Drawn to music at an early age, Freddie Elmberg was classically trained in both pianoand violin, going on to tour throughout Europe with his London-based orchestra.Priding himself on being as authentic as possible and owning his unique sound,Freddie’s love for classical composition shines throughout ‘The Bouncer’ withundeniable beauty. 

Introducing himself with his 2021 debut single ‘Feel Again’, which continues to drawin listeners globally, Freddie has since collaborated with highly-regarded creatives Jamie Hartman, Nolan Lambroza, Eg White, David Hodges as he gears up for therelease of his highly anticipated debut project later this year. 

‘The Bouncer’ is heavenly. Driven by a soft piano brimming with emotion, the keysprovide a warm bed to one of Freddie’s most dynamic vocal performances to date aswe are gifted with falsetto vocals and mesmeric character, to home his narrative.

Hi Freddie, thanks for talking to ReVamp, growing up who were your music inspirations ?

My musical inspirations growing up where such artists as Tom Odell and Elton John. The raw sound and songwriting talent that was portrayed through just piano and vocals and the stories that able to be told greatly inspired me. I’m both a fan of new and old music but the thing it really boils down to is how good is the song acoustically. Thats when you know you’ve written a decent song and those artists do just that.

When did you realise you had a talent, and can you remember the first song you ever wrote?

I guess I first realised it when I covered Tom Odell’s ‘Sense’ at a school talent show in this massive hall and the response was huge. Ever since then I have kept performing. My first song I ever wrote came about in quite an unorthodox way, In a poetry competition I decided to submit a song from the point of view of a WW1 soldier instead of an actual poem and received an overwhelming amount of praise.

You have a new single ‘The Bouncer’, can you tell us a bit about the message behind this single and why you decided to write this?

I wrote ‘The Bouncer’ about my personal experiences being a bouncer. When I was in Manchester at the Royal College my part time job was being a bouncer at pubs and nightclubs. I had a great deal of experiences, good and bad on the door, enough to write about. The main lyric ‘But I can take you home’ is the idea of sending a drunk girl home in an uber safe home from the club. Also with the lyric ‘I can’t bring him back’ refers to a drunk girl unloading her emotions about her ex expecting the bouncer to cater and heal for her problems, a nightly occurrence.

Do you think the release of this single is different from your other releases?

I like to keep a consistent theme in my songs in which they all have a personal element to it so I don’t think its THAT different. I guess it is in the sense that we really went in on the music video which I’m really proud of but all in all no because I won’t my music to be personal to me and to be able to share a story with the audience.

What was the recording/writing process like for this single please? 

The process for this song actually happened very early on in my professional career. I wrote this song with songwriter Jamie Hartman over zoom during the COVID period. I came up with a majority of the piano part with a previous idea and Jamie and I bounced ideas back and forth with Lyrics. The piano part was  interestingly recorded in a very stripped back version, with one condenser mic above a grand piano into a very basic interface. All this was then produced by Sir Nolan in LA.

You have a video accompanying this single which was filmed in America, what gave you the idea of the backdrop of the video?

The whole idea behind the music video was mainly proposed by director Alex Pardo of Iridescent TV but coincided with the unpredictability and surprising life of a bouncer. Through each door there was confusion and frustration shown. Just like many of the emotions felt being on the door. The idea to film it in the desert was purely for how gorgeous the scenery was and definitely added a certain magic to the video.

What is next for you? 

Whats next for me is lots more music! The reason I do what I do is because people can relate to my music in whatever way they interpret the song. Hopefully with more releases I can gain traction to start properly touring as it is one of my favourite things to do, to perform live. I love what I do and I am going to take it as far as I possibly can and to provide music for my audience.

Stream 'The Bouncer' by Freddie Elmberg here.