Hans of Lokomotiv

May,2003 at Tasty World in Athens, Georgia

For the past ten years he has been behind the mic of Lokomotiv. The band formed in Trondheim, Norway, with band mates Ell (drums), Per (bassist), K-re (guitar, keyboards) and Georg (guitar). With two full length recordings released in Scandanavia, and several Ep’s, the band was awarded a Norweigan grammy for Best Pop Band in 2000. 

 

Hans: So, start at my childhood? Well, my father…(laughs) What should we talk about? We should talk about Lokomotiv. Lokomotiv is a very special spelling, it’s a Norwegian spelling, so instead of Locomotive that sounds more like a blues band, it’s more like “Lokomotiv,” That’s Norwegian way of saying it. But, we started out as a band, eight, nine years ago. As friends meeting, like students, studying music. We were studying jazz, and we would like to do more contemporary things, and more into the rock and roll scene. We kind of were growing up with loud guitars, and listened to Pink Floyd, King Crimson, Police, XTC, you know all these kind of big bands. At the same time we listened to Coltrane, Miles Davis, a lot of these jazz things. We’re very confusing. But we like to make music that was more into the rock scene. After four or five years we decided to really go for it. So now we quit everything, our study, and just jumped out of the establishment, and started the band, like “Okay, this is going to be Lokomotiv. We’ve got to work hard.” Tar and El the drummer, and bass player, joined us four years ago. And off of that we have kind of dreamt about going to England or America. We found this guy, it was like a coincidence, of course there was always coincidence as well, but we found this guy who lived in Chapel Hill, NC. He knew people from Mammoth Records. And they by accident, listened to the album, I think at a party somewhere, I’m not sure how, but they really dug it. And that was when we came out with the first album in Norway. They were like, we’re Norwegians, it’s hard for Mammoth to sign a Norwegian band, but after the second album they listened to it, and invited us over here. You’ve got to come here and play. And rock and roll. So we got ourself a manager here, and she fixed the contract, and we moved over here. So, here we are. The album has been delayed, and been delayed, and been delayed…Mostly because of us. We’ve been trying to meld the material from the different albums we have done back in Norway. So this first album, “Tell Me What’s Your Good Luck” is kind of a melting pot of songs we thought , okay this is going to fit. This is the album we’re going to release. This is the debut album. We would like to release it here in America. Right now we’re kind of touring without the album. It’s not out in the stores. But it’s a good feeling too, it’s a very good experience to come to America and meet all these crazy people. In Norway, you know, people are more calm. I like maybe something in between. But we like the way people here like to express themselves. And we play rock and roll and really express ourselves too, so we feel kind of familiar with the American rock and roll scene. All these bands, Sonic Youth, Sebadoh, you name it. There are many of them. There’s a lot of crap too. I have to say it. There is really a lot of crap. I remember the guy from Fugazi said, there is two different things. There’s the business, and there is the music. So we are kind of dealing with the both, and sometimes it can be really hard. We have some experiences business wise, with America, and at the same time we do all these clubs, I guess we’ve done around almost a hundred jobs after we got here six months ago, and driving around sixty thousand miles, so most of our life is inside a van. It’s inside this car where we’re fighting all the time, reading, listening to music, quarreling, you know. We should be a gay band. That would be perfect. It’s really been an experience. Now we’re going back in the summer. We’re going to record some new material. Hopefully put out an ep or something. I think we like to release things, out to people, we want people to experience Lokomotiv. Here in Athens they’ve just warmed up to Train. They’re having this big radio hit now. I know all the guys; nice guys; they’ve been traveling around for two years without the radio hit. And the last time they showed up and played the 40 Watt they played for 25 people. Now it was 7 or 8 hundred. We could warm up for them, and suddenly became like a star. You go on, the light goes off, everyone is screaming. Right here in this club in Athens we’re kind of headlining for a local band…it’s complete opposite you know. People are like, “Okay who the fuck are these guys, okay, they come from Norway, what the hell are they doing here?” And that’s kind of sucks, but at the same time we know all about this. You just have to work your way up. Get an email, so that one day when suddenly some of these morons, there were some good people too, but some of these morons listen to the radio, and they can hear, oh by god this is familiar, and then you go and buy the album. It’s kind of two different worlds. Some of the people are like following the stream, and in one way we have to wait for them. We’re kind of missionaries going out, playing our music. It’s hard to attract some of those people. But actually some are very interested. Like you guys…it’s beautiful when people listen to the music and have comments about it. And people we meet out on the road; it’s like that. That keeps them going you know. If all people were like “I’m waiting for the video on MTV” that would be disaster for us. A video band man. The last Norwegian band to make it here was “A-HA” with “Take on Me.” And we met “A-HA”…we don’t have a “Take on Me” video, but they play good music though. We have a good feel in what we are doing.

LK: How many records did you put out?

Hans: We put out in Norway two records, full length, and three ep’s connected to the records. In a way we like to release things, and I guess this year we will release things in Norway. We have Scandinavia as our own market. We do everything ourselves there, so it’s good …if things fuck up here we can always go back to Scandinavia. The creative part is always very important to us. We’re going to record something now, and release something in Norway, take it over here to America too to sell it. I guess maybe we’re going to bring some of the old albums too. That’s like 2 or 3 years ago, but we like to play things, we like to record things, so we can’t let anyone stop us like that. I could work as a Taxi driver or something you know, in case.

LK: Can you expound on jazz music, your feelings for that music, and even other music…

Hans: I think the jazz music is involved in the way we are improvising, and I think we have some things where we are improvising more too. I think the debut album is more straight, cut the crap thing, like three minute songs grouped in with some more longer songs we like . We’ve kind of got the jazz improvising thing inside us. It’s very important for us, this is the music that belongs to our hearts. Like I said we have been studying it and at the same time jazz music can often be too mellow, too dramatic, too theatrical, too much feelings, and what I like about rock and roll music is that it’s very straight, it’s very like hitting you right away. Burn from the first bar kind of feeling. So right now with Lokomotiv we have kind of a mixture, but at the same time it’s important for us to, like this noisy things that just hit people, and that feels good, but I think our choruses, all have so many different influences, like a mixture, like Frank Zappa. Frank Zappa is for us something important I believe. The playful guy but at the same time really hits you hard. We’re not a Zappa band, but you know I like that kind of a playful thing. When we’re inside the studio it’s all takes, and it’s very important for us. Some of the things we’ve been doing has been like cutting and producing, and stuff like that, as a band I think we’re more familiar, and more into this feeling of the first cut thing, this is good, we’ve got to keep this. And I’m singing out of tune, or the guitar player is on the wrong bars, it doesn’t matter. And this is really different from listening to the radio commercial channels. For me, a record company would want us to make a song, something like you know, on the radio hitting hard, and I’m not sure. Right now with the album we have now, it’s a good mixture between pop rock and maybe some jazz in there too. It’s difficult.

LK: What were your experiences like coming up, where you are from, trying to balance making your money, making a living and being a musician. In America that can be very hard.

Hans: Norway is a rich country in many ways. It means you have a system that takes care of you. But at the same time, to be a musician could be, especially inside the rock scene, and I think it’s the same everywhere, you really have to hit hard. If you have a record deal it’s easier to get someone to support you. Right now we don’t make any money at all, we get a couple of bucks every day to eat for. It’s the same in Norway in many ways, but if I get a job in Norway I can always make money. But the established thing, we’re not in to that. Which in music has never been a question…it’s about surviving right now and I feel it’s good to meet all the other bands who are striving so hard, going all over the place like it’s Minneapolis, or its’ Athens, or Washington…everywhere you meet hundreds of bands struggling hard to get out their music. We played a couple of dates ago in New York.

LK: What was your experience in New York?

Hans: Ah it was pretty good. I love New York City, it’s very European, but it was a very good experience. I mean, in New York the audience can be pretty hard. But actually we have been playing there, a couple of times before, and no people are showing up to listen to the music. So actually it was very different, this time people were applauding and really almost jumping up and down. So that’s good. That felt good.

LK: So do you have any experiences in the studio you can recall that were weird?

Hans: Oh yeah, it’s recorded in a little farm, by the guitar player Ka-re, he has this little farm back in Norway. We went back there, it was fucking cold, and we recorded this album. We had to grill…we had the grill inside, and we stood at the grill there while we were recording. It wasn’t a big session, it was really cold, we went there for a summer and really enjoyed it. It was a weird experience for us, but we like it that way. We produce everything ourselves, make our songs together, and spending a whole summer there recording the music was amazing. Especially after we recorded. It was pretty hard when we were recording you know. That was the summer of ’98, we recorded “What’s Your Good Luck.”