Interview: The evening with the Norwegian rock quartet Madrugada started in the small Hamburg record store Michelle Records, where guitarist Robert S. Burås and singer Sivert Høyem played an instore-gig at 18:00 and performed five songs. Not much later, at 19.45, our editor Curt Keplin had the possibility of talking to bassist Frode Jacobsen for 30 minutes, before Madrugada completed the evening with an impressive concert at Markthalle.

Frode: Hi. Would you like to drink anything? A beer?

Alternative Nation: No, thanks.

Frode: Ok, I don't want anything either. At the moment I'm not allowed to drink alcohol and there's still one more month left. That's pretty hard, I can tell you.

Alternative Nation: It's probably because of your ear problems, isn't it? As far as I know you had to cancel several shows in summer, because of your tinnitus. How are you now? Is everything okay again?

Frode: Yeah, I'm already much, much better. I had to go to Estonia twice in oder to get treatment. They have special methods there to clean the eardrum and that really helped. I caught the whole thing in London when I was hit by a bass wave.

Alternative Nation: But in my opinion it wasn't such a bad thing you couldn't play the big festivals this year. I think your music has a much better effect in a small club where there isn't such a large audience, the lights are darker and the overall atmosphere is more intense. What do you think about this?

Frode: I totally agree with you. It's not a perfect scenario for us to be playing on a huge stage during daylight. We better fit into the night. I enjoy gigs in small clubs a lot more. Festivals really aren't our cup of tea, we rather play small clubs. This club for example (Editor's note: Markthalle, Hamburg) is really nice. It's the first time we're playing here, but we have a pretty good impression of it so far.

Alternative Nation: I mentioned the word 'atmosphere' in my last question, a term that really belongs to your dark music. So what would you say, is your music rather positive or negative?

Frode: Of course it's positive. We have been inspired by blues and soul music. The stuff that's played on MTV is negative. That's the worst.

Alternative Nation: Sure, charts music is cruel. But that's not what I wanted to know. I was more talking about the feelings and the basic mood of your music.

Frode: Yeah, I know what you mean, but I think 'positive' and 'negative' are the wrong terms in this connection. We do sound pretty dark and as I mentioned before we don't really fit at festivals, but if you pay attention to the lyrics our music is very optimistic. We don't try to have a depressing effect on people. In fact we don't want to have feelings of despair in our music. When we recorded "Industrial silence" we took two months time to do that and therefore everything sounded too planned and didn't show the true soul of the band. On the new album we tried changing this. To record "The Nightly Disease" we gave ourselves one month and decided that this should be all the time we get. We wanted to make it all a bit rougher. We didn't want to wait until every instrumental part was tuned to the other. We wanted to transfer a feeling of spontanity on the new record. Another aspect that inspired us when recording "The Nightly Disease" was a certain 'voodoo feeling' that artists like Dr. John or early records of Can show. When we were in the studio we tried to include this 'voodoo vibe' and the spontanity in the music. Many songs on the album were developed while jamming, like "Two Black Bones", for example.

Alternative Nation: Out of all the brilliant Madrugada songs I especially like "Big Sleep," that you have written. Could you tell us something about this song?

Frode: It is true that the idea to the song came from me. I played the riff, and Robert and I then wrote the lyrics together. After that we recorded it and made the other two listen to it, before Sivert in the end changed the lyrics slightly. So the song was created by all of us, but after all we're a band! Everyone of us writes songs and lyrics.

Alternative Nation: But as far as I know you don't even like the version of "Big Sleep" on the special edition of the new album that much. Can you explain why?

Frode: It is sometimes the case that a few of our songs don't really reach the optimum. This is probably caused by the fact that the recording process was faster and a lot more free this time. That's the downside of this way of recording and the hard work inside the studio. But the live recordings we have of that song are definitely a lot better.

Alternative Nation: That leads me to my next question. You've released many b-sides and older and newer versions of your songs, will there be a rarities album of you someday?

Frode: All those b-sides and rarities have already been released on several EPs and we actually like the idea of people collecting these EPs. I don't know what the others think of a rarities album since we haven't talked about this before. Apart from that there will always be special editions of albums.

Alternative Nation: Do all those old and new versions of your songs result from jamming or is it because you're trying to make every song as perfect as possible?

Frode: Sometimes a version of a song is just a coincidence which is the product of a certain mood. And sometimes new versions are created because we try to show a different side of tha band. Apart from this "The Nightly Disease" has already been recorded over a year ago and now we're on tour, so you inevitably like trying something new to keep it interesting.

Alternative Nation: The band is still pretty young, every member is in his mid-twenties. How old were you when you started making music?

Frode: I started making music when I was around 15. At this time Jon and I messed around with an extremely bad singer for a while until we found the right guy, Sivert. Four years later Robert joined us. But I don't know if the story is that interesting...

Alternative Nation: Yes, it is. As far as I know the band has been existing since 1993 and according to what you said you must have been 18 or 19 when everything started. Is that correct?

Frode: Yeah, that's true. It was like this that Jon and I were fans of tha band Robert played with at that time. Coincidentally I got to know him at an airport just after that band had broken up and he didn't know where to play. I asked him to join our band and he agreed. The band once again changed quite a lot after that. He also added the 'voodoo feeling' I already mentioned.

Alternative Nation: Okay. Next question. On some tracks of "Industrial silence" Bob Egan played pedal and lap steel guitar and was so enthusiastic about your music that he was thinking about becoming a full-time member of Madrugada. Why did this never happen?

Frode: Well, we like him and he likes us. But he lives in the States and we live in Norway...

Alternative Nation: So he didn't really wan to become a band member?

Frode: He did, he also played several gigs with us, but, let's put it this way, being a quartet is already enough of a problem.

Alternative Nation: The big rock band in norway is Motorpsycho. Are you friends or at least related to them in some way?

Frode: Motorpsycho has been around for many, many years. They've already made music when we didn't exist yet. So because of that we aren't friends with them. I once got to know their drummer, and they're nice guys, but we aren't connected with them in any other way.

Alternative Nation: There has been a lot of talk about the meaning of your name before. What I'd be interested in is how you came up with it.

Frode: A friend of ours thought of it. Before that we were desperately trying to find a decent name to finally get rid of our awful name, Abbey's Adoption, a really stupid name. As I said, a friend of us who is a poet came up with Madrugada. He just called the band Madrugada once and we liked it immediately. It fits our music. Our band name is the favourite topic of Norwegian journalists. They like interpreting quite a lot into this name. In my opinion they carry it a bit too far.

Alternative Nation: You mentioned that you like old soul and blues music. Is there also a modern rock band that you like?

Frode: Yeah, just recently I listened to The White Stripes. They're great, I really enjoy their music. They seem to have had a lot of fun in the studio. Apart from that I like "Xtmntr" by Primal Scream and the new Aphex Twin album, "Drukqs". Also, records by Guided By Voices, Sebadoh and Yo La Tengo. There's so much...

Alternative Nation: As I heard you have lived in Berlin for some time. Is that true? And if it is, how did you like your stay in Germany?

Frode: Yes, that's right. I've lived in Friedrichshain for seven months and really enjoy it. Compared to Oslo Berlin is a really pleasant town. Oslo is very hyperactive. It's very stressful there, the people and the city are trying to appear bigger than they really are. Berlin is the total opposite of that, a town that has a lot to offer and seems more relaxed. The time I spent there was a nice change to the six years I had lived in Oslo before.

Alternative Nation: Last question. I work for an online magazine. What do you think of the internet in general?

Frode: It's definitely a good thing. You can get a lot information and collect new impressions from it. Even though I must admit that I'm pretty old-fashioned when it comes to these things.

Alternative Nation: So I guess you don't like MP3s that much, do you?

Frode: Yes, I do. People can get to know a lot more music this way.

Alternative Nation: But don't you think that if someone downloads all of Madrugada's songs and doesn't buy the albums he's virtually stealing?

Frode: Of course you can think about it like that, especially since we've got a record contract. On the other hand major labels are quite old-fashioned when it comes to signing new bands. Somehow this MP3 thing asks the labels to sign new bands to stay up-to-date. And if the internet works in a way where people are looking for and discovering new bands then it's a good thing to spread music there. I mean, just look at the stuff that's played on MTV... MTV sucks! I can't watch it without sustaining brain damages. It's not good to watch TV!

Alternative Nation: That's true. Thanks a lot for this extensive interview, have fun tonight!

Frode: Thank you. You're welcome.

The interview was done by Curt Keplin for the e-zine alternativenation.de.
It was published in German, and has been translated to English by Franziska Ress for exclusive use on madrugada.de, and may not be used anywhere else. Special thanks to Curt Keplin and his editor for giving us the permission to put this interview up here.

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