Interview: School for the Dead's Henning Ohlenbusch

I recently discovered what I believe is the best independent release of 2005. And I'm a hard guy to impress. The band is School for the Dead and the album is called "The New You". There's been a lot of hype about Clap Your Hands Say Yeah this year, but School For The Dead is better. This band is not just regurgitating the hot new sound of the moment. The New You has brought a huge smile to my face with it's wonderful pop sensibility, clean, straight-forward production and painterly lyrics. When I found out it was an independent effort I was seriously impressed. You can listen to the album on Rhapsody here.

The following is an interview with School For the Dead's singer/sonwriter/leading man Henning Ohlenbusch.

Robert: Where did the name "School For the Dead" come from?

Henning: Good question. I wrote a song in 1994 called "School for the Dead". The phrase dropped out of the other right into that song. That song ended up on a solo album, which I named eponymously, "Henning's School for the Dead". When I held a CD-Release show for that album, I enlisted a group of friends, a group of my favorite musicians, to play with me. It was supposed to be a one-time band (don't most things start that way?) but it worked out so well, that we continued to play under the moniker "Henning's School for the Dead." It became clear to me pretty quickly that if we were really going to be a band, though, I'd need to get my name out of there. We reverted back to "School for the Dead."

What does it mean? It means different things to different people. I was delighted when one of my all-time favorite musicians, Jane Siberry, suggested that "School for the Dead" might be referring to life.

Robert: Tell us about the latest album "The New You". How long did it take to write and record? Who helped out? What are you most proud of?

Henning: It's always difficult to determine how long a record took to make. When do you start the stopwatch? Some of the songs on there have been fermenting for decades. Some of them were brand new.

Article Author: Robert Burke

Robert Burke spends much of his time lovingly crafting thematic music playlists for the Rhapsody Radish and the Yahoo Radish.

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