(Original on kaizers.no, Text backup here)
Kaizers Orchestra's tenth year as a band sits well on top as their best so far!(Photo: Geir Zahl. Roskilde festival. One of many highlights for Kaizers Orchestra in 2011!)
This has been an especially eventful year for Kaizers Orchestra. The band crowned the year of their tenth anniversary with two releases, Violeta Violeta Volume I and II, and achieved their best ever radio results for singles with "Hjerteknuser", "1000 dråper regn", and last but not least "Drøm videre Violeta". The band played 58 concerts this year, 33 of them outside of the country, and, among other things, sold out Oslo Spektrum and the open air at Koengen in Bergen, in addition to headlining festivals like Roskilde, Øya, Rått & Råde, Slottsfjell, and Moldejazz, to name a few. The "Sonny" production at Rogaland Teater, based on Kaizers' first three records and dramatized by Tore Renberg, has been a huge success and will be set up at the opera house in Oslo from February 16-26, 2012, and again at Rogaland Teater next November. Throw in releases of Kaizer vodka, the chocolate box "Drøm videre Violeta", and a DVD from the Spektrum concert, and it starts to look like great work for a year!
- Yes, it has been an awesome year for us, Janove Kaizer admits.
- The best for us ever, I would say, both in terms of success and in terms of how much fun it was. We have presented new material, enjoyed the tour, and played some really big and great concerts.
- What would you point out as the highlights?
- The Spektrum concert was special for us. It was a bold choice to make; no Norwegian band except for a-ha has sold out Spektrum since Morten Abel did in 2002, with us as support band, by the way. That we managed to sell out and that the evening was so nice was a highlight for us. Otherwise it was also special to premiere the entire Volume II at Øya festival three months before the album came out; that was also a kick. Most rock'n'roll was maybe the day when we took a private jet to Roskilde, played for 50000 people and flew to Biri Travbane to play there for 2000 the same night. It has been a hectic, but good year!
- And the ground is laid for next year?
- Sure, we always look ahead, and next year we will be touring a lot with Volume II, covering the entire country this time. We haven't really been out in the outskirts of the country and played there a lot since 2006, so now we wanted to do a proper round again.
- And then Volume III comes in November?
- That's right, then the trilogy will be fulfilled. We have already started recording it; and we can only say that you can look forward!
So we add a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of you out there that follow what Kaizers are doing, and we'll talk next year!