Shinyhunt is a Copenhagen-based indie rock band, consisting of Signe Christoffersen on vocals, Frederik Winther Barkholt on guitar, Mads Elsig Pedersen on drums and Mads Refshauge Kjær on bass. Inspired by 90’s and 00’s alternative rock, shinyhunt writes big songs with shoegaze fuzz, heavy grunge riffs, melodic bass and abrasive drums softly woven together by Signe’s airy vocals.

Cool band name! What does shinyhunt mean to you, and what does the name reveal about your music?

Thank you! The name comes from the fan term for finding shinies in the Pokémon games. There is this very little chance that a Pokémon will appear with different colors and a lot of people have started coming up with different ways to find these special shiny variants. It is one of Frederik’s big hobbies. When looking for a name for our band we found out that we kind of see each other as a shiny we were very lucky to find.  

Who’s in the band, and who does what?

A: We are 4 people in the band. Signe, Frederik, Mads R and Mads E. Signe (Vocals) and Frederik (Guitar) are the main song writers but we have recently started writing more songs together all four of us. Mads R is the bass player and Mads E plays the drums. 

You have two people in the band named Mads. Does that lead to any confusion?

Haha actually not that much, maybe it even makes them more in tune with each other. We sometimes refer to them as the Madses (sounds like The Masses).

You record your music in a small apartment. What is your recording setup like? What equipment do you use? 

We record in the corner of our living room where we have a small setup. Frederik records through his pedalboard with an amp simulator setup and Signe records into a Røde NT1. The main pedals right now are a Normal Devices Decay Cascade, Boss DM-101, Op-Amp Big Muff Pi, Dark Light and a Mood mkii. All of the vocal processing is done in Ableton. The process for recording drum and bass changes a lot, but we wanna do a lot more trips to summerhouses with Mads and Mads to record their part while having a nice time together. 

How has your music evolved since the band started?

With our album sea-salt ice cream we found our sound and we are really excited about exploring where and in which directions we can take that sound. Being a four-piece band allows us to work in a very classic vocal, guitar, bass and drum format that we find a lot of inspiration in right now.  

Your music is inspired by alternative rock from the 90s and early 2000’s. What do you like about that music?

We were all born in the late 90’s and grew in the 00’s so a lot of the music from that time is sort of the foundation of our musical development. Smashing Pumpkins, blur, My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Jojo, Rihanna, Imogen Heap, Coldplay and Radiohead come to mind, among many others. When we write, I feel we subconsciously draw from these 90’s and 00’s influences, by letting our emotional response to the music we produce guide us. We are really drawn to the earnestness in how feelings are expressed. We have recently discovered Juliana Hatfield. Her song ‘Simplicity Is Beautiful’ is super beautiful and really encapsulates this earnestness. 

You’re from Copenhagen. What is the music scene like there? 

The scene is thriving right now. So many nice people who are doing their own cool and exciting stuff which in turn make us all wanna write even better songs. Act like Spawner, miaw, 100% wet, GB, Uden Ord, Kindsight, ml buch and all of the Escho acts (collider, snuggle, A Good Year, haloplus+, Fine, Elias Rønnenfelt, smerz) are all big inspirations to us.

Who are some of the bands you’ve played with? What do you like about those bands?

We recently played two opening gigs, one here in Copenhagen opening for NewDad and one in Århus opening for snuggle. Both nights were really big and happy experiences for us. NewDad were so nice and it was a big inspiration to get to experience what their tour life was like. To open for snuggle was a dream come true for us. They were so amazing and played a really great show. It is super cool to get to share the stage with bands that we look up to. 

What are your plans for the future? 

We have a really big gig coming up at the end of January so a lot of our energy goes into that. It’s a big showcase called VEGA’s Udvalgte 2026 and we will play with 5 really cool artists. We have been working on our next album for some time now and hope to finish it and release it in the first half of 2026. Then we want to experiment with our writing process even more and hopefully play some nice shows. We are in general just really enjoying making music, playing shows, and meeting nice people along the way, so we hope to continue that.