Ginger Ninja

The Danish debutants dare to both smile to the audience and reach toward the pop-music on their energetic debut-album. It’s the follow up on the summer-hit “Sunshine” and the Bandbase.dk-grant, they won in 2009.
It all started with the band quitting music. Not in a “throwing all their instruments in a pile and setting them on fire”- kind of way. But more like making music a hobby. But as soon as a few snippets escaped the rehearsal room the interest was there.
Now, after only two year of existence, Ginger Ninja are able to present their first album “Wicked Map” and that is after a year where the commotion surrounding the band has grown bigger and bigger. It seriously started when the band became the recipients of the Bandbase.dk-grant in 2009 – it was later followed by concerts at Spot Festival, Start! Festival and Roskilde Festival. And throughout the summer “Sunshine” has been among the most played singles on P3. Most recently they have been handpicked by Tim Christensen to play warm up for Dizzy Mizz Lizzy’s anticipated tour during spring.
The reason for all this? From the start Ginger Ninja has mastered to hit an unpretentious note on both the album and at their concerts and are helping to fill the void for those, who don’t mind that music makes you smile. Behind the band’s spirited electro rock is a true enthusiasm for the simple pop-tune.
-We are not afraid of pop music even though we in spirit are a rock band. Because we are 4 guys who stands united to get ahead. That is what the picture of a rock band stands for. And that’s what makes us able to reach out toward the pop music, says lead singer and guitarist Henrik Hamilton and bass player Carl Riestra Rasmussen triumphs it:
-We are black on the outside and pink on the inside.
The urge to please and provoke makes them sneak influences into their music from east and west – from the cradle of rock ‘n’ roll to the 1980’s large gesticulation to today’s pop-phenomena from home and abroad.
The songs may be hurled in your face with confidence and energy. Therefore as a starting point they do not exclude anything, when they write songs. The tracks arise spontaneous from a guitar-figure, a bass line, a rhythm or something else that turns up during rehearsal – and through jam sessions they discover the rest of the song.
-If there are any dogmas in our music, then it is that there aren’t any dogmas, states Carl Riestra Rasmussen.
Because the quartet consist of four individuals with separate starting of points and separate taste which has been distilled to a consistent expression on “Wicked Map” where the joy of playing has controlled the direction. Singer and guitarist Henrik Hamilton is the conductor, the kid, the greatest music history geek and the man behind the undertone of melancholy and seriousness in the lyrics. Guitarist Rasmus Søby Andersen is the unschooled eager innovator. Bass player Carl Riestra Rasmussen is the sensitive expressionist with the good ear for music. And drummer Johan Luth is like Animal from “The Muppet Show” – the untamed animal who drums on everything.
In the middle of it all is producer Fridolin Nordsø who is the master of the buttons. The goal was clear: to convey the energy the joint input from the band members create as clearly as possible.
-We are not a band who puts on a mask – you just see Henrik, Rasmus, Johan and Carl have fun. We have to be real and honest about whom we are, say Carl Riestra Rasmussen and laughs:
-We are not very good at posing either.
- Sony music