(Original on kaizers.no, Text backup here)
(Photo: Bjørn Frafjord. Hjerteknuser. This is from the recording of the video for the song. Watch the video here!)Kaizers Orchestra achieve new personal records all the time. The lattest of these is the second single from the forthcoming album "Violeta, Violeta Volume I". "Hjerteknuser" reached a record fifth place on the Norwegian radio charts this week!
This means that the song is played by more radio stations than P3, which is a rarity for Kaizers Orchestra. The previous chart record was held by "Maestro", which in its glorious days reached a quite respectable 13th place.
- If this journey towards the top continues, we won't be able to call us a no-hit-wonder for much longer!, "Hjerteknuser" composer Janove Ottesen smiles.
- We aren't so familiar with help from the radio, but I don't mind that Kaizers can finally be heard on the radio stations. We are used to the fact that we have to travel all around the country to get to play our songs, so it's just nice that we now get some help from the radio. And we're going to travel all around the country and during the next years anyway, so there is no danger that we leave the whole work to the radio!
- Do you try to create songs that work on the radio, on purpose, or do you just make a record and then pick the song that is most suitable for the radio afterwards?
- We don't write songs with that purpose, no. But we like to make good, melodic pop songs, only to destroy them with the usually radio-unfriendly Kaizers sound, hehe. "Prosessen" from "Våre Demoner" is such an example. But by now we have been around for so long that people might tolerate the Kaizers wrapping better, and hear the quality of the songs even though there are some sonic challenges in there occasionally. At least compared to traditional radio music. It's become easier over time. And we've become a bit better at playing as well, so some of the edges have probably been ground down. Anyway, for us it's just fun to be successful in several arenas. We achieved that live and on record already, and radio play is sort of the last challenge which we didn't really manage to fulfill yet, and now we are about to succeed there as well. We like that.
The "Hjerteknuser" cover contest, which Kaizers Orchestra did together with P3 this fall (by the way, listen to Moi's beautiful winning entry HERE!), also won the advertising award "Sølvtaggen" for the month of December. You can read more about this here!