Kings of Convenience INTERVIEW: Kings of Convenience PROGRAM: Coffeehouse February 11, 2005 By Tina Dhingra It’s been four years since Norway-based acoustic duo Kings of Convenience released their first album, Quiet is the New Loud. Erik Glambek Bøe and Erlend Øye make up this band, which draws their influences from Tracy Chapman to Susan Vega. Personally, the connection to Simon and Garfunkel is presented through their soft vocals and lyrics any person can relate to if they’ve ever gone through heartache (and whatnot). Kings of Convenience (finally) came back to the U.S. to promote their latest album, Riot on an Empty Street. WERS’ Coffeehouse was lucky enough for them to stop by for not only have an acoustic session with them but to chat about media and politics, all with a side of turkey sandwiches and bananas. Somehow, the topic of media and politics arouse while Erik, Ben from Coffeehouse, and I were waiting for Erlend to come back from the “toilet!” (No exaggeration here: Erlend just stepped out of the room and said “toilet!”) It’s apparent that Erik and Erlend are both intelligent and have many things to say not just in their lyrics but in person. Ben: The news on TV will present it to you like it’s unbiased. Erik: All countries are like that in the sense that. When you tell a story. You don’t tell them why you’re telling that story. People just have to realize this. The bad thing is that there are very few people that actually do realize when a TV station tells you one story instead another story, there is a reason for it. People just hear a story and “oh this is what happened today” It’s kind of a.. Tina: Some people believe it though.. Unfortunately..Believe one view.. Erik: How many times do you see a TV, a headline news story about civilian Iraqi causalities? Ben: Never. Erik: It’s so important that young people in America talk about it. They open their eyes and are not afraid to talk about it. Because I mean, if one person is afraid to talk about it, then the next person will be afraid to talk about it. Then you have this situation where… in America you don’t talk about it. But in Europe everyone talks about it… We don’t have 500 TV stations. In my country, there are four TV stations. Two of them are owned by the government. It’s supposed to be unbiased, it’s a lot more unbiased than American TV stations. Ben: A lot of times, the lead stories are ridiculous. Erik: You’re brought up to be entertained. It’s kind of hard… kind of a junky. I guess stories are told in a good way, they are entertaining, even if they are important. Ben: The emphasis is the other way around. As much as the three of us wanted to continue this interesting topic of media and politics, the show must go on, and the fabulous music created by these two must be discussed. Ben: Inside the liner notes, it says that you guys both write the songs. How does it really go in the song-writing process? Erik: Well, all of our songs kind of, they start off inside of one person’s head. Either Erlend’s head or inside my head. And then, the song is finished in a process where we kind of play together, and try to make up the last verse of the song. Try to structure the song, the arrangement of the song. It’s kind of… all the songs are about stories from either my life or Erlend’s life. But at the same time, they are always words from the other person. It kind of creates kind of…the stories are very subjective; there’s a sense of objectivity, maybe cynicism in our songwriting. That might stem from that fact. Erlend: I mean, there are some songs too, which, where one of us, had a little creative moment and the other person is there when this happens. The song is created like a back and forth, like a ping pong match. It doesn’t do that so much anymore, really. Erik: We live in different cities and countries, Erlend lives in Berlin. I live in Bergen, Norway. So we kind of…we don’t see each other that much. Ben: So you guys send each other clips here and there? Erik: We play some songs over the telephone. We’re kind of old fashioned. Ben: The last two albums you had, Quiet is the New Loud and Riot on an Empty Street, where has this idea first come from with quiet or silence being more profound? Erik: Well, I guess it’s an old idea. Less is more. What we were thinking at the time when we made Quiet is the New Loud, at that time, in Europe; pop music was very much dominated by the focus of production. We were thinking that there was much focus was being put on production, and songwriting and writing lyrics was kind of forgotton. To me, that’s what’s most important in music: the song, the melody, and the lyrics. We wanted to take it back to basics. But still be making pop music. It was important for us to emphasis we were a pop band, not just two folk singers with two guitars. Erlend: We are a pop band. I’d have to say the title Quiet is the New Loud, it was maybe meant to describe something that happened when I went to go see a band, Low. In Manchester. I didn’t know them at the time; I went to just see them at the concert. At some point they started moving away from the microphones, and started singing into the rooms. Which, of course, meant that the volume went further down. But I think, it just seemed like something electrical happened. Everyone’s attention magnified. Yeah, it was kind of… it was a similar effect to when all these loud quiet songs, when the loud part comes in. When you hear it the first time, you think it’s pretty amazing. It’s so boring when people do it all the time. But when I heard this happen, it was a similar effect and I thought it was equally amazing. The songs Kings of Convenience sang were, as suspected, wonderful. As they both pack up their equipment, I quickly ask Erik why their influence and beliefs in politics weren’t presented in their songwriting. Erik just smiles back at me and says, “I don’t know… maybe we will…” As Erik tries to expand on his answer, the attention of the room goes to Erlend where he puts on his coat and snap-on dark lenses over his clear glasses. As Erik leaves the station he pokes me with his elbow and smugly says, “Maybe we’ll be like Bob Marley.” Who knows, maybe they will, and maybe they won’t. For more information on Kings of Convenience go to: www.kingsofconvenience.com. photographer: Lauren M. Brock