Full Transcript – Thomas Dambo – Wild Business Growth Podcast #220

This is the full transcript for Episode #220 of the Wild Business Growth Podcast featuring Thomas Dambo – Giant Troll Trailblazer, Recycled Artist. You can listen to the interview and learn more here. Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.

Thomas Dambo 0:00
One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. But the trash that you have in your own trashcan is somebody else’s treasure also.

Max Branstetter 0:22
Hey, hey hi. Welcome back to the Wild Business Growth Podcast. This is your place to hear from a new entrepreneur every single Wednesday morning, who’s turning Wild ideas into Wild growth. I’m your host, Max Branstetter, Founder and Podcast Producer at MaxPodcasting. And you can email me at to save time with your high-quality podcast. This is episode 220. And today’s guest is Thomas Dambo. Thomas is an artist who specializes in turning trash into beautiful art. He uses recycled materials and is most well known for his incredible series of giant trolls which are taking the world by storm literally, these are giant, massive fascinatingly cool trolls that can be seen so many different countries and continents around the world. And it’s all from dumpster diving. In this episode, we talk how Thomas creates these trolls which literally feel like they’re from another planet or from an entirely different time. And how to find beauty and trash at Thomas his background as a rapper as well as a beatboxer and some super cool trolls and super cool things to do that you might not have heard of in his home country of Denmark. It is Dambo. Enjoy the shoooooooow!

Aaaaaaalrightyyyyyy we are here with Thomas Dambo, who I asked several times how to pronounce your last name your artist name. And it’s so straightforward. I’m embarrassed to even ask. So Thomas, thank you so much. I’ll call you the the evil genius or polite genius behind trolls and so much cool recycled art and sculptures. Thomas, thanks for joining How you doing today.

Thomas Dambo 2:29
Thank you so much. I’m doing great. I’m here in Copenhagen in my studio and it’s nine o’clock in the evening.

Max Branstetter 2:35
He has a little you’re in the future from my standpoint. So hope hope good things are coming this way. But now I appreciate you making time and and staying up late over there but really excited to dive into your creations and kind of your creative process everything from from the artists background before that. Before you even started creating visual art and sculptures. I know that you have a background in beatboxing and rapping. Where did this passion for beatbox beat boxing and rapping come from?

Thomas Dambo 3:06
One of the first thing I remember recording was that we we recorded the BloodSport with Van Damme, Jean-Claude Van Damme this movie called Bloodsport, it’s like a Ultimate Fighter type of themed movie where fandom he’s like in Hong Kong or somewhere in Asia. And then he’s fighting and then I had gotten my hands on a stereo VHS cassette player that had a like an aux audio put in so that you could record the audio separate from the video. So I had bought it to to be able to copy the VHS tapes back then, which was something that was really hard to get your hands on. So you had to read the movies or or record them directly off the offered like stream TV. But we then ducted me and my friends so that we change the whole audio and so we will say like all the fight scenes and stuff. So I think that was one of the first things we recorded and then later I just think we would like my friend at my friend’s big brother had been in New York and had brought home the Public Enemy Apocalypse 91 vinyl record, and that was really cool. And nobody else in like our group of nobody else we knew we’re listening to hip hop it wasn’t a thing at that point. But it became a thing for us and we got picked out in school for wearing big jeans and stuff like that, but we thought it was really cool and then I think at some point we figured out we should also be rapper. So we started beatboxing and and later started recording and later started performing and had 10 years being a rapper 7 albums.

Max Branstetter 4:51
Oh my God, that’s incredible. I so so I knew you were talented and as far as rapping and beatboxing I didn’t know that You made Sound Effects For Jean-Claude Van Damme movies as well.

Thomas Dambo 5:03
I totally forgot about it also, until you asked me, it was funny. I ended up dropping the original the first Warcraft game, my friend, he was like a little bit of a tech genius. I think we must have been maybe 14 Or like young teenagers, he knows we were played playing this online, we could connect to computers. And then he would like connect to computers, we could play against each other. And it was just super, super cool. And then he figured out that there was a folder with all the wav files for all the characters in that Warcraft, World of Warcraft game, like old game like that. And then, so then we did new sounds for all the different characters and like, I remember, like, there was a submarine. And so I made the sound effects with my head in a bucket of water making the sound for the submarine captain or something like that, you know? So, yeah, just playing around and being creative. You know, that’s what it’s about. For me.

Max Branstetter 6:02
It’s a good way to live. I think you could have a whole separate career as the the sound effects person in movies. You ever seen those clips like that of people that watch stuff and try to make the sound to come through crisper? I’m not I’m not sure the name of it. I’ll look it up after sound

Thomas Dambo 6:19
like with some Tupperware and trying to sound like a horse? And then

Max Branstetter 6:25
yeah, exactly. That’s like Monty Python with the horse with. So pretty early on, you expressed your you let your creativity flourish from the audio standpoint. What about from the visual sense? So like, what was the what would you say was the first ever you know, like, large scale art project that you did have, you know, or demonstration that people are like, Wow, what’s this guy doing?

Thomas Dambo 6:51
So so it was actually from pretty early on that we started. We came into this whole thing, hip hop and skate, skate culture. And so from really early point, I was like, doing like stencils with my favorite thing is hip hop band, and the Wu-Tang Clan and Public Enemy. And so I was doing like stencils, and T shirts and stuff like that all the way from when I was probably like 12, or 13, or something like that. And then that, like slowly progressed into becoming like big paste ups and, and becoming like graffiti pieces and things like that. But like I had a friend who was like, extremely good at drawing. So I think that in some way, like discouraged me a little bit from drawing. So I was always trying to search out like, alternative ways of expressing myself. So try to win by creativity, rather than like perfection in the drawing, because my friend, he was so good, you know, he was that Wizkid between all of the friends who could just draw anything, right. And I had ADHD back then. So I was also like, really, really impatient. So I think I never really learned to be good at anything. Like before I got got older. But some of the first things I remember was like, yeah, some big, big graffiti things and really, really big paste ups and also did some really good paste ups where I did like, you know, when you take a piece of paper and fold it and cut it, but then I had made a key for these big because I’d seen some movie I watched so many movies back then I didn’t see that some movie that like the villain or maybe somebody in Alcatraz or something like that. And then they are taking a candlelight and then they had made a key. So I managed to make like a candlelight copy of like some special key for having these big commercial posters in these big light boxes that you had in the city where I grew up called Odense. So then I would go and raid all those posters and take them and then paint them or like cut them or make change them into something else. So that those were probably some extra graffiti and paste up that was like the first type of things that I would do.

Max Branstetter 9:06
So from graffiti to trolls, and I think trolls are kind of I mean, they’re literally a big part of folklore I think no matter no matter where you are in the world, and so many of us grow up with knowing about trolls now there’s obviously you know, it’s commercialized there’s like the Trolls movie and franchise and those toys and everything in the trolls world, but can you help level set us here? Can you can you explain the significance of trolls in the country of Denmark and growing up there?

Thomas Dambo 9:35
Yep. So I think I think any culture in the world has different types of mythical creatures and religious figures and different like phenomenons or myth that a country or culture will will have to use to explain the what is it can be hard to understand or unexplained Right. So I think that in the United States, maybe we call it like Sasquatch, or a Bigfoot or something like that. And many places in Asia, they have the dragons. And you know, so all over the world, you have like different creatures, like a lot of these comes from like, from, like the religions that were before, like the mainstream extreme religions that we have have today. In Denmark, you actually say that the trolls, they all migrated to the mountains and forests of Norway, and Sweden, which is the two Scandinavian countries like this, that are much bigger than Denmark, ah, but right next to Denmark, but they have like the more like the Alaska part of the United States or something like that. So they’re really big. But still, there’s not that many people living. So you say that the Danish trolls, they live in Denmark, which is like a smaller and higher population density type of country. And then they migrated up to the wilderness of Norway and Sweden, when Christianity came in and built the churches, when all the church builds because the trolls they didn’t like the church, the sound of the church builds. So that’s why they migrated away. So I think trolls was a big part of Danish, like the religion and the the tales that were before Christianity. And because of that, a lot of those stories they they still live on today. And there will be a lot of books and a lot of like, I would wouldn’t really read too many books as a child, because we weren’t too good at reading. But I would listen to a lot of like, cassette tapes, and some of the cassette tapes would be about trolls, or about like Valhalla and nordic mythology, and some of all the stories that are connected to that. And that’s what the trolls are. And then the trolls can be like good creatures, and they can be bad creatures. And the way that I use them in my art now is that they are kinda like the story or like the boys of nature, so that they can, if you’re good to the trolls, they’ll be good to you. But if if you’re bad to them, they might blow your house over.

Max Branstetter 12:08
I’m not No, I definitely want to be good to I didn’t know that trolls were had so much history of migration as well. It makes sense. I know. It’s part of the culture of Norway and Sweden as well. But I had no idea that that’s they’ve migrated, that’s they migrated. So appreciate the background there. When did you know that you wanted to do such a big art project that focused on trolls?

Thomas Dambo 12:32
The troll project now is that because I had, like, since I was doing like my experiments with with 3d art. Probably back in like the round to the millennium, the y2k? What is it,

Max Branstetter 12:46
you call it? Throwback? Yeah.

Thomas Dambo 12:49
I was also doing a lot of other projects, that I think in some like, because I was doing all my hip hop concerts, hundreds of hip hop concerts, we also did all this inequity. And where I learned, I learn to have an audience and how to test I like how to have this. In the morning, I could write a song, and then I could bring it onstage and perform it at night. And I could, like choose like, today, I want to wear this weird clothes that I could put on, I wanted to do like some funky cinematography, I wanted to bring a porta Potti on stage or like Tuesday, we’ll do a lot of weird stuff, right. So when that got really like, it was really nice to play around with the ideas. And I learned that like that I could make my own story and I could do whatever I wanted to do. And I learned to have success and that I could actually live from just from ideas that came out of my brain and things that I could do with my voice and my hands. Then at some point, it started to become a little bit boring being a rapper, because I’ve done it for such a long time. And we had like reached like maybe like the second top shelf of like danisha What like entertainment, music entertainment industry. So we played all the stages, we just needed to play like the last three big stages and Denmark, we hadn’t played those. Otherwise, we had played everything. And we had had the big hit with the 5 million views on YouTube and all that stuff. And so it was kind of like that the next step was like to become that really big band and then play the long, like the 20 year plan for how to be a band for the rest of your life. You know, and and I didn’t have the patience for that. And we also had worn a lot of each other after doing it for seven years or something like that. And was just tired of working at night and in the weekends and not being able to work in the daytime. But but then then I decided to kind of like try to do something with what I had always known which was to build things in wood, which my father had always taught me and I had had a half a year of education as a carpenter and I’ve always loved To dumpster dive, and I was also doing a lot of song of my rap songs would be about dumpster diving. So you would probably maybe, like, if you would look back at it, maybe you would put it in this nerdcore kind of category, if you know what I mean. So it’s like super hardcore gangster rap track that sounded super gangster, but it was about dumpster diving, you know,

Max Branstetter 15:20
but super hardcore and super nerdy. Yeah, but,

Thomas Dambo 15:23
but I wouldn’t dress up as a nerd. I was probably a nerd. But I would sound like a 50 cent and look a little bit like 50 cent when I was on stage, you know, then I started. And I remember I was like, I don’t want to be a rebel anymore. I want to go back and then try and build something I want to build, recycle things like, like, I had also done in my like, in the end of my, like, in my street art years, I then transitioned into doing these big projects with birdhouses and did 1000s of birdhouses, I became like the street art guide, where, you know, like this is to that person that does paints an arrow, and then there’s the street person that does the the stencil and the person that does the, you know, so the medium answer becomes the, like, the tech or the or like the voice. And so my medium was the birdhouse, and that was like the birdhouse guy in Denmark, you know, and remember, my friends would be like, Thomas, aren’t you tired of being the birdhouse guy, and I was like, Yeah, but if I were to be the tux guy and the father was the rap guy, and now the birdhouse guy, that’s great. And in the second approach is gonna be something else, you know, so, but then when I did all the birdhouse projects, I understood that I could build things of recycled wood, because I could get recycled wood all over the place. But I needed to have a bill on my birdhouses, I painted them and I made it out of plywood. And the aesthetic of them was that they needed to be like, a really clean, and then paint it so that so like a clean piece of plywood with no holes and no cracks in it. And I painted them like blue and yellow and like in different like clear colors. And then I started doing sculptures that were like really big, and also made them plywood, and also painted and really clean in like the aesthetic of them was really clean. And it’s an awkward fee for the other parents that we knew and for TV and I’ve got a TV show about recycling and all different stuff like that. But I noticed like a fault in like if you can say like the design of my, my career, or like the product that I was making as an artist in making these clean things. The fault because I was a recycle guy from there. Maybe we didn’t speak too much about it now but I’ve always been a recycler I’ve always been building everything with with dumpster dive stuff ever since I was like five years old or something I’ve been dumpster diving and, and being creative with that. So So I noticed that it was actually a bad design because I needed to have paint paint was really hard to dumpster dive. And plywood boards with no holes in them in really big pieces was really hard to find also in the dumpsters, but what I would always find the dumpsters was small, broken, crappy pieces of fence and old pellets and like so smaller fragments of wood, if you can say it like that, that I could always find. And I had learned through the years with the with my hip hop and through the years with doing birdhouses and workshops with birdhouses where I would go out to 200 birdhouses in an afternoon with a lot of children at a school or something and then hang them up in that area. And I will do that many, many, many times. So I learned that people wanted to help me and participate in these big creative projects that we’re doing, especially because my projects had like a positive impact. And it was we’re educating about creating room for other species in the in the cities and, and being resourceful and like and recycling and being smart about our materials and not being wasteful. So those were like some of the thoughts that I had in the back of my mind when I was like maybe I could combine these things into like a big scale sculpture. And then what could that sculpture look like? And I started doing experiments like that. And then that led to the aesthetic of the of the trolls and then slowly that progressed into becoming the troll. Because it was a smart design. And I think that, like if you break like an artist career apart, right, you have to become good at your craft. So if you think about like something like singing, it’s extremely cheap to practice singing, anybody can practice singing, they can do it all the time. Practice doing like a gigantic sculpture. If you think about it, it requires a lot of tools at the cryos like heaps of expensive material. Think about the artists that create like reflective sculptures in Bronx or something like that. That is such an expensive process. So if you’re like in, in kindergarten, how an entryway Would you ever start practicing that that craft you know, but practicing building something rash, you can start practicing that, like right now because everybody they have trashed and you can go out and find some of your trash and then start practicing building from that. So, so I had learned through all the projects that I had done, I had learned the importance of being able to actually practice what you want to be good at. like to call it like when I was making street art, you know, I wanted to paint a canvas, and then to buy a canvas would be $20. And then I would be afraid of breaking the white canvas because the canvas was so expensive. But if you’re working with trash, then you have something that’s already broken, so you’re not afraid of broken what’s broken already. So those were like the the thought behind it. And then I started practicing doing big sculptures in recycled wood. Like that, and how I could get like an aesthetic and how, how I could fit it into like, something that had a meaning for me. And the trolls had meaning for me. I’ve always loved to hike and explore nature. And I’ve always, like love doing these projects together with other people traveling, I’ve always like loved storytelling, like in all the songs that I wrote throughout my life. And I’ve chosen like a combination of those things that became the project of my of my trolls, where I’m now going to go the day after tomorrow to the airport. And then I’m going to fly to the most secret location yet where I’m going to build Metro number 100.

Max Branstetter 21:27
Wow, congrats on that. You don’t have to reveal anything here. You could tell me offline. I’m going to tell everybody. I’m just kidding. No, no, we’ll keep it top secret. But congrats, that that’s so cool. I appreciate you sharing it, there’s so many fascinating pieces from your background that kind of have shaped together, you know, quite literally into building these giant trolls. And first of all, I’m just going to crown you the world champion Dumpster Diver of the world because I think you’re the most creative dumpster diver in history, which is awesome. But super resourceful and super great obviously for the environment and and you know, a strong mission that people can get behind. And when you look at pictures and videos of your creations, I think one of the first thing that strikes you is just how big the ads are. I mean, these are these are massive, and they’re so cool. And, and somehow oddly lifelike and have a lot of personality that you give these trolls with the size there, what’s the difference between creating a sculpture that is such a big size like this, as opposed to something smaller handheld,

Thomas Dambo 22:37
so I have actually not made too many small sculptures. I think it’s this probably a little bit of the same thing I spoke about earlier that when I was a kid, like I was not the one that were good at sitting and fiddling with one little small drawing, I would more be like, let’s make a tree top house, you know, like, Let’s climb up in a tree. Like, let’s say let’s build a skateboard ramp or with like some big shovels that we take out in the forest, like our beam, more that type of have that type of energy. So I think that if you build something really, really big, then then it’s like the big picture that matters and, and you probably you maybe you forgive a little bit more that maybe that’s not so super, super many small details, because the size itself has like a significance and also because my sculptures are made of so many really, really small pieces of wood. It also gives an aesthetic where you feel like them the detail for example, like I have what I call for on my sculptures, which is kind of like a little bit of like, a single roof or something like that, that’s just made with pellet wood. And it gives it like a high feeling of of detail, even though it’s maybe not the details not worked that much into it. But I like really big things, it makes us feel small and and I think that Mitro is being the like the voice of nature, as I say it’s like, you should be a little bit intimidated by nature because like if you if you piss off nature, then that just kind of drowned you or blew you away or set you on fire or

Max Branstetter 24:11
is very powerful. And these tools are very powerful. I I have not seen one in person yet, but I really want to because I’ve I’ve chills just seeing the pictures and thinking about it. And they’re so cool. I’m actually from Ohio originally, you’ve done some work in Ohio, right?

Thomas Dambo 24:30
Yeah, yeah, we went Dayton, Ohio. One year, like a little more than one year ago.

Max Branstetter 24:36
Awesome. Very cool.

Thomas Dambo 24:38
We actually have a project in New Jersey also, like so right now we’re cooking on the 12 Stop. East to West Coast United States tour. Three months of this summer, hour and a half in six months. We’re going to do 12 sculptures, like so one will be finished like every time And so something like that. So I’ll probably have like two teams that will like kind of like collaborate on traveling across the country and then doing that it’s something I’ve always wanted to do so. So maybe we’ll come by New Jersey, then I hope so.

Max Branstetter 25:14
Yeah, perfect. Yeah, if I can throw it a name in the ring, Hoboken, New Jersey, just do it is a beautiful view of the New York City skyline across I think, I think the trolls might enjoy it there. But how long so you mentioned different crews, and, you know, kind of going on tour for this, which is, you have a very, very cool life, I think you’ve created an awesome life for yourself and your teams, and how long does it take, you know, the process from start to finish to actually create, you know, a full size troll.

Thomas Dambo 25:43
So for example, the process now for, for the road trip tour, it has already begun, you know, like we, we have a couple of clients that reached out to me, and so we’ve been signing a contract with them, then we just did a post on my social media saying that, like, we’re doing the road trip thing, it’s my dream to do it like, so we would like to have some more stops, like, so with somebody, like, has a good home and like and can raise the fund and also get the permit to do it, then we would like to speak to you. So then now I’m gonna go through to the United States now in in five weeks in the middle of February, and then I’ll be on like on on a little tour where I’m they’re gonna go around and then see the different sites for the people were signing contracts with, then I’ll probably be there for like two days or something at the different sites, where I’m then gonna conceptualize the, the idea. So then maybe the client will tell me like, oh, there’s, like, you can build it within this forest. Or you can feel it in this or this or this location, or they’ll have something to say where I can build, you know, and then I’ll come up with a concept of, like, here in this location, you’re telling me there’s like a gigantic, for example, there could be a gigantic fallen redwood tree, and then I’ll be like, oh, cool, would we be able to cut a hole into the tree and then hide a diamond that the troll is protecting the time and then it’s cutting it outside? or so then I would come up, try and come up with a concept that would fit into that specific location, maybe the owner of that piece of land, or that park or whoever the my partner in the project would be? Maybe they would also be like, I would always ask them the question like, so do you have something you’re throwing out? Do you have something you just proved to have something that just fell in the storm? Like, do you? Do you have something that you don’t need? Like, all I say is like, Do you have a excavator you don’t need because I want would like to do a troll wrestling excavator, you know, it’s always ask like, do you have stones? Do you have like, what do you have a you that is like something you don’t really need for anything anymore, because it’s worn out, you know. And then these things will then inspire me to what it will become. And then I’m going to sketch a little bit on it, or my illustrator in my studio will help me sketch further on it. Basically, I myself can just go with no sketch and then build it. And that’s what I like to do the most. But clients tend to want to have a visual representation of what it is we’re building. But when we come on site and build it, everything always changes because we build it into the site, because then if we’re building a troll that’s guarding a diamond inside a hole cut into a fallen redwood tree on a hill, like it takes so much planning to build something in my studio and move it there for that to fit into this natural living environment. So what we do is then when we then come back from the site visit, we then build the face and the feet and the hands, maybe only the fingers, we build those parts in my studio. So then me and my team will will build that in my studio. And then those pieces we will then bring to where we are then building the sculpture. So that means that in like 140 foot container, we can fit like all the pieces for maybe 678 big sized sculptures, because we build the arms and the leg and the big body with the giant belly and all that we will build on side but the face is it’s harder it takes more training, it’s nicer to build an indoor in a more controlled environment. And same goes for the other more articulated parts of the body has to feed in the hands and fingers.

Max Branstetter 29:33
It’s almost like putting a giant troll puzzle together there’s so many different pieces of it and make sense that some it’s easier to do there and some easier to do at the studio.

Thomas Dambo 29:43
We’re building it with with screw guns, you know, so I start with like, drawing up some kind of a stick figure. And then I make the stick figure arms like thicker and I’ll take it a little bit of pot and move it again and slowly. I like move it into the position that feels right. And then then we’ll then start bulking it up and cladding it and giving it a hair and whatever it is it needs.

Max Branstetter 30:10
Does it ever change? Does the final troll and any accessories ever change as you start building it and realize, oh, maybe, you know, maybe we try something this out here.

Thomas Dambo 30:23
Yeah, that that happens all the time. I think that’s what’s fun about being an artist is that, that you can change things, you make up the rules. So I think that’s really important for, for keeping, keeping it fresh and keeping it inspiring that, like I there’s nothing more I hate than having a, like, when I cook, I also don’t use a recipe, you know, like, if you have to follow the recipe every day becomes so boring, you know, you need to need to have like your, your flex, to be able to freestyle and and that’s I think often that’s where the good things that’s where innovation comes, right? It comes in like those moments, like, there’s no more eggs, what are we going to do? Let’s use, I don’t know, whatever, like, let’s use the rotten tomatoes instead. Maybe they also have yeast in the morrow, you know, like and then some something funny comes, you know, so and that’s one of the other thing that I really enjoy about working with with trash and dumpster diving is that I cannot make a plan for back from me back in Denmark for what I’m going to find in the mountain side of Korea, like I can, I know that I can probably find some pallets and I can tell them, my partner there that I need some wood, but we’re gonna there’s got to be some unknowns that I’m gonna, my creativity is gonna spin into something and often becomes the best part of the project.

Max Branstetter 31:42
Wondering what I thought the best part of this interview with Thomas was? You can find out by signing up to the Podcasting to the Max newsletter that’s at MaxPodcasting.com/Newsletter. Each week, you’ll hear behind-the-scenes tales, my favorite part, and some good times from the Wild Business Growth Podcast that you won’t get anywhere else. And you’ll also learn plenty of podcasting tips. You’ll even get How to Edit in Audacity, the free eBook I created when you sign up, so sign up at MaxPodcasting.com/Newsletter. That is the Podcasting to the Max newsletter. Now let’s recycle trash to the Dambo as Thomas says, let’s find out how Thomas is so so so creative. And those trolls just turn out. Troll-nomenal. So that segues absolutely perfectly. This next segment is totally about creativity and inspiration. So it says that as if you designed this interview here, so I appreciate it. But you mentioned that there’s almost like, when you’re doing the site visit, there’s almost it feels like there’s a real spontaneous and creative aspect to it when you when you’re talking about looking for fallen trees or excavators are just things that stand out and are a bit out of the ordinary and people and probably most people have overlooked or said, Oh, something went wrong here. But you look at that as an opportunity to create a really, really cool sculpture. So that’s that that part I think is very inspiring in itself. But what is it when you are doing these site visits that clicks in your head of ah, that’s it, that’s where we should create this troll.

Thomas Dambo 33:25
I think it’s like, what what does stand out what is like, what is unique, what feels like it holds like a story, like something happened here, or something’s about to happen there. Or there’s some opportunity that I can see that if I flip that upside down or, or build something across that pond or like, and then also i’ll try to think of myself as like, if I was a witch, when you feed big troll, what would I do if I came walking through here? Or? Like how if I were 50 feet tall and could lift the truck? How would I then then I would look at this house in a different way you know this, then this House wouldn’t be an obstacle, it would just be more like a paper box that would just step on when I was leaving to the other side or like trying to put myself in that if I had that size and those powers and often like I’ll take photos of myself like doing those things. So of course I can’t leave across a house but then I would maybe find a tree trunk that I could then that would have the right scale for as my sculpture would have to house as I would have to a tree trunk or as my sculpture would have to bicycle and then it would maybe say Okay, so a human bicycle would have the same scale to its role as a pine cone would have to me and then so I always like scale it out like because everything I do is the scale. Because like the humans are like the the puppets for the trolls so all Let’s think about how, like that the scale from the humans to the to the trolls, that’s, I think that’s what makes it makes it fun. And

Max Branstetter 35:09
how do you train yourself to? To have that view? Like if you’re thinking as humans as puppet sighs and you’re thinking from the troll perspective, how do you train yourself to, to view everything as such a bigger thing,

Thomas Dambo 35:24
but just build 100 Build 107 years, it’s pretty good training, you know? I think so. I’ve been doing and I think like also, I’ve been really good at numbers my whole life. So I wasn’t super good with, like with writing and reading when I was a child, but I was really good with numbers and really good at like, scaling things up. So like, if you use five a day in seven weeks, how many do you use in five years? If you’re three people, something like that? I could like study, but you know what I mean? Like some people they they like if you practice it, then you become good at it. And then you can like get a feeling of like, ah, then it will be like this baker. Yep. And we say that the trolls are like 1:5 to 1:10 compared to humans

Max Branstetter 36:10
ratio. Yeah, we should have had a troll on hand for, for this interview as a troll some questions, some big questions. Clearly, you’re a very, very creative person in your creative works, or it’s like creativity on creativity, because so much goes into it. The act of creating these trolls and everything from dumpster diving, to sketching, to actually building the final product, what do you do to stay creative, and kind of keep your mind in that give your mind the ability to come up with these wild ideas and creations like this.

Thomas Dambo 36:44
I don’t really do anything specific. I think like my whole life, I’ve just been. Like, I’ve just had a lot of different hobbies. And I’ve been blessed enough for two from really early age to learn that I could actually live from my hobby. And for a long time, like, I felt like I wasn’t good at anything, because I was doing so many different things. Because I was like, doing the music videos and the social media and I was doing the album cover and I was doing the rapping and the human beatboxing and I was doing the sculptures and the graffiti, I was doing so many things. And I felt like I was the worst of all of it. But then like at some point, like in the end of my 20s, it kind of like flipped a little bit until like, I know how to do everything. And so I think it taught me, it taught me how to teach myself to do anything. And then once you understand that, then then your creativity becomes pretty free. Because you’re not limited to like, oh, what can I do with copper? Or what can I which song country song can I sing, then you’re just like this call for a country song with a cover cover. And then like I just figure out how to do it or who I can involve in the project to help me do it. So I think that’s, that’s how I, I’ve kept busy and I’ve learned to be just be super, super productive all the time. I’ve always liked that because for me, it’s the gratification of seeing my idea come to live. So I don’t really do a lot of mock ups or concept sketches or something like that, everything I do is, is a product. So if I had some have some idea I want to try out, then I’ll I’ll make it as a final, my test will be a final. So I won’t do like eight songs that I won’t release, I’m gonna release all of them.

Max Branstetter 38:38
Use the term productive, I think there’s an efficiency there as well as when it when you’re not wasting things. I think people really grasp on to that, as well as people appreciate if you’re, you know, prolific and putting stuff out. Even if you know, some takes more time than others and some might not quite be as polished as other things you create, I think people love and are really inspired by, you know, being able to produce and put things out like that. So, I love that. And I think it reminds me of, you know, your interest in having so many hobbies and interest in, as you said, you know, us used to believe that you were stretched so thin, you’re like, What am I good at? It reminds me of what they say. I mean, I remember back when I was taking classes in business school and learning about entrepreneurship is innovation and inventing and coming up with new ideas. A lot of it is exposing yourself to so many different ideas and fusing different existing ideas together fusing different things together. And I think that’s where some great inventions have come from where many great inventions are come from. And I think from your art, it’s derived from a fusion of, you know, so many different hobbies and passions from from your background and putting that together. They’re letting your creativity flourish. So it’s like this, this perfect mix that creates the most perfect cool trolls ever. So again, I, I have chills, you’re gonna be pumped up, I want to create trolls myself,

Thomas Dambo 40:10
used to try. But the thing is like to not being afraid of failing. Like I think like this world we were living in right now it’s kind of like everything has to be perfect. And it’s just actually I think maybe a lot of people probably getting worse and worse because they’re like, we’re not really creating it ourself anymore, but just looks like everybody’s perfect, but everybody’s just so many things are just fake, you know. So I think there’s also something, it’s really great to dare to fail, and it’s good to fail. That’s when you also learn something you know, so I don’t have to build the perfect sculpture every time. That’s not what that’s boring for me. Like I would love like to be able to do it. But it would be the process of making something that’s perfect every time would be boring, because that would require that it would have to keep going back and back and back and back and redo and redo and redo. And I would much rather like to the next one and the next one next one because it’s because for me, it’s funny to do the next one, right? Well, different like that, but and we all find our way that like the way that fits perfectly to our mind and how we grew up and how we are triggered as humans and that that’s what works for me.

Max Branstetter 41:25
So let’s get to the next one. The next one being let’s wrap up with some rapid fire q&a. You ready for it? Yeah. All right, let’s get wild. What is and we don’t need to reveal all of it. Because I do want people to check out your Instagram, check out your website and see the amazing, just prolific trolls that you have. But what is one that pops in your head, it’s just a very memorable troll creation that you’ve worked on in recent years.

Thomas Dambo 41:55
We just did like, had a concept that’s the troll with the world’s longest tail. It’s a it’s like a 400 feet long tail that we did another workshop with a lot of different people. And it came together really good because it was like, I always do workshops, but in this one, but it’s hard to do workshops where people participate in crawling high up on the scaffold and help building the troll like tree storage up. So I thought if I do a troll with a super long tail, that is like laying on the ground, and then it’s showing the way from like from the parking lot playground area and then true like this little forest onto the other side to where the troll is that everybody can help working on the tail. So I had like a horde of people taking pallets apart and cladding, this super, super long tail. So that was really, really fun. I really enjoyed it. And I hope that I will get to beat the record again someday.

Max Branstetter 42:50
And you live to tell the tail the tail of the tail. Yeah. You know, before all of this, you obviously had it. You had a very successful rap slash Hip Hop career. What was the name of your rap group in case anybody wants to look it up.

Thomas Dambo 43:05
So I had the first band with my brother that was called En Elsk. So that means like one love. And then after that I had another band with a bunch of my friends and my brother. And we still have that one. But we’re just not super active. But it’s called Fler Farver it means like multiple colors.

Max Branstetter 43:26
Oh, very cool. Okay, I’ll make sure to link in in the show notes and the blog post but so that that was a little a little teaser. The main thing I was I was wondering about with your interest in hip hop growing up. I mean, you mentioned Public Enemy. You mentioned some of the Wu-Tang Clan and some of these other groups there. Who would be your dream rapper to perform on stage alongside with all time

Thomas Dambo 43:53
all time. I think I have to say right now like I feel like that we’re living in the time of maybe the best rapper that ever lived. That’s a little bit how I see it. It’s a it’s a guy that’s probably haven’t haven’t resist the PSP kid. He’s called Harry Mack. It’s the best freestyle rapper that ever lived. He’s he’s probably like on two and a half subscribers on YouTube. Now. It’s like he’s a freaking lyrical genius. And I think it’s really interesting for me now I’m 43 It’s interesting for me to have been a part of this culture my whole life. I’ve been touring playing like 150 Freestyle concerts with a rap crew in Norway when I was human beatboxing and I thought that restyle was so amazing back then, and then just be able to see how he can do it. Like Harry Mack can do it. He’s from I think he’s from California or Oregon. Sounds like Yeah, but but he can just make all my heroes from that age. Just seems like they’re standing completely still. He’s just so good. I think that’s really nice to see somebody come in and take the old tradition of proper rapping, and then just elevated but have the really heavy like, have pride in the real rap as well, especially in this time where there’s also a lot of rap that’s been going on the last 10 years, where that maybe wasn’t so in my opinion maybe wasn’t so much about lyricism and technique.

Max Branstetter 45:23
Absolutely. That’s high praise, and no, you know, your stuff. So I gotta check them out. Harry Mack is as a memorable name as well. Who’s your favorite? professional skateboarder of all time?

Thomas Dambo 45:36
Oh, so I have to. I have had three professional skateboard friends in my life. So it is this morning, Max. And then flex. And then Ty. I have to I have to pick one. I think nobody knows. Those my friends.

Max Branstetter 45:56
Okay, very cool. So you’re in good company there. Yeah, we’ll give it to you a three way tie. Those are those are some fun friends to have. Last one. I know you’re living in Copenhagen now. And my friend Spenser and I visited Copenhagen a few years back and absolutely loved it. No, no, it’s um, I don’t think you know, but his his family does. Actually. His family does have Danish roots, though. His name is Spenser Christensen. And so there’s a lot of Christensens I know. But we visited just, you know, on vacation a few years back and absolutely loved it. I mean, Copenhagen was our favorite place that we visited in such a really, really cool city. This is a little twist, because I’m not going to ask you about Copenhagen. What is a an area, a town or a city or just a part of Denmark, that doesn’t get as much attention as Copenhagen, but anybody from around the world should visit because it’s a really cool place to check out.

Thomas Dambo 46:50
It’s a usual go to what is called Den Gamle By in Aarhus, which is the second biggest city in Denmark. And it is a city that super super simplified, it’s a city that’s laid out as a snake, where you will walk through times, or you start walking on a street. And then it starts back and like the, I’m not sure, but maybe in year 500, or something like that. And then you’ll there’ll be a super old blacksmith, then there’ll be a bakery from the 1700s. And it’s an actual building that is preserved and moved to the street of this building off of this, and then you can walk into the bakery, and then there’ll be like two bakers that will be dressed up in actual clothes from that era making bread. And then you can go like, so then they’ll have the cars and the bus stops and the record shop and they’ll have the so they’ll have everything and it’s really it’s like probably like a maybe a mile long or something like that with different and there’s there’ll be some castles and stuff, but like multiple shops and restaurants and cafes and different things, but everything in this kind of like you can maybe say that it’s like laughing a little bit laughing going on, like live roleplay things or like people say reenacting what happened in those times. But but because you’re not in one time, you’re like, actually walking through a time traveling through history. So like, if, like, for example, I can see oh, now we are on the time where it’s like, they have the same bus stops and they had the same street signs as when I grew up, and now they have the same paving stones in the same sewer cap and like so it’s like really, really well done. And there’s no theater to it. It’s real things you know, so like, if it’s a house on that error, it’ll be built with tools from that error integrity techniques from that error and or if, if possible it’ll be it’ll be preserved and moved from somewhere in Denmark where it was turned down and then it will be rebuilt. And that then contributed means the old city it’s an author who’s in Denmark, AAA R. Hu is

Max Branstetter 48:56
perfect. I’m not even gonna try to pronounce it because you have it nailed but that that sounds so cool. I’ve never heard of anything like that. You know you hear about different in this is common in the US I’m sure it’s common in many countries as well but parts you know, parts of different states that are kind of people do dress up and kind of like act like it’s the olden times, but I’ve never heard of something that is like progressive has multiple times like that and you can literally walk through it and see it and and I want to see what the bus stops were like when I was growing up, but it’s good to soldier there. So okay, cool. It’s on the bucket list now. Well, Thomas, thank you so much. This has been incredible just really appreciate all you do and especially making time today tonight for you and sharing all that goes into your your flourishing creativity and these amazing trolls and beyond. So thank you so much for for coming on and sharing the story and I know that your website is ThomasDambo.com you’re on Instagram @ThomasDambo, what other ways there for people to connect Could you online or learn more about your work?

Thomas Dambo 50:02
Well, so thank you so much, much Max for having me. I’m not doing a lot of podcasts, I think it’s really nice. So thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to do that. It’s been a pleasure. You’re correct on all my handles on the social medias. But there is, I have one thing you can find it on my website, ThomasDambo.com/TrollMap or also TrollMap.com. It’s like a map that I have created. It’s like a GPS treasure map for finding my trolls with a really low resolution of how to a low resolution of street names and like that, so it makes it hard to find them. But for me, it’s not about just finding it, it’s about getting lost in nature and asking other people where it is. And so if people want to have like that experience, then they can use my my troll map to find all of my first 99 Trolls soon to be 100

Max Branstetter 50:54
Perfect. Well, my pleasure, you know, this has been absolutely fantastic speaking with you and learning from you and, and I have played with this troll map. And it is just it’s breathtaking. And it’s a fantastic way to lose three hours because you just kind of get lost in there and you’re like, wow, this stuff this stuff is the fact that you built a an interactive map and it kind of like represents where these creations are in the real world I think just adds another level to it. And it makes you want to explore and visit them in different places, maybe Maine or potentially New Jersey. But so thank you for thank you for putting in the extra effort to add that interactivity to it. Last thing, final thoughts. It could be just some final words of advice or a quote or a story about a troll whatever you want. Send us home here.

Thomas Dambo 51:45
What I’m the most happy about in my life. It is everything comes from what basically I found my whole career and a trash can. Because my the my whole career is fueled by trash. We’re now 24 People working full time in my studio in my farm here that we’re renovating with recycled materials and trash that we’re scavenging all over the place. And this is only possible if people think twice before they empty their trash can so think about that. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure but the trash that you have in your own trashcan is somebody else’s treasure also. So it goes both ways. So everybody please share your trash with somebody who might need it. Because you don’t want to throw a flush at Dream out the landfill

Max Branstetter 52:40
What a cool story, a cool dude, and a cool mission. Thank you so much Thomas for sharing your terrific troll story. Just throw a little alliteration in there which is tough to say. And thank you Wild listeners for tuning in to another episode. If you want to hear more Wild stories like this one, make sure to follow the Wild Business Growth Podcast on your favorite app and tell a friend about the podcast and then go to TrollMap.com with them seriously, it is awesome. You will you will get lost and Lost and Found in the rural world. You can also find us on Goodpods where there are fantastic podcast recommendations. And for any help with podcast production, you can learn more at MaxPodcasting.com and sign up for the Podcasting to the Max newsletter. You won’t regret it. If you do regret it. Just let me know and I will I will make it so you don’t regret it. Until next time, let your business run wild. Bring on the bongos.