Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Cooper Olson. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Cooper, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

I made “Courage”, my first album as Decade House, at a really hectic time in my life. I moved from Wisconsin to Los Angeles in 2020 to pursue a career in filmmaking. For years I had used music production as a means to stay creative in-between film projects. As I was making the songs for Courage, I started to realize that the music I was making was as meaningful and significant as my goals were for filmmaking. So I decided to go all in, refining the music more than I had for previous projects and spending every free second I had tweaking and tinkering. I have a really hard time describing my music to people. It communicates emotions that I think are a bit unusual for the musical medium. I think Courage serves as a manifesto for my creative pursuits. I’d also like to mention that I make music with my good friend Dennis Leupen as “Seal Team Seven”. Check that out too :)

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I have come up with a million ways to describe the emotional goal/paradigm of my music. It’s kind of like if a gargoyle came to life and tried to make music to express itself. I see my music as intensely baroque. It has an incessant quality, filled with exclamation points. It’s heavily linked to my experience of excitement, adrenaline, fear, love, joy, and mischief. I love music that feels like an emergency, but not in terms of panic- more like the climax of a hero’s journey. But at the end of the day the moments I’m most proud of are melodic. I think melody is the essence of music, and when a melody can invoke the feeling of love, joy, inspiration, I am so happy.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

I just want to add beauty to the world. If one person feels inspired by one moment of my entire creative output then it will all be worth it. The fact that we have the opportunity to add real meaning to the world in the form of art is an unbelievable blessing. I’m not embarrassed by how serious I am about it, I think the meaning that is conjured in art is the most important part of the human story (besides love).

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

I consider myself a student of Werner Herzog. His work is not easy to pin down, and the poetry he creates is as meaningful as it is oblique. It communicates mystery and absurdity without being nihilistic or crude. There’s a hope in his work, but it is a crazed hope, a confused, monumental striving towards the essence of life. Beyond his film work, his book “A Guide for the Perplexed” with Paul Cronin is the single most inspiring and informative thing that I’ve come across.

Contact Info:

• Website: decadehouse.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/decadehouse__
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@cheesestateskatefilm

Image Credits
Photos by Caleb Maxwell