In a week from now we’ll welcome a band in Berlin that’ll have quite a way behind them by then. PSYENCE FICTION are from the very north of Norway, the Lofoten, and we already got the chance of seeing them on this year’s TRONDHEIM CALLING. Melancholic tunes, a sincere aura and real professionalism is what struck us, so believe us if we say: a concert of PSYENCE FICTION is worth the visit. How fitting that they are about to perform at the April edition of the ‘Ja Ja Ja’ Club Night in Berlin, next to NEØV and LAST LYNX. The event will take place on April the 9th, presented by NOTHING BUT HOPE AND PASSION. Find out more about the line-up and how to get your tickets right here. In order to be prepared we offer you the possibility to get to know PSYENCE FICTION a little better. Read on and learn about their thoughts on alternative jobs as Ghostbusters, their beautiful home spot Gravdal and why hope is for fools.
How would you describe your music to a deaf person?
Like Charlie Chaplin meets Hurricane Katrina
If you’d have to create a mixtape to introduce the people to your music which tracks and artists would it include?
EFTERKLANG – Swarms
MOONDOG – All is loneliness
SONGS: OHIA – I’ve been riding with the ghost
PJ HARVEY & THOM YORKE – This mess we’re in
CAT POWER – Free
SHARON VAN ETTEN – Serpents
THE WEAKERTHANS – Left and leaving
KURT VILE & The Violators – Amplifier
THE NATIONAL – Abel
MY MIDNIGHT CREEPS – Don’t let them bring you down
Would you rather be a dragon or have a dragon?
Be a dragon.
Since you are Norwegian I have to ask… what’s your favourite A-HA song and why?
Hunting High And Low. That fuckin’ falsetto is the BOMB.
If you as a band could have an alternative job – what would it be?
We would run ghostbusters. Capture lost souls in our ghost suckers, making buildings and people safe again. We’re sort of public servants, just to some weird extent where you don’t know you needed us until we came and saved the day. We’re also into cooking. I have a day job as a chef, Nils makes the craziest coconut ice cream, Eirik is a Nascar driver on the pizza dough. We’d probably be equally successful in a family style bistro and in a ghost truck van car save the day kind of thing.
You grew up in Gravdal, far in the North of Norway. Tell us a bit about this place.
It’s a place between places on the second biggest island of the Lofoten Island archipelago. An extremely visual spot on the earth with huge mountains rising from the sea, northern lights in the winter, midnight sun in the summer, wild flowers, berries, birds, farmers and fishermen. It’s a place where people are in direct contact with nature. It’s wild. Still the most beautiful place on the globe for me.
The music and culture industry is currently about to redefine itself on many levels. Do you feel like being completely and utterly at the its mercy, or should things be seen as a chance for artists?
I’d like to think we’re in the age of self realization and what we’re experiencing is a lot of people who no longer believe they are less creative or less important than others. Not a big fan of showbiz, but there is a market for indie music and indie culture, and we’d like to be a part of that. I’ve never made compromises for anyone. Never will. Still believe that if you put enough talent and work together, create beautiful things and are willing to have it on display, good things will happen.
What role do the elements ‘hope’ and ‘passion’ in your life play?
Passion is easy. That’s the bone marrow. The core. What keeps me going ahead full pace when others doubt or quit or try to adapt. Hope is more of a trickster. Hoping is for fools. You reap what you sow. Hope is also what keeps me setting goals. If I weren’t hoping for good things and working towards them, I wouldn’t know where I was going.
Attention! We’re once again giving away tickets for the forthcoming ‘Ja Ja Ja’ edition in Berlin on April 9. Find more infos about the event right here. If you send us a mail to win@nbhap.com with the subject ‘JaJaJa’ and your full name chances are high that you can get in for free. An opportunity you should not miss, right?
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