Lukas Graham: Selling Out Tours Before the First Release

Lukas Graham sold 17,000 tickets for an upcoming tour before officially releasing any music. The Danish band, built around vocalist Lukas Forchhammer and drummer Mark Falgren, formed in 2011 and first appeared with homemade videos of “Drunk in the Morning” and “Criminal Mind”, shared on Facebook to several hundred thousand views. Forchhammer later said the label, Copenhagen Records, already had the band under contract and that the videos were its idea for creating underground buzz.

The plan worked. The self-titled debut, released in 2012, reached number one in Denmark and was certified seven-times platinum there. Over that year the band played 107 concerts across Europe, selling 40,000 tickets in Denmark alone, and in 2013 won the European Border Breakers Award for its international touring. That autumn they signed to Warner Bros. Records, and in 2014 spent long periods in Los Angeles writing for their American debut. Forchhammer also sang on Hedegaard's Danish number one “Happy Home” in March 2014.

The second self-titled album, released in 2015 and sometimes called the Blue Album, carried “Mama Said”, “Strip No More” and “7 Years”. That last song topped the charts in Denmark, Italy, Austria, Belgium and Sweden, and eventually topped singles charts in many major markets. Warner released the album in the United States on April 1, 2016.

Later records kept their home advantage. 3 (The Purple Album) arrived in 2018, led by “Love Someone”, which topped the Danish chart, with “Not a Damn Thing Changed” rising to number two. 4 (The Pink Album) followed in 2023, with “Lie” and “Share That Love” each certified two-times platinum in Denmark, and Good Times came in 2026. Every one of them debuted at number one in Denmark. The band began with a few homemade clips and a label's careful plan, but the early songs such as “Drunk in the Morning” still sound like a group whose audience was ready for it.