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@Punj Lizard I’ve read your comment with great pleasure. Everything you’ve written, I wouldn’t be able to say in a better way. Agree with Valderrama: such wise and beautiful words
So here I am again with part 2… have fun!
(For all the Italian psychonauts: sentitevi liberi di apportare modifiche e migliorie varie, se vi va!)
Remember that I’ve posted the translation on you tube in the comment section!
0:13 Int: Talking about psychedelia, inevitably, you think about a specific historical period, the end of the 60s, and a specific geographic place, the North of California… so I wonder how much it makes sense talking about psychedelic music and culture these days, in an updated form…
0:34 Bent: It was, you know, at that time, in San Francisco such a big turnaround for the whole society… it was a momentous event. But the thing is that for the very first time rock music has become a mass market. You know, psychedelic music is a sort of jazz version of pop music… musically speaking, that idea was for us the perfect combination: we like to do pop songs but with a “jazz mentalityâ€. What we always try to do with live songs and when we make records is to make bases where we can put our souls and drag people… because the intent is to grab our listeners and grab ourselves… and take it all away for 2 hours, becoming enriched from this experience
1:54 Bent: Motorpsycho is a family thing because we live in Trondheim, which is a small city far from Oslo, the capital and nerve centre of the Norwegian music business… and we’re trying to stay away from all this. Because we’re not into these things, become big rockstars or make a lot of money… we love playing and we’re trying to keep away from these mortal traps, where it’s easy to fall in when you start to sell a few records
So, in this way, we've built up a relationship of trust with all of our collaborators. Most of the deals we make are done with people we know, and we split fifty-fifty the income from our job.
3:00 Bent: Motorpsycho is a family thing, as it was for Grateful Dead… we drew inspiration from their way of playing, improvisation plays an important role. We always try to write our songs so that we can change them and…improvise. It’s important for us to work on that basis and be in a constantly changing.
4:01 Bent: The funny thing is that looking back to the 5 or 6 albums we’ve made, you see a line somewhere which is always changing… None of our records sounds as the others, they are all very different with all different musical angles.
You know, my favorite artists, as John Coltrane or the Beatles, would love this.
Think about the Beatles, in every record, from “Rubber Soul†onwards, they have taken a step forward, and this what we’re trying to do.
4:58 Bent: We’re trying to avoid the things that we’ve already done too much before. For instance, there’s no long songs in the album, because it would’ve been a cliché.
And we ended the album with a whisper instead of a crescendo, and this is a thing that we’ve never done before.
We worked a lot with 2 guitars, trying to obtain from both a smooth sound. And you know, with all these guitars, it’s a new approach for us because we’ve never had 2 guitars in the band before.
That’s a lot of small things constantly changing.
And we’re also trying to shorten songs to make them more intense, trying to take advantage from all the technical possibilities that a song offers, without extending unnecessarily.
We wanted songs even shorter and even more intense… and I think we succeeded!
6:16 Snah: Oh, we are getting ready a lot for our upcoming tour in Europe and in Norway. And we’ll continue as a trio: drums, bass and guitar, with some electrical gizmos on the floor. This is the new line-up of the band, with a different approach to the songs and kind a new face, I think. Because we used to be a quartet and now we’re just three persons.
6:50 Int: In the upcoming European tour, do you think you will also come to Great Britain?
6:55 Bent: There’s people in our booking agency, working both in France and Great Britain but we don’t know yet… It would be nice to go. But I think they aren’t yet ready for a band like our because they’re too much involved in 60s pop music… we’ll see
Thanks a lot @Ercarnar! Yeah, this interview is truly valuable… and the second part is even more interesting
(Grazie per esserti reso disponibile… vediamo che combino con la seconda parte:D)
If you want to know more about Bent’s lefty universe, I reccomend this letter-Bent himself speaking…
Bent Sæther – Motorpsycho
"Hi Arni,
I think a lefty-page is a fun idea, and would love to contribute.
Good luck!
Bent"
I am 31 years old, a born & raised norwegian, and have played the big B since I was 14. Before that I played the drums for years, but switched when our band found itself with two drummers…
My first encounter with stringed instruments was at school, and since everything was strung right-handed, I just turned a normal guitar upside down and learned to play that way. This never changed, and I still play with the thickest string on the bottom.
Having played in a recording / touring band (Motorpsycho) for ten years, I've been through tons of different equipment, and my bass collection numbers approx. 15 ex.
The most important / used ones are:…
If you want to read more check this link:
https://motorpsycho.fix.no/thisis/media/arniart2_01_ger.htm
Enjoy:)
[img]http://https://pin.it/kywx65u7rottas[/img]
Check this lovely photo of Bent, back in time when he was playing a right-handed Fender bass… and, funny thing, the G string is missing
Hey! I play lefty guitars too and I’m really interested in Bent’s way of playing.
I’m sure that I’ve seen or read an interview somewhere when he talks about he’s uncommon way of playing, gonna check it.
Well, Bent always played in the lefty way, but with the instruments strung upside down, in the right-handed way.
This because when he started playing the bass, he just grabbed a right-handed one and played in the lefty way, without restringing it.
This is Bent in InRock.ru
“stated playin the drums a year or so later, switched to bass a few years after that when we had 2 drummers and no bass players/singer for our school band, and got stuck with itâ€
When he was younger he used to play right-handed instruments because that for the southpaws where such a rarity:) but nowadays he almost always plays lefty basses (I love the Stavem basses) I think for the comfort!
About his guitars, I’ve always seen him playing right-handed acoustic ones (you can easily figure out it looking at the pick-guard)
About the electric guitars, I think the Gibson SG he plays in some songs it’s a lefty model (still strung upside down), but don’t remember clearly.
Recently, I’ve also seen a photo of him playing a weird dark-green right-handed jazzmaster with bigsby…
And about the technique, the upside down way of playing it’s such a unique approach to the bass that makes MP tunes more unique and special:)
The way he plays chords it’s really interesting… Now, I’m thinking about the acoustic version of Madsun, that I really enjoy to play.
I use to play it in the normal lefty way, but I wanted to try also to play it in Bent’s way… so I just grabbed a right-handed guitar from a friend, and tried the Bent’s experience
It was fun:D chords are easily playable, because they’re a little bit unconventional
(A simple example, he doesn’t play a standard “C†chord but a Cmaj7 chord, which is easily playable in the upside-down way)
|–0
0—-0|–0
0—-3|–4
4—-0|–5
5—-(2)|–3
0—-2|
———0So these are the chords, Cmaj7, A, Em written in the normal lefty/righty way but you can easily play them with an upside down guitar
Playing upside-down requires weird solutions and funny things and makes the MP songs even more special:)
[sorry for my poor English]
(edit: if u want to try these chords, remember that the acoustic version of Mad sun is a half step higher… you don’t see capos in the video because guitars are tuned-up… but the quicker solution is capo on first fret)
