to leave the room and cry on the rooftop. For me, music was alive. This was a machine and it would change the game and make us all lazy. And yet, soon after I embraced the technology. MIDI and sequencers were revolutionary. Instead of spending hours scoring by hand, I could hear my ideas instantly and print the parts.

The night I understood this machine would change everything and take-over showbizz.

From Posters to PowerPoints: THE BUSINESS TAKEOVER

In the late 80s, the band and I, would fill black garbage bags with physical promo: casette Tapes, typewritten letters, carefully designed posters, glossy folders to bookers and radio stations. Compared with the workload today in 2025 you have to do everything yourself: I am a studio engineer, videographer, color grader, lighting guy, photographer, photoshopper, website designer & editor. Most promotion is social media and I handle that to : youtube, instagram & facebook. I basically became a machine trying to please a machine

Result: the time a musician spends actually practicing his music is massively reduced compared to earlier. Add to that the fact that (according to DataReportal/We Are Social, Digital 2024) Modern people spend 3 hours and 45 minustes online every day! ( + add the "offline" time to that number!)

The language in showbizz also changed suddently. Everything became “networking,” “brand building,” and “business models.” Suddently people where "busy" and bands became "projects" and the elite would perform powerpoint presentations to reveal their strategy.

Grants, Buzzwords and the Post-Covid Fog

Through the 00s, funding systems shifted too. Now You had to master “application language” to unlock support from f.ex The Danish Art Council and KODA. And after Covid, it became even more surreal. The forms multiplied, and the checkboxes grew: sustainability this, gender quotas that. —AND the whole concept of artistic content was pushed aside.

Freedom Cannot Be Bent

I saw much of this coming - so clearly - that night on the rooftop in a glimpse — the logic is simple: If you want a career, you must join the machine and play the game. Short horizons. High pressure. I’ve seen too many people break. Because freedom cannot be bent. Power and budgets are often managed with breathtaking incompetence. Indifference wins (unless you step out of the loop)

And in 2008, I left the Danish unemployment benefit. Free money for nothing —a soft cushion that dulled my instincts. Friends purchased cars, houses and a mountain of consumer goods, all financed by society. Their dream was to become “big names,” and couldn’t be seen playing with me because I didn’t fit the league, the business model and the machine. So within 15 years, I had no “network” left. With the result that my creativity exploded.

When it’s life or death, you get honest and art becomes super important.

Tourists and Natives In the 00s

Most of those career-chasers are gone now. (Witch I already knew back then would happen). I´ts like the difference between tourists and natives. Natives—those who live in the music—are extremely rare, and they age well.

With the arrival of AI the showbizz machine can basically make songs without dealing with real musicians. (Due to the quality of modern song writing and storytelling)

Finding True North in India (and Elsewhere)

In South Indian music culture, and in several other places abroad, I found deep authenticity and respect for originality. People understood the absurd effort it takes to actually achieve mastery - and it was a sacred thing. I’ve also acted for 25 years now, and all of it is merging into a deeper spiritual understanding of myself, art and life.

In a way we are all brainwashed - living in a spritual/ finacial prison. The gamemasters do this so well so its kinda impossible to discover unless you step out of the game and really go deep into art as a transformational tool. Its the only way to create new energy and overwrite the code.

Out of the Box Teater: THE SHAPE OF SOUND

Since the 70´ties Denmark have had the highest level of competence in theatre for children. I started my career there in 1999. And it was awesome. The whole dedication was refreshing - people where hardworkingand creative and it was possible to tour for months . I was lucky to experience that spirit for a while, because that would also slowly die out. After 20 years on the road I began to notice the whole same brainwashing game there too - while the money dissapeared.

After Covid, my wife, Italian artist Simona Zanini, and I founded our own theatre company (outoftheboxteater.dk). And our first piece, The Shape of Sound, split opinions in Denmark. It was too "out of the box" for the danish showbizz . Asking big philosofocal questions about art and identity. Many professionals sensed the freshness and our technical level. But at a our first theatre fair, buyers—mostly around 70—asked, “Are there any famous names in the show?”

That told us everything. Danish theatre were in crisis, propping each other up with public funds, and the demand tilted toward comfort, intertainment and celebrity. Vision and risk were a "NO-GO". And the people doing the shopping 70 years of age!

Out of the Box Teater — music/ dance / theatre.

Moving to Lombardy

So we moved to Lombardy in Northern Italy. Europe’s music and theatre sectors are still aching after lockdown, but here an underground is stirring. People are hungry and curious. We’re building a promising career on our own terms, without subsidies—one audience at a time. And In October 2025 we had premiere on our second piece, ELEXIR AROMATICA - about the magic of spices.

In Denmark we did not sell a single show - But a year after we left Denmark - We toured one month in Sicily! And when we performed "The Shape of Sound" (in Italian), people where in awe, laughed and cried. They would often say: “This takes a lifetime to learn.” and that is exactly our mission to point out! Somebody has to tell the next generation:

Its actually wonderfull to spend a whole life learning to master a skill.

"ELIXIR AROMATICA " in Teatro Pandemonium (IT)

More things happened after moving to Italy : In 2025 I started my own Konnakol school in Bergamo.

Bruno here ( to the left) travels 16 hours every Saturday to LEARN KONNAKOL - that spirit impres me!

So—Music or a Career?

If you’re standing at the same crossroads, here’s my answer. Choose the music. Choose the process. It is not safe. It is not comfortable. But it is alive. It will demand everything—and quietly give everything back. But in the same time I have to say: “I don’t recommend my path lightly—it’s very risky and dangerous too.

But if you hear the call, you already know what to do.

See you on the road.