Writing music for film and TV is something that came naturally as soon as I started doing it. I have always been fascinated by how a good soundtrack can create an extra narrative thread, an extra character in the story, something visceral and tangible at the same time. I always felt that good film music is first noticed by your feeling, rather than by your ear.

Growing up in the eighties, the great Hollywood scores of that age (Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Ghostbusters, …) influenced my love for melody. But there is another, more minimalist urge in me, which entails an almost melancholy atmosphere that will always color all the stuff I write. Melody and atmosphere, mixed with my love for americana music, is probably what you'd call the Geert Hellings sound.

My musical influences are manifold and diverse, but I do have some all time heroes: Daniel Lanois for his love of sound and amazing musicianship; Mark Knopfler, my first guitar hero, for teaching me how to make the guitar speak; J.J. Cale for his organized carelessness; Gustav Mahler for melody, texture, orchestration and voicing the human condition; Arvo Pärt and John Tavener for unrelenting authenticity and depth; Gabriel Yared for The English Patient; Ry Cooder, for love of life; Johnny Greenwood, for impressively covering the whole range; Nina Simone for saying it like it is; and always, predictably, but always J.S. Bach. All these worlds are always present somehow in my music.