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Interview and new album: Evig Din For Alltid

When it comes to authentic, good rock music from Norway, “Evig Din For Alltid” is one of the first bands to name. (Just take a listen to the fab song “Nygårdsbroen“, the song that brought our attention to the band.) Since they founded the band, they have been constantly releasing albums “Evig Din For Alltid” (2013), “Åtte minuter fra solen” (2014) and “Tilbake til byen” (2015).

And now the new album “Snakkes i morgen” is out: With a wide range from classic rock tracks like “Trøbble” or “En Glad Sang”, light and acoustic-guitar flavoured tracks like “Put Lykke” – it is a well balanced journey through elements from the 60s, 70s, 80s and sounds from today. This makes it easy to listen to it over and over again.

And with the release of this great new album , we had the chance to ask the band from Bergen some questions, which mainly Frode Unneland answered. Since they sing in Norwegian, it is the best, to let them tell about themselves :)

Can you tell us, how Evig Din For Alltid started, how did you meet each other?

We all been friends for a long time. I also played In Pompel & The Pilts with Piddi, and in Popium with Frank. I was also lucky to get to know Petter through Piddi and we became great friends. I then started to play With Petter in his band. Then once a week Petter, Piddi and me started to meet, have a few beers and jam. We figured we needed a bass player and one day Frank came by. It was really that simple. We all wanted to do something together and we also wanted to do music basically for ourselves. We all wanted to write and challenge ourselves in different genres. That would also mean that some would like us and some would hate us.

How would you describe the style of the band?

We are very free group musically. That’s the project for this band. We call it pop/rock music but we do not have many boundaries . We want to try out a lot of different styles.
And we want to have fun with music.
That might not get us very far though! But we have a lot of fun..

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As we have learned everyone is doing different things in Norway: Is making music your fulltime-job at the moment?

No. It is not easy to make a living out of doing only music these days. I am also a nurse. Piddi works with computer and Petter is a teacher. Frank is the only one who is a professional musician.

How does Evig Din For Alltid writes/create a song? Is there a melody in the beginning – or is there a beat/drums?

Do you jam and evolve it or does someone come up with an idea? We usually write stuff by ourselves and then we come together in my cottage by the sea for a weekend to work things out together. Usually we have like 4 or 5 songs kind of ready and the rest is done in the studio.
I like to make demos in my little home studio. I like to get a good rythme going and also some keyboards. But it mostly starts off with strumming the guitar. Frank and Piddi usually present their songs on guitar and Petter sometimes has recorded bits and pieces or just strums his guitar or plays the piano.

Which music style or musician/act is your musical inspiration?

So many…….

About the new album: How long did it take to get it done and how is the process inside the band doing it?

We always spend one week recording and mixing the album. We start of monday morning and work until friday afternoon. Then everything has to be done. We usually work around the clock to get it done. This time we almost ran out of time. On friday Yngve was in one studio mixing songs while we were in a little studio next door trying to do the last recordings for the next song to mix. As I said earlier we had about 4 or 5 songs when we came to the studio. Then we work everything out together there. All of the basic tracks are done live and we usually get that done in the first or second take. We do not have much time so we have to work quickly. That means that we sometimes keep mistakes and strange things that might happen in the recording. It gives it more life and excitement.Everything is very «in the moment» kind of way. The vocals is also usually done in one or two takes. Well, everything is done in one or two takes actually!!
We all participate in the arrangements and recording. Yngve ,thank God, is there to keep us on our toes and make the process possible.We could not have done this without him. He also plays most of the keyboards. The mastering was a done later!

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How did the collaboration with Norsk Tiger happen? Your styles are obviously very different – but it worked very well on “Bakken e bratt”; a very catchy song.

Thanks. We wanted to have a different color on that song so we put in a lot of keyboard. We also wanted a girl singer and we all like Norsk Tiger and specially LilleStine. She has this voice that can give you goosebumps and you feel connected to her lyrics. We wanted to ask her to do a part for the bakken e bratt song and she said yes. I think that work out very well. Her lyric is perfect with mine. She had just been to the dentist before doing that vocal and was a little bit under the weather, but still did a fantastic job!

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Could it happen that you do a song in english language? Or would it not “fit”?

I do not think that evig din for alltid will do that. It is kind of a rule in the band to sing your own songs, and in Norwegian. But Frank, Petter and me also do write in English. Franks band Pogo Pops are all in english.

Is there a tour planned (we suppose in Norway only) or picked gigs? And when?

We will do a couple of gigs in Norway starting off in Bergen the 16 of December. We play in Oslo the 19 of January and we also have some more gigs planned. If anybody wants us to play then we will come!

The local music scene in the beloved city of Bergen – is there someone you would recommend?

There is a lot of great things going on here. Hvitmalt Gjerde, Lars Vaular(lives in Oslo now), Silja Sol, Razika, Megaphonic Thrift, Hjerteslag and a bunch of others.

Since norwegian music is more and more getting popular abroad, how do you think about new festivals like Vil Vil Vest or Trondheim Calling to push the local scene?

I think that is a great thing. Specially for new bands trying to get heard. It is not easy getting out there!

And as we always hear on the good advices of the locals: Which pubs/restaurant would you recommend?

Apollon is one of my favorites. It is a bar and a record store and sometimes they have live music. Garage is also a good plays for people who loves music.

And finally we have two Frode-special questions :)
Regarding your personal role in Evig Din For Alltid and other bands: When did you start playing drums and in which bands did you play?

I started playing drums when I was about 13 years old. I started playing the guitar but there was no one around that could play drums and it came naturally for me so that is how it went. I started of with punk, prog ad heavy rock and played in different bands during my youth. My first album was with a band called The Rub and we were quite famous in Bergen. Then it was Pompel & The Pilts, Chocolate Overdose, Unge Frustrerte Menn, Savoy, A-Ha, Sondre Lerche, Sergeant Petter,The Thank Yous, Popium. Spiders from Danmarksplass, Magnet, and some more….

Your drum playing caught our attention as we stumbled upon two albums from Popium and shortly afterwards of course Savoy.
How did that connection to Paul evolve?

I think that Lauren had listened to the second Chocolate Overdose album and liked it and the drumming. Then Paal called me up to do a demo session with A-Ha. But this was a difficult time for those boys so when Magne and Morten had left in the evening, me and Paal and Lauren started to work on some songs that eventually became the Mary is coming album. We had so much fun recording that album so we just kept on going.

SAVOY - Whalebone (Kaleidoscope ver.) [official music video w/ lyrics subtitles]

Get “Snakkes I morgen” at iTunes, amazon.

Evig Din For Alltid at facebook.

Many thanks to Frode for letting us send him so many questions and his good answers!

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