(SOUNDBITE OF LUKAS GRAHAM SONG, "7 YEARS")
LOURDES GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:
Danish band Lukas Graham has had quite the year. They've been nominated for three Grammys - best pop group, record of the year and song of the year.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "7 YEARS")
LUKAS GRAHAM: (Singing) Once I was 7 years old, my mama told me, go make yourself some friends or you'll be lonely. Once I was 7 years old...
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Lukas Forchhammer fronts the band and he writes the lyrics. He told us about the loving and unusual upbringing he had in Denmark.
LUKAS FORCHHAMMER: I grew up in a neighborhood called Christiania, a squatted settlement, an ex-Army base that was abandoned in 1970 and squatted in 1971, a quite unique place with no cars, no streetlights, no leashes on the dogs and schools would have been outside. And so it was more like a rural upbringing, you could say, even though it was in the center of our capital city of Copenhagen.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MAMA SAID")
LUKAS GRAHAM: (Singing) Remember asking both my mom and dad why we never travelled to exotic lands. We only ever really visit friends. Nothing to tell when the summer ends. We never really went buying clothes. Folks were passing on the stuff in plenty loads.
FORCHHAMMER: My father was from Ireland, and so I listened to a lot of folk music from a very, very early age on, as well. And my dad had a very eclectic musical collection. So I was listening to anything from British Invasion bands to, like, Otis Redding and James Brown.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DON'T YOU WORRY 'BOUT ME")
LUKAS GRAHAM: (Singing) Hey, my friend, how you been? What are you going through? What is this trouble that's troubling you?
FORCHHAMMER: And so from a - from the age of 8, I was basically being classically trained as a soprano soloist in the Copenhagen's Boys Choir. Music, in general, was a very, very healthy release for an energetic child like myself.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DON'T YOU WORRY 'BOUT ME")
LUKAS GRAHAM: (Singing) Sometimes your life can bring you down. Sometimes you run for miles and miles. Sometimes you scream without hope. Now once you feel you hit the ground, then victory comes back around. And you'll be proud to let them know. Don't worry about me.
FORCHHAMMER: I talk a lot about my father in my songs, but that is probably mainly because he's dead. We were just reaching outside of Denmark into Germany and Europe when my father passed away, so it was a very difficult time in my life.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "YOU'RE NOT THERE")
LUKAS GRAHAM: (Singing) I only got you in my stories, and you know I tell them right. I remember you and I when I'm awake at night.
FORCHHAMMER: A thing like losing a parent is, what you could say, a personality-shaping event. It is something that's going to travel with you for the rest of your life, just like having a baby and creating a new life is also a personality-changing event. If my father hadn't died at the time he died, I wouldn't have become the guy I am. I wouldn't have written the songs that allowed me to travel around the world. I probably wouldn't have slowed down enough to settle down with my girlfriend and have a child of my own.
So at the end of the day, my father's passing was what you could call a cataclysmic event in my life that I should respect and cherish.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "YOU'RE NOT THERE")
LUKAS GRAHAM: (Singing) Though I know that you're not there, I still write you all these songs. It's like you've got the right to know what's going on.
FORCHHAMMER: When I look back on my childhood and growing up in Christiania and I think about my father and my mother and then the house my dad built, I would remember him definitely in the kitchen where we had our big stereo and the record collection and the record player. And he'd be cooking, like, roast chicken with potatoes in the oven or coq au vin, like, boiling.
That's what I hope my daughter will remember me as. Like, when she's being interviewed in 20 years in national Danish radio asking her about what does she remember her father, I hope she says, he taught me how to ride a bike or he was teaching us how to cook great things in the kitchen or - I really hope my kids don't say, oh, he was always on tour or I remember my father singing. I really hope that my children remember me for something normal.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "YOU'RE NOT THERE")
LUKAS GRAHAM: (Singing) As I struggle just remember how you used to look and sound, at times I still think I can spot you in the crowd.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: That was Lukas Forchhammer of the band Lukas Graham. The band's self-titled album is out now. This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Lulu Garcia-Navarro.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "YOU'RE NOT THERE")
LUKAS GRAHAM: (Singing) You're not there to celebrate the man that you made. You're not there to share in my success and mistakes.