Norwegian noisemakers Spielbergs spent 2018 making waves at European festivals, and putting the final touches to their debut album, ‘This Is Not The End’. Now it’s here, and the trio are bringing it to the UK for a five-date tour. Say hello to frontman, Mads Baklien.
Hey Mads, how’s it going?
I’m doing great these days. A lot of good things are happening for our band; we’re releasing our debut LP ‘This Is Not The End’ on 1st February, and then we’re off on a UK headline tour. Really looking forward to that!
Tell us about life in Oslo, is it a nice place to live? What’s going on over there at the mo?
Oslo is a quite small city but big enough to make you feel you’re in an actual city, at least for us Norwegians. We love it here! You have a lot of choices in Oslo. You can hang around near the city centre and live the urban life if that’s your thing, with clubs and shopping and all kinds of cultural activities, or you can, as I like to, hang out in the more quiet neighbourhoods in the outskirts, eating and drinking at small cafés and pubs. We have great forests for hiking and skiing and stuff all around the city, and we have the sea to go swimming in during summer. Top notch restaurants are popping up everywhere, and yeah, Oslo just keeps getting better and better in my opinion.
Does popular music in Norway differ much from the UK, or are the charts all Ariana Grande and Bastille?
I really don’t pay much attention to the charts, but let’s see. At the time I’m answering these questions there’s definitely some Ariana on there. We have Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper from that movie. Haven’t seen it. We have Billie Eilish, Halsey, Kodak Black, Imagine Dragons, ugh I can’t stand them, and yes what do you know… Bastille too. But we also have a lot of Norwegian pop and hip-hop acts going on here I can see. I’m guessing you don’t have that much of that over there.
Do you feel like the musical landscape in Norway has shifted at all over the past few years?
Yes and no I guess. It seems to me that we are constantly mirroring whatever goes on in the world. We have our own mumble rap acts (in Norwegian!), we have the EDM stuff, though I guess Norway can take some international credit in that department, with tropical house dude Kygo and Alan Walker. We have some pop artists doing well internationally as well, like Sigrid. We also have more and more kids with guitars coming up it seems, which is good news!
That said, we have now, and have had for many years, a fantastic punk and hardcore scene, great metal bands, great indie-pop and rock and what not. I think we have a pretty healthy musical landscape going on over here.
