122 PEOPLE
ENGLISH
English Summary
THE INVISIBLE HIT-MAKER
Sebastian Arman hoarded cables and microphones in his school bag as a boy and longed to swap the confines of Tyrol for the wider universe of music. Today the offspring of a consistently talented family is an internationally sought-after songwriter and produces chart hits across all genres.
A
lmost six years ago, the now 37-year-old stood tired, frustrated and thirsty at Vienna International Airport. He had just returned from a trip to Los Angeles, where he had tried - once again - to get a foot in the door of the music business. With no success. “I didn’t have a cent in my pocket and couldn’t even afford water,” he remembers. “At that moment I wanted to leave everything behind and become a waiter. Or whatever. I just didn’t want to be broke any more,” Arman says.
T h e b e g i n n i n g of the end of Sebastian Arman’s dry spell was a call from producer David Bronner, who was looking for reinforcements for the song contest team backing Conchita Wurst. At the time nobody believed that the polarising figure would win the often-mocked song contest still watched by millions of people with “Rise like a Phoenix”. The red-white-red victory was not his only Eurovision Song Contest success. Sebastian Arman has long since stopped worrying about lack of work. He is as much in demand as a songwriter as he is as a producer. He founded the project “DECCO” with his Swedish colleague Joacim Persson a few years ago, which met with international acclaim. Stars such as John Legend, Selena Gomez or Kelly Clarkson had hits tailored to their individual tastes by the duo. S e b a s t i a n A r m a n started to produce his own
songs at the age of 13. He then appeared on stage himself as a rapper and singer with the hip hop trio “IBK Tribe”, founded in 1999 - and still does. “Just before the lockdown we had our obligatory Innsbruck gig. Unfortunately, it doesn’t happen more often than every two years,” he says. But he still loves Tyrol. His favourite places? “Definitely the Piburger See. And Innsbruck. Here is the best place in the world to go out. It’s just cool when you run through the arches and know every-
body,” Arman says. He suddenly pauses when asked what Tyrol sounds like to him. After a short think he then finds the answer: “Like a mixture of brass music, underground hip hop and Goa. Somehow weird, but also good.”
Tirol_Magazin