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++ stuttgart : march 31, 2003
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After writing the management some e-mails to ask for an interview
I’ve got an invitation for 7 pm to be at the Travellers
Club. So I was glad to have enough time to ask my questions
before the official beginning of the show.
At this time he was still checking the sound
by starting some drums and playing some acoutic versions.
It was great to hear his voice filling a nearly empty room.
Some workers were carrying stuffs around and I was the only
one besides Helen (his sound engineer) who was really listening
to his casual performance. He finished and I introduce myself
as the guy who’s running the german kings of convenience
fansite. So we started a conversation and talked first about
his show in Hamburg the day before and the tiny dancefloor
at the Schauspielhaus. He told me a little story about being
lost in Munich (there was the first and only concert of Kings
Of Convenience I attended) and after he has satisfied his
hunger, he puts a new remix of ‘Sheltered Life’
in the local CD-Player and it moved us through the clear room.
The mix is over 8 minutes long and has a rolling beat that
sounds like a all-star mix by Kompakt Label Artists with the
already known beautiful Erlend-Harmonies. Fantastic! After
that he showed his qualities as a DJ and switched the first
track into his own acoustic version.
Through this I get my own little lesson
to experience the both sides of Erlend Øye. The one
half plays perfect songs for the bedroom and the other wants
to conquer the dancefloors of the world by pushing the crowd
to move their bodies and have fun like a really good party.
The result of his soloalbum sounds partly like electric KoC-Songs
(don’t get me wrong, I love the songs of ‘Unrest’!)
but his real intention was to combining his skills in singing
and songwriting with the possibilities of dance music, and
the biggest power of dance music is primarily to make people
dance.
There was my second lesson because the live
performance of the songs shows their whole dancefloor potential.
With his live band he creates totally rocking beats. The speed
is higher and it’s visible for everyone that this jumping
boy on the stage is having fun in performing his songs and
this forms a true sympathy that covers the whole crowd. It’s
amazing how the dance factor arise and becomes bigger and
bigger.
He also told me about the making of the
video for the next single ‘Sheltered Life’ (where
you can listen to the his remix for youself) and how he’s
getting involved to the concept. This time the video will
be more like a working process between a close friend and
him with spontaneous ideas and results. At a 5-day-scheduled
shooting like ‘Sudden Rush’ with Jarvis Cooker
there are explicit creative borders, but he approaches collaborations
in all the disciplines, that are connected to music. Maybe
someday you can watch videos of your favourite artist at MTV
directed by Erlend Øye. This would be nice (for your
favourite artist!).
I think that Erlend is someone with many
great abilities but he won’t reveal them all of a sudden
so we can get surprises for a very long time. Even as an DJ
he is a hit. After the show he grapped his plastic bag of
vinyls and continued behind the counter with a mic in the
mixer. At the beginning of our meeting he was very exhausted
and didn’t talk very much but in the moment he saw the
big crowd in front of the entry, a big smile formed on his
face and during the show he gets more and more fitter and
while DJing he was like a flash that goes round and round.
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