I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to interview Christian Bauhofer, better known by his alias Minnesota. The first thing I noticed when speaking with him was how much of a genuine individual he was. Minnesota was just a great guy, super chill, and immensely passionate about the music he makes. Even with a few tours under his belt and a very healthy fanbase, never did he come off as a prima donna. Having committed a lot of time and resources towards his Exit Reality Tour, it was clear that he wanted to create the most amazing production he could for his fans. This included a full production crew responsible for staging, lights, and a killer VOID Sound System. Even with a jam-packed schedule, Minnesota found a few minutes to let me assault him with a barrage of questions:
So Exit Reality Tour is your biggest tour to date. With you being about a third of the way through, how’s it been so far?
It’s been so much fun man. We just have such a good crew. A lot of these people on tour, I hadn’t met until they came on the bus and so you kind of never know. And I feel like the most important thing is just to have good people. Even if you end up with one person that’s not [good], just kind of an asshole, it can be tough. But we just have so many amazing people on the crew and on as the support acts. So that’s really made a difference in the shows, in addition to having been all really fun and amazing.
What’s been the most memorable moment or the most memorable city?
Randomly, Bozeman, Montana. It was a Tuesday night show. We were not expecting anything, and it was just the coolest crowd. Everyone came out right for doors, for our first opener Thook, and just loved everything we played. It was such a fun show and just random, you know, on a Tuesday night and the middle of Montana. So that was great.
So the concept art for your the Exit Reality Tour, it’s super creative. It looks like it’s a man, kind of dripping blood, and he’s escaped from somewhere with screens everywhere. What’s the meaning behind it? What’s it represent? Did you come up with it?
I did. I came up with it and worked with the designer John Lee on it. When I named the tour, I came back from Burning Man this year. I’d been out there a while and just had an amazing time. When I came back, I was really kind of sad and depressed for like a month…I wouldn’t say depressed, but just kind of down and kind of staying in my studio. I was working on music and being on the computer a lot and not wanting to go out into the regular world. So I was thinking about the tour name, like exit reality. It’s like you’re coming to these shows as escapism, to forget about everything else and just have a night where you listen to loud music with cool lights and stuff. Then for the art, I think I basically told the artist that information and he took it and turned it into that. He did my last EP art as well and just crushed it on that. And yeah, I guess that’s kind of where that idea came from.
So looking at your tour schedule, you continue to add dates. It’s a fairly aggressive schedule and [in April] you have 15 shows over 19 days. Is that hard on you, like mentally or physically?
It’s only hard to have to be away from home for so long. I have my wife and my cat at home and I always really miss them, but we prefer the show days over the off days. We had the last few days off and that can be kind of weird and boring, but shows we get into our routine. To be an artist of my size and to tour with a sound system, lights, and tour bus, we have to pack in as much as possible. There’s not much profit being made, so we have to get in as many as we can while we can. So that’s the main reason why we have such a busy schedule.
I imagine at some points it gets stressful. What do you do to relax and come back to your center?
While it has been very stressful, having to think about a lot of different things, what usually works the best to come out of that is to just leave my computer and then hang out with the crew, honestly. That’s kind of what will bring my stress down if I’m just in my back room, just working on emails and all the stuff, the logistics as to the tour, that’s when I get stressed out. But when I can hang out with all of the crew, that’s when I feel the best.
When you’re not on tour, what’s a normal day or normal weekend look like for you?
A normal day would be to just wake up and work on music. In the winter, like weekends I try to get up and snowboard as much as possible. I live close to Tahoes, so we try to go up there as much as possible. Then just hang out with my wife and my cat, and just take it really easy. I don’t really go out to shows and stuff once I’m at home. I like to be a homebody, go on hikes, walks, and just chill.
How long have you been snowboarding?
I think I started when I was seven. So how old am I…30? So I guess close to 20 or a little over 20 years.
I read that you play the guitar, is that right?
I feel like I used to be a really good guitar player. EASTGHOST, one of the acts on the tour, he brought a guitar on the bus. I haven’t played in so long. I barely played since I started producing music, which has been like over 10 years. I picked up the guitar and unfortunately, I just lost a lot of the skills. I don’t remember anything. I was a good guitar player and now not at all, which sucks, but yeah.
Do you play anything else? Any other instruments? Like the piano or triangle?
I could probably do the triangle pretty well, but that was it. Unfortunately, I kind of lost it, but that’s how it goes.
I saw your new merch out there and the baseball jersey is super cool. It’s been your style for the longest time. Where did that style come from?
Originally I bought a jersey from the Twins site where you typed in what was gonna be on the back and stuff. Then people were hitting us up. They’re like, “we want to buy that.” So we had someone create our own version of that Minnesota Twins jersey. Originally we had a blue and red version, which was pretty cool. Now we just came up with the black and yellow version, which we have on this tour and that one looks way fresher in my opinion.
Some of your other merch, it has a stag logo. It seems maybe a bit more recent then I’ve seen. Where did come from?
We’ve had that for a little bit actually. We’ve had that probably since 2012, so we’ve had that for a while and it was pretty random. I was talking to my management and we just wanted to figure out some sort of symbol or sign that would represent Minnesota as art, but with no text. I don’t know how we came to that, but it doesn’t have any sort of special tie. It’s just trying to figure out a design that people would think of me without seeing the name, you know?
A couple of years back you created your own label, Outer Realms. Looking on social media there’s been a hiatus for maybe the last year. Why?
I was really into it for the first year. It’s just me and my manager Santiago running it, and it became a lot of work. I’m at the point right now where I don’t want to sign any more EPs or acts if I don’t have enough time to put everything into it. Whereas another label could put a lot of energy, time and money into it. Pretty soon, I think we’re going to get an actual label manager and that their only job is to do that. So hopefully with that, we’ll revive it after this tour is done and get it going again. Having that one designated person to just do it, I think should work. I can just do the selection of the stuff and then they can do all the promotion and everything. We’ve been planning this tour for almost the past year and that’s taken up most of our time to just figure out all this. So that kind of has to do with the hiatus of the label too.
Having worked with a lot of emerging artists, what’s one piece of advice you would give them?
I feel like a lot of people say it but it’s true, just be yourself and do what comes naturally. Don’t try to copy anyone, don’t try to force anything. I myself, and I’m sure most artists that are touring and successful, have gotten into a period of time where they’re trying to copy stuff or go on a trend, and you just make complete shit. Just stick to yourself and do you, that’s what people are gonna appreciate.
How do you think your music has evolved over the years as you’ve grown and done your own thing?
I think my production skill has increased a lot. My ability to mix tracks and do sound design has leveled up over the years. Using these newfound skills and better ears to increase the production quality, but still keep the same style that people associate with Minnesota.
Your new single Devour has this great rhythmic backbeat and some deep, nasty future bass, which I can only imagine (and later did confirm), sounds amazing on those VOID Speakers. You release singles on a fairly regular basis, but are there plans for an LP to come out?
I’ve tried it a few times and I haven’t been able to do one cohesive thing with over eight tracks, which is what I considered an LP. I’ve wanted to for years and I keep trying. I’m hoping eventually I can, but it takes me so long to work on songs. Devour took months to do and to be able to do an album would take a while. It’s my like biggest goal in life, honestly, but it just needs to be really good. So right now it’s just the singles. Hopefully, eventually, I can get that out of me.
Lastly, is there anything you like to say share with your fans?
Just thanks to everyone that’s been coming to the shows and that’s hopefully going to come out soon. We appreciate you and the sound system sounds amazing. So please come out and experience it. The artists that we have as support are all, individually, some of the most talented people I know. So come out early and enjoy the music.
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*Featured Image Via Minnesota FB*
