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Can't believe no-one has shared this yet: There is a a fantastic portrait of our favourite band at public German radio station Deutschlandfunk! Check it out!
The usual question after interviews in a foreign language: Is there anyone who can translate this from German to Norwegian?
Great link, thanks, fillmore! And great that Deutschlandfunk does this! Check it out, folks, it says there it can only be listened to until Sunday afternoon.
[It's a lot of text, so I focus on Bent's responses only, in the feature this begins below the clip of MP's rehearsal space:]
Manuel Unger: What do you like best about living in Trondheim?
Bent: Usually it's very quiet here. Hard to tell… we are part of the music biz and we're somewhat of an economic undertaking, but we look at the whole thing as art. And for doing art, we need time, tranquility and concentration. This town doesn't offer much entertainment nor anything else. And that's a good thing. If you don't put up something by yourself, then nothing much happens. It's a good place to be focused, that's what I cherish the most about it.
If you look over there, past that house, you see nothing but nature. Still part of the town and it's huge, you can walk for days and still be in Trondheim. We're close to nature, take the train or two buses and you're free from it all.
You do that?
Sure. We try, like most others we go skiing or hiking. Nature's good.
With friends and family or with the band, too?
No, friends and family. The band doesn't really go skiing together, though I've been with Snah a few times. That's good.
You need the nature to be creative? Or are kitchen, living room or whatever enough?
No idea. I think I don't need anything special, it doesn't matter. I need to be bored. That's what I need and then I make up something stupid which turns into something proper.
I moved here being 19. I wanted to study at the university. There wasn't much where I grew up. This here was what I imagined a town would be, that's why it always was: The town – at least it was town enough. After having played together for a while and entered the music business, I realized I didn't want to be part of a scene. I wasn't interested in the business side of it and didn't wish to hang around other musicians all the time. This place here was big enough for our requirements. Snah's like me, we're not very much into socialising.
How old were you when you seriously considered to become a musician?
Not sure. I think I've always dreamed about it and it was a part of me. My cousins played Kiss to me when I was seven. My first Kiss record I got at age 8 or 9. There it all started, it consumed all my thinking and fantasies and hasn't let go of me. So the music was already there when I was very young and I've always hoped to make something of it. During my studies I worked at the local university radio station. I thought maybe music journalism would be it, but then the band happened and changed everything.
Which was the first Kiss song you've heard?
Difficult question, because my cousins taped two songs from swedish radio. The first we liked a lot and I can still sing it, but still i don't know what song it was and by whom. The other was „I want you“ from Kiss' Rock And Roll Over album. So it was probably that one. My first album was Kiss Alive II, the gateway drug. Gene's blood stained face and the pyro stage show pictured in the inside sleeve – just fantastic.
(Lots of background text about 90's music history, then the interview goes on:)
We were quite cocky when we started. Aimed high, but with restrained ability. So we went: Oh you don't like our music? That's ok, it's not meant for you then, you shouldn't even like it then. It's made for us, it's our thing. Doing something like this is like waving the red rag to a bull, because people ask, what am I missing here? This was pretty much the best we did. The first records and half of Demon Box was a bit questionable, but something happened while working on Demon Box. Our influences spilled into our music and the thing that we really are came to be. Our first song I was really happy with was Plan #1. So it took a few years and records until we became actually as good as we've pretended to be earlier. But it worked. It was punk. „Fuck you if you don't get it“, that's brilliant.
Per Borten of Spidergawd:
I started my first band when I was 21. It meant a lot to me, being invited to Bent's house. We listened to my demos which people critized for being not contemporary and he said: Fuck them! Listen to yourself and do what you want to do! He was the only star we knew so that gave me confidence. I'll always be grateful to him, he was some sort of mentor.
I've grown up on the countryside. Of course I've had older friends giving me records, which weren't contemporary, so I've always been five years behind. Then Demon Box came out and I remember hearing Nothing To Say as its first song. I was 15, being totally drunk, probably for the first or second time ever. I'll never forget that, I've never heard anything this brutal. That album was my wake up call in music.
Back to Bent (he and Unger have been walking around town all the time btw):
Here we are! There used to be a cars dealer here and in the mid 90ties the city said we sell him all the houses and he's free to do whatever he wants with them. Meaning they were to become a huge cars dealing mall. It's been social housing since the mid 80ties with punks and artists living there and so we fought. We won't leave! A few years later things turned and the city now rents the houses to the inhabitants. We practice what we've perceived as alternative politics in Germany and it works! About 200-250 people live here with kids and all. There's the Kindergarten, over there is our office. In this hall we can play gigs. There's a café and here is our rehearsal space.
Unger's thoughts: The secret place is not as spectacular as you'd imagine. A room, no windows, 30 square meters, packed with instruments. One glance and you know it's a working place.
We're pros. If we're around we meet every day at 10 and work till 14 or 15 – yes, it's work. We try everything to make the songs sound as good as possible. Things are being done that have to be done. We're pros and workers. We know what we have to do. It was different when we didn't have family and kids, we could do our things whenever. Now we have other duties and responsibilities we have to deal with. But our working days are good days. You get a lot done and it's satisfying.
I think we have reached our fifth drummer. We had many keyboard players and guitarists. There were a lot of people in it. But Snah and I, we're the heart of the band. I try to analyze this: It probably works because we complete each other. I can do what he can't and he can do what I like. If we write a song for example, I'd already have the chord structure and the song is almost finished, but it's missing an interesting melody. So I pass it over to him and he comes back with that interesting melody. He has this approach and when he writes, he hasn't got the chords and the structure but the melody and I can build the drums and all around it. We match as songwriters but are quite different as people. Unless it's about the main thing, there we are very similar. There must be the two of us, for Motorpsycho to be. The others are quite exchangeable.
I've never been rich. But we make enough money with sales and tours, we've been living off it since 1995/96. Our sales dropped like the others' but we never sold a lot anyway, so we're not used to have money. We don't suffer, it's still about the same income as ever, it works.
Isn't it boring to write new songs? Do you ever lose interest or is it always there within you?
Just songs? Then yes. I lose interest but then I write other stuff, for theater, for other people, projects… If you define a songs as verse, chorus twice, then solo and chorus twice more, then yes, I'm through with that. But as long as you're freed from format, you can challenge your creativity and everything can happen. This doesn't bore me yet.
But wouldn't it be nice to have a hit song that pays your future?
No, not really. Because I have no intent to stop yet. This is my life, I don't see a reason to change. I'm happy as a pig in the dirt, when I can do this. It's satisfying work. There's no reason to have a hit song.
I hope it's translated appropiately enough. Some subtext or -meanings sure get lost.
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