In this interview spotlight, I chat with Happiness Junkies about their latest project, challenges, listening preferences, technology and more.

Full Q&A along with links and music below.

Where are you from and what style of music do you create? (In your own words, not necessarily in marketing terms or by popular genre classifications.)

Happiness Junkies are from the Amsterdam area (the city where a lot is legal;) in The Netherlands. Our style of music is slowbeat rock with a dreamy vibe of melancholy… of course we are not happy all day every day, and like everyone we deal with issues of contrast, but we try to focus on the happy side of life as much as possible… musically we like to slow a tune down a bit, somehow that gives it extra feel and energy. We like a slowbeat without getting sleepy; our sometimes harsh guitars and vocal melody lines should keep you awake 😉

What led you down this path of music and what motivates you to keep going?

We played in regular setup bands before, but while working out songs with the 2 of us, for this new project Happiness Junkies, we noticed we liked the tunes slower better. With the help of a drum machine, or rather drum composer – meaning ‘he’ doesn’t remember any previous patterns, you compose the drums live on the spot – we found out we liked the combination of the organic sounds of electric guitar, piano, and vocals, combined with the mechanical sound of the drum machine so much, we sticked to it and found our HJ music style: slowbeat rock. We’ve fallen in love with the sound and likely will continue going this path. While promoting our selftitled debut, we are already working on songs for the follow up, we don’t want to stop!  

How is this new release different than previous ones? Were you trying to accomplish anything specific?

We have been working together in other bands, and inviting session musicians, but actually this is the first time we’re working together as a duo. Although people say the two of us sound pretty much like a band, we chose an open sound, with the electric guitar and piano somehow entwinted, supported by the mechanical sound of the drummachine. And the female vocals on top. To add some bass to the spectrum, we used octave pedals for the guitar and the low notes on the piano. On one of the guitars we’ve added a special pick up with a built in bass octaver. This creates a full, but open sound, which we like a lot, the sound of Happiness Junkies.

4.Name one or two challenges you face as an indie musician in this oversaturated, digital music age? How has technology helped you (since we know it does help)?

With the modern recording technology, making it possible to record even on a laptop with cheap or even free software, the indie market seems pretty full and there are a lot of bands and soloartists out there, presenting their music. The big challenge probably is, more than ever, to stand out… with your songs, performance and sound.

On the other hand, this digital music age also offers a lot of possibilities to connect to radios, reviewers, bloggers, writers, making it possible to present your music to a bigger audience. That is a great help and a wonderful thing these days!

What was the last song you listened to?

Actually, it was one of our own J we were interviewed by a radiostation from Ohio and they played some of our tracks. We just listened back and heard You Can Leave Your Light On.

And this morning John Lennon’s Imagine blasted through the speakers…

Which do you prefer? Vinyl? CDs? MP3s?

Vinyl is great and sounds so warm, but your ears will have to cope with scratches eventually… so we prefer CDs for home and studio listening, and MP3s for computer and phone – listening. By the way, we prefer hi quality MP3!

For our Happiness Junkies releases we also give people the opportunity to get it on a mastered cd. We like the warmth and charm of a physical cd…

How about this one…. Do you prefer Spotify? Apple Music? Bandcamp? Or something else? Why?

In fact we think every vehicle has its charm. Soundcloud and CDbaby are also great, we use all vehicles, as listeners have their preferences to go to let’s say either Bandcamp or Apple. And of course there is YouTube, a great platform to present your musicvideos. We currently have two musicvideos for our Happiness Junkies tracks on YouTube and more to come. As indie musicians we believe it might be best to present yourself on as much platforms as possible.

Where is the best place to connect with you online and discover more music?

We happily invite you to go to https://www.HappinessJunkies.com

Here you find links to music, video, (great Happiness Junkie)t-shirts, pics and more. Our EPK offers background info, audio, video, review quotes and pictures. You can find it on: https://happinessjunkies.com/hj/epk.php

Anything else before we sign off?

A big thanks to MTM and people like yourself, who make it possible for indie musicians like us to get heard, seen and read in this ‘bizzy’ world…

Feel good & have fun!!