The BigBang is an Oslo-trio, consisting of Øystein Greni, Olaf Olsen and Nicolai Eilertsen. After the release of their new album "Electric Psalmbook" this spring, the band has established themselves in the Norwegian rock elite, along with Kåre and The Cavemen; they've given new life to the original rock sound.
After a great concert, where the band played many new songs and three extra songs, I had a little chat with the bands lead singer and guitarist, Øystein Greni.
Have you played a lot in places like this?
-Yeah, we've been on a tour for quite some time now - played every night at different places. We opened "Uka" in Trondheim, and we've played in Bergen and Sogndal. It's been a lot of fun. But I've been a bit sick lately, which makes it harder to travel. We've had an amazing audience, but it was extra fun here.
At the Quart festival this summer you played on the same scene as Kåre and The Cavemen and Soundtrack of Our Life. Both of those bands remind us of BigBang. Do you guys co-operate, do you inspire each other, and do you listen to the other bands?
- We aren't really all that similar. Kåre and The Cavemen and ourselves, have always liked the same bands, so I'm sure you can find some similarities in the way we play guitar; but BigBang is more vocal-based though, we have the lyrics of the Centrum.
Are you affected by the retro-rock wave as well?
- Yeah, maybe. Maybe we are. But you have many different types within the retro rock. Its not like we sat down and decided to make retro rock, like Wild Bird, it might just as well been a country or a techno song. It's just the way we instrument it.
The "British pop" have often been criticized because they steal from the past so to speak. Does it happen that you do the same?
- No, we've never been criticized for that really. We pretty much do our own riffs all the way.
You played at Cavern Club, are you inspired by The Beatles and the 60's?
- Yes, of course. Isn't everyone? What's happened through the last 50-60 years is what's worth talking about. That's when you got the 3 minutes rock songs. But looking through the 70's, 80's and 90's, the 60's aren't all that important. It's just the short, 3 min long rock tunes people like. And when it came to making those songs, The Beatles were huge! They've made a lot of great music.
Can you give us a brief tour through BigBang's history? How you ended up where you are right now?
- Well, we started playing together in '92. Our first drummer quit to play with Turbo Neger instead, and we had a tour in California already in '93. After we got back we started recording our first album, "Waxed", which was released in "95. (Warner will issue more copies of that one pretty soon.) We continued playing and last year, we recorded "Electric Psalmbook," but there weren't any record companies who wanted it, so the band almost broke up. But we thought "what the fuck"; we might just as well play for a bit longer; so we produced the CD with our own money. After the concert we had at "Bylarm," we got really good reviews, and voila, all the festivals wanted us to play, all the record companies wanted us to sign for them. Everything happened at once, and now we can live off of our music.
Is it true that you are Norwegian Champion in skateboarding?
- No, no, I've never been a Norwegian champion, but I did win a European championship once. In half-pipe. I still skate a lot. But the other guys in the band are pissed cuz I always break my fingers. They just sit in and watch "Hotel Cæsar" and boring stuff like that. How boring is that? I need some action in my life you know!
Is the new album done soon?
- We aren't quite finished with the recording yet, we've just recorded 14 songs so far, so yeah, guess we have to record some more songs. We haven't started with the mixing yet either. Hopefully, it will be out to the spring. We played some of the news songs here tonight.
Greni closes off by saying that BigBang would love to come back here to play again. And that's something Kro & Kultur should notice and contact them after Christmas. I don't mind going to a BigBang concert twice this year!
