Interview | The Captain and me … and many others !

The Net Emergence band of the month comes from Norway but plays Balkan Music. Yes. Morten, co founder of the band has accepted to answer few questions. Honest and Open Minded if you ask us. The band is looking forward to touring in Europe (and France). You want to see them ? You can help by spreading the word.

The Captain and Me : Where does the name come from?

The name is taken from an album by The Doobie Brothers, from 1973. When we took the name, there were only the two of us (Even and me) making music, and we thought it would make a nice name for a duo. Currently, we are 9 people in the band.

Where does Captain and me come from by the way ?

We are based in Oslo, Norway, although some of the guys are from Bergen, Trondheim, Larvik and various other places in Norway. 

“balkan country 4 life” says your website. What’s your story with balkan and balkan music ?

It’s pretty simple, really. Some years ago, we discovered the music of Goran Bregovic and Boban Markovic. Naturally, we loved it, and wanted to try to make music like that, well aware of the fact that we had no chance of ever coming close to being authentic. So we faked it, and tried to mix it with country music and other styles of music, calling it "balkan-country". We’ve jokingly been calling ourselves Norway’s least authentic band.

That said, I’ve been meaning to remove that from the website. We’re not really making balkan-country music anymore, the music we are making these days have nothing to do with balkan music (and not that much to do with country music either).

A third record is on its way for 2010. How is-it going ?

It’s going good. We started it in a cabin way up in the mountains near a place called Vinstra in late January. Over a week’s time, we laid down basic tracks for 15 songs. 10 of those will end up on the album, which will be released in Norway in September. We are currently recording piano tracks, horns, accordion and other tidbits, paralell to writing the lyrics (yes, we always write and arrange the music with la-la-lyrics at first).

It’s sounding quite different from the other two albums. More down-to-earth, not so hectic, and it’s coming out like some sort of weird mix of 70′s soft rock, mariachi and afro-beat. Somehow.

Any plan for a French tour later on ?

We sure hope so. Invite us, and we’ll be there. The closest we’ve come to playing in France is driving through the northern part one night on our way from Vienna to Brussels, so it’s about time, I think.

We have been talking about doing a european tour, but no real plans have materialized yet.

Internet has changed everything within music: for good, for bad ?

For good, I would definitely say. There are difficult aspects, sure, but the notion of being able to discover all the music of the world with a few clicks is just incredible. The Captain & Me would certainly not have been the same without the music we discovered on the internet.

What’s wrong with music business today according to you (if anything is wrong) ?

Most of all the fact that nobody has given The Captain & Me a budget with no upper limit.

As a music geek, I will always have the opportunity to complain about the music business’ failure to recognize obvious talent, but I think that’s just the way it is and always have been. Big companies will always want to make big money, and there is so much more money to be earned by (dumbly) entertaining people than by making them think. I’m old enough to accept that now.

An artist or band you’re dreaming to work with ?

There are many, of course. At least in theory. I’m a big fan of artists like Neil Young and Tom Waits, but I don’t really think they’re all that fun to work with. We saw Femi Kuti play right after us at Slottsfjell festival last summer, and instantly thought that Femi Kuti and his band + The Captain & Me would be a good match, but in hindsight I’m not so sure. It would probably be very, very chaotic.

Having Marc Ribot or Nels Cline play a guitar solo on a song would be a dream, or maybe Dave Rawlings. And we would love to have Ornette Coleman do for us what he did on that fantastic Joe Henry song "Richard Pryor Addresses a Tearful Nation". Also, writing songs with Jackson Browne 35 years ago would be great.

Not very likely, though.

Most beautiful music story that happened to you ?

Touring with Saint Thomas through Europe as his opening act and backing band. Sadly, he died before we had the chance to finish the album we had started working on with him.

Last word for Net Emergence (if you have a webcam, this is great. Otherwise, this is great too)

"And that’s not all. There will be snacks."
- Andrew Bird

crédit photo : Kjetil Gudem.