(Original on kaizers.no, Text backup here)
(Photo: Kent Skibstad. Geir Zahl and Kaizers are ready for some new beautiful festival nights! Here from RxR last year.)The festival season starts tomorrow!
Working Class Hero festival in Drammen is the first stop for the bustling Kaizers, who are back from 14 days of vacation. We talked with Geir Kaizer, who just returned from New York!
- We did our most intense period of touring ever this winter and spring. We ended up doing 62 shows, all over the whole country, so it was great to take a little break now. Nice to hang about a bit in America again.
- And now you're ready for the summer season?
- Absolutely! And we continue where we left off in terms of Volume II philosophy, that is to play a lot and everywhere in the whole country. We'll start in Drammen tomorrow, and I think we haven't played outdoors there since 2004 or something like that, when we played with Briskeby and the Dumdum Boys. I remember that as an awesome night. We're looking forward to repeat this! There are still tickets left as well, so just come by!
- The festival premiere is in the east of Norway, but then you go west and play your home grounds on Saturday?
- It has almost become a tradition that we play for an audience from Jæren at Jærnåttå festival. Of course this is a bit special, at least for the three of us who are from the area; to perform on the main square in Bryne and play our songs for everyone from neighbors to old teachers, friends, and family. In addition, we actually received an honor award by the Time municipality this year, so now we have to really prove ourselves worthy of the honor!
- You generally enjoy playing at festivals, don't you?
- We do, and we've enjoyed it for ten years now. The festival concept offers so much variance; you must be prepared for all sorts of contingencies, ranging from weather conditions to the atmosphere to the sound to insects to strange food to the schedule to change over to failing equipment to social colleagues to eager fans. We have played for any crowd ranging from 40 people in rural areas in Finland to 50000 at Roskilde, and pretty much everything in between. And it's an exciting challenge to present yourself to people who have never heard you before, while at the same time also accounting for people who know all the records by heart. But then that is what we like. Offense and defense position at the same time!
- And since this year has been busy up to now, the summer won't be a holiday camp either?
- Certainly not! In addition to all the festivals we will work on Volume III, thus record the arrangements, which Erlend Skomsvoll has written, with the Stavanger Symphonic Orchestra. We are going to mix Volume three at Duper in Bergen, and in addition we are going to Budapest for a short week and record music videos for two Volume III songs. In other words, events will converge this summer!
Check where Kaizers are playing near you here!