Interview With Röyksopp!!

YO! Where in the world are you right now?

Err, I don’t know where am I? I think I find myself in our hometown of Burgan, in Norway.

What’s it like over there at the moment?

I would say cosy, lots of people hugging each other and smiling and giving each other the thumbs up!

Sounds great! Your new album ‘Junior’ recently dropped in the UK after a 4 year gap. Has it taken you 4 years to put together this new album or have you been doing too much partying and not enough work?!?!

Well it took us four days to make the album, the thing is that people would say that we did sloppy work so we wasted four years and then we made it.

Tell us about ‘Junior’ and the ideas behind it...

The album is part of the whole concept of the Junior/Senior duality in people. The aggressiveness, energetic and shy which we’ve tried to express so well on Junior. Words about hopefully catchy and immediate music. Focus on rhythms and vocals on songs and we still have this other side in us which is kind of a bit more inwards looking and thoughtful. During these four years we worked on ‘Junior’ and ‘Senior’ and flipped it around. Junior is the first part of whole and we have another album [Senior] coming out this winter.

Can you give us any gossip on the new album, what we can expect and any guest vocalists?

Well, I don’t want to give too much away but I can say more than anything we’ve done it’s something that really naively so. It’s not an album consisting of pop songs it’s a complete album that we feel benefits if you take your time. So we actually ask you something about audiences… although we know it’s a bit blue eyed or naïve to think that people these days will listen to an album from A-Z, but that’s what we believe in. There are no songs on the album.

As ever, you’ve recruited some amazing vocalists for the current album – Robyn, Lykke Li,Karin Dreijer-Andersson of The Knife and Anneli Drecker. One big Scandinavian love-in huh?!

Scandinavian chauvinist!! It really wasn’t our intention, it just happened to be that the singers we wanted to work with live in Scandinavia.

Do you write the tracks, then send over to the girls to add their lyrics, or is it more of a live collaboration type thing?

We do both, we work together , we meet up and get to know each other as well as working on our own separately. I think that the most crucial thing here is that we didn’t want a voice for hire, we wanted someone we could collaborate with, someone that could bring a lot to the table, someone that’s in a musical universe of their own that we would like to collide with ours.

You predominantly collaborate with female vocals, what’s the reasoning behind that?

It’s because we’re insane I would say... who likes female vocals?!! No-one [laughs]. On the previous album, we have a lot of male vocals. We’re trying to flip it around also with Junior, I think when a man sings it becomes a bit more honest and vulnerable it’s not a manly thing to do. I sometimes think it’s easier for a woman to act it out and sing about a personal thing.  

New single ‘Girl And The Robot’ (feat. Robyn) is another classic. What’s the idea behind this track?

We like to think that this can be interpret in both a literal sense and  it can also be a metaphor for how relationships work in terms of someone who is so much in love with their work that it really effects their relationship. I’m sure everybody has experienced something like that, where one person wants to hang out and the other wants to work. The word robot stands for worker. So I’m in love with a robot could mean ‘I’m in love with a workaholic.’

Just checked out the video for ‘Girl And The robot’ too. Your videos have always remained incredibly original, visual and artistic. Is the video aspect a big part of the overall Röyksopp ideal?

It’s very, very important to us. With this Girl in the Robot video we wanted to go away from a typical idea most people would have when they are making a video with robot in. That they would go and make something that is very retro, a 1950’s mechanic robots and we wanted to make it a bit more contemporary or futuristic. We went a bit out on a limb doing that, but I’m really pleased with the results.

You’ve gotta have a good sense of humour too right?

Oh yes, we feel that music and humour belongs together because the joy of laughing and smiling and having fun is an emotion that needs to be portrayed in music as well.

First single ‘Happy Up Here’ is very much a signature Röyksopp song. Kind of like a continuation from the previous albums?

Yeah, we used to say when it first came out that we chose that to end the global economic depression. We thought it was nice to come back with that as the first single. We thought it was a nice introduction, it was us saying hello we’re back and it’s also a very uplifting track which we felt the world needed.

What’s your favourite track off the album?

I don’t know, it depends which time of day, I was surprised everyone has had this feeling of getting up in the morning and having to leave the house before you want to, your tired and you’re going out to a grey day and I think the first part of the album with The ‘Girl and the Robot’ is perfect for that... so good to listen in the morning. But in the evening we have tracks like ‘Worship Forever’ and ‘Silver Cruiser’, I wouldn’t necessarily listen to ‘Silver’… trying to wake up. It’s a rounded album for the full day. I’m trying to sell it as a package now!!

How did you and Sven meet and get together?

We met at a mutual friend’s house when we were 12 and 13. We met through the love of electronic music. Sven was playing a video game on a very old PC. It wasn’t just music it was video games, films and literature. We just shared a lot of ideas and became instant friends immediately.

How old were you when you started writing music together?

It was about a year later we bought our first drum machine together! It was a Corg digital dynamic drum. It cost us all our allowance and we saved for a long time and I was working as a paper boy in the mornings to buy my first synthesiser and my first role on Juno 106! We started out trying to find out how other people do it because we were driven my curiosity. You listen to a song and want to know how, we did cover versions of everything like The Mortal by Kraftwork. After that we soon moved on and wanted to make our own stuff. I remember playing for the other guys a piece of music that I had written on the piano and I remember it was really embarrassing! To say, guys look at this, listen to this I’ve made. Going from playing other peoples music to saying this is our own stuff, but as soon as that barrier was crossed it was never an issue. It was just the first time.

How old were you when Melody came out in 2001?

I don’t know because I’ve lost track of my years, I wasn’t particularly young back then but now I am aging!

Out of your previous work what are the big stand out songs that you still love to play?

‘Triumphant’ from ‘The Understanding’ and ‘A Higher Place’ from ‘Melody AM’. We believe in what we do, we have faith in it but you get to hear some tunes more than others and these are songs that you wouldn’t normally hear.

Where does the name Röyksopp come from?

It means literally puffball, which is the name of a fungus. It’s a kind of fungus that when you step on it, it spores in a cloud of dust. In Norwegian if you divide the word into two it means ‘smoke mushroom’ and so another translation in English would be mushroom cloud / the smoke effect you get after blowing up an atomic bomb! We just thought that these two things, it could also be an insane, tongue in cheek over the top drug reference, smoke and mushroom. So this name meant so much, like cake with meatballs soaked in soda and sugar so it was just too much and we like over the top things. We were a bit uncertain with a UK release and we thought the name was going to be a bit complicated for anyone that didn’t speak Norwegian, but I asked some guys down in London what they thought and if we should consider a name change because of this. They said that they didn’t think so because Röyksopp sounded like the name of some faraway place. And I kinda like the poetry of that! That our music is a place, you don’t know exactly where it is, but with the music you can get there.

Is it nice to be back on the road touring the album?

It is extremely uplifting to see how many people are into our music, and shouldn’t be but are still surprised at how people remember us after we take so many years out. So yeah, it’s really good to be back.

Where have you been playing so far?

We’ve played a small European tour a few weeks ago; we’ve just got back from Krakow in Poland.

Are there many festivals in Norway?

We’ll play in Denmark at Roskilde, a festival in Oslo, at Burgan our hometown... we basically cover as much as we can. Without ending up like Keith Richards.

Do you have any real extravagances on your rider?

Yes we do and that is a medium. Needs to be practised!

This summer you’ll be playing live at our Get Loaded in the Park festival. Are you looking forward to that?

Yes we are although we are intrigued and intimidated by the name!

Get Loaded explains the history behind the festival and where we got the name.

Oh yes, I heard about that, I know my London clubbing history!

Will you have time to spend a few days hanging around in London before or after the gig?

In order to answer that question I’d have to look at my schedule and I’m too lazy to do that!

When you’re in London what do you like to do to relax?

Shopping, clubbing, we’ve been to all the major museums. I love the Natural History museum and the book stalls. It’s one of the things that really stands out, you can’t get your hands on in Norway, if you go to a bookstore for comics and books.       

And finally, please complete the following sentence. It’s great being Röyksopp because....?

Erm…. [laughs]. That’s not a question. I’ll fill in the blanks. It’s great to be Röyksopp because we get away with not answering questions.

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