At first glance you would never expect that Loïk Gomez is a musician who thrives on the countryside, but his very nature is as deep and intricate as his music. Read how BFRND tells us about songs that make him cry, the Aargau and his favorite word.

BFRND, 5 capital letters that scream drama to your face. You mystify and intensify. What inspires your drama and orgiastic intermezzi in your music?

I have always been inspired by science-fiction movie scores like the one for Interstellar composed by Hans Zimmer, it’s the most modern thing that happened to orchestral music and a part of my music is a continuation of that recontextualisation of classical instruments into a new territory.

Since the original Blade Runner movie from 1982, where Vangelis produced the film music, I haven’t heard anybody building up his music in this dry, wavy, hardcore and symphonic, dark-pop way. It’s a feeling and a dark wave – either you drown in it or you’re on the same wavelength. What do you feel when you compose your sets?

I often get compared to the Blade Runner score which is obviously a big compliment. I think my music is a new music genre, it doesn’t belong to one category, it has multiple sources of inspiration, industrial, movie soundtracks, rave, cold wave, pop, etc. I like to call it “post-industrial” because if you listen to industrial bands like „Combichrist“ or „Tamtrum"you can definitely hear where it comes from but it’s also very different, less gothic, more pop and maybe just more recent.

Your cover of Corey Hart’s „Sunglasses at night“ is pretty epic. You seem to deconstruct and reconstruct, stretch parts, then build up with your chant part. How did the creation process go? What was the most fun about it – what was the most draining about it?

I love doing covers because it’s about taking an existing song and transforming it into a new song by putting it in a new context. Recreating Sunglasses at Night was pretty fun, it’s a track that I always felt connected to, especially the Tiga version with Amanda Lepore lip-syncing in the music video. We all know this track and the challenge of making something new out of it was pretty exciting. I’d say that the most fun part of it was taking the decision of doing it, Demna and I got really excited when the idea came in because it was a very unexpected choice for Balenciaga to show it’s pre-collection in a music video of Sunglasses at Night, it was this or “Oops I did it again” from Britney Spears.

Which one song of all times makes you cry every single time you hear it? We all have that one song.

I think it’s “I am calling you” by Bagdad Cafe. It’s such a scream from the heart, full of passion and poetry. It’s definitely one of my favourite love songs, I use to cry a lot listening to it when I was a teenager. Today it just makes me think about my husband and how much I love him.

By the way: I read that you live in Aargau, pretty much seems like Swiss countryside? What do you like –what do you hate about it?

I love everything about Aargau! I am not feeling any connection with big cities and the hectic energy that’s happening there. Whenever it smells like cow shit and grass I feel home. I need this grounding silence and emptiness to fully connect to myself and feel that inner peace to be able to concentrate and be creative.

What is your relationship with nature? Do you need it, do you fear it, what does it to you?

Nature is the mother of all of us. We can deny it as much as we want it’s the truthful truth. Some people might think a rainy day is a shitty day, I actually enjoy any sort of weather, when it’s cold, rainy or windy I just love to be at home, feel warm and cosy, compose some dramatic music and the sunny and hot days are bringing me in a summer holidays mood. I need to be surrounded by nature to feel alive, big cities consumes my energy.

Close your eyes for 30 seconds. Take a deep breath in and out for the time being. Concentrate on your third eye located between your eyes? What is the first thing that comes to your mind?

The first thing that comes in my mind is my husband and my dogs in our home. Nothing makes me more happy than the family we are building together, the feeling of joy, security and the loss of the time notion.

What is your favorite dish?
Pan-fried grandma potatoes with loads of garlic and roasted vegan sausages from Beyond Meat, there’s nothing better to make me happy!

What is your favorite word?

My favorite word is love, there’s no more beautiful feeling than love.
Who is your favorite composer?

It’s a very difficult question because there is not one composer that does everything I like in music, my taste is very diverse and only one person can not represent it so I give you a few of them: VX69 (Punish Yourself), Hans Zimmer, Alec Empire (Atari Teenage Riot), Rammstein, Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails) and Angelo Badalamenti (Twin Peaks).

Please finish the sentence: The future is ...

NOW! We are living a very important part of history, old rules aren’t functioning as they used to and it’s the moment for new generations to build their own vision. Everything's possible, sky is the limit.