Formula Indie Sessions _ Interview with No Comp Le Ments ( John Herman)
What is your earliest memory connected to music?
One of my earliest musical memories is listening to The Beatles’ White Album. From that day on, music became a defining part of my life.
How did your passion for creating music begin?
The passion started as a drummer, but when the leader of our band suddenly left the everything fell apart — so I began writing music on my own.
What’s the story behind your current music project?
We share a passion for music from a time when things felt a little darker. Our main ideas come from listening to a lot of English artists such as Blur, David Bowie, Depeche Mode, and many others from the 80s and 90s. We both naturally lean toward melancholy — in life, and in the music we create.
How would you describe your sound to someone who has never heard your music before?
I would describe it as a kind of good wind in your life — gentle at first, but growing stronger with every sound you let in. That said, you’ll never really know what to expect from one song to the next.
What is one thing you’ve learned that completely changed the way you make music? The day i found my voice.
What tools, instruments, or software are essential in your creative process? We keep it pretty simple: a few trusted instruments, some old keyboards, and whatever sounds we stumble across along the way. Most of the magic happens when we combine live playing with digital tools — recording, shaping, and twisting things until they feel right. The setup isn’t fancy, but it gives us enough freedom to follow the mood wherever it goes.
Which indie artist or song are you loving right now?
Right now its norwegian Yndling that has all my attention. They make beautiful songs and have vocals that we one day would love to work with.
How have your personal experiences influenced your music and artistic vision? A lot. Everything we live through — what we do, what we feel, what we take in — somehow finds its way into our musical landscape. We work very intuitively: if I send Chris an idea and he feels something from it, it becomes a song. It’s that simple. Life shapes the music, and the music shapes us back.
What emotions or messages do you hope listeners take from your work? Whatever they want. Its not up to us to have an opinion on how they feel.
What’s the most important lesson music has taught you so far? That music stays with you for life — all the way until the day we’re gone. It’s the one
constant that never really leaves.
What is a dream venue or festival you would love to perform at? No Comp Le Ments Festival — a place where we invite all the artists we admire and let
them shine. And late on Saturday night, they would play our songs while we just sit, listen, and take it all in.
If you could collaborate with any artist, past or present, who would it be and why? Yndling because music is now and not in the past.
Where can our listeners follow and support your music? (Website,Spotify, IG, links) https://www.instagram.com/nocomplements/
si=xgO224HWTWCMJ34yf8_W8Q
Looking toward the future, what’s your dream for the next chapter of your musical journey?
Our dream is pretty simple: to slip on our Adidas shoes, make music whenever we feel like it, and create songs we genuinely love ourselves. And if other people end up loving them too, maybe one day we’ll even earn a new pair of Adidas shoes out of it.
What do you hope listeners will discover about you along the way? We hope people discover that our universe is completely free of genres. One day we
might release a pop song, the next something closer to reggae — we follow whatever feels true in the moment. And we’re always open to collaborations with artists of any style. For us, the freedom to explore is the whole point.
