What do you get if you take two scruffy faced musicians from Bergen, Norway, give them Roland Grooveboxes and Casio Keyboards, matching red embroided tracksuits with wraparound Porsche sunglasses, and then add a love of Devo, Transformers and such John Hughes flicks as Weird Science? Simple…you get Datarock, the world’s evolutionary peak of pop, an electro rock two piece who write love letters to Laurie Anderson while riding their BMX bikes.
While en route from Milan to Vienna, somewhere in a dark Austrian forest, Fredrik Saroea – one half of Datarock – took some time out from a horrendous travel schedule to chat about Legionnaire’s disease, becoming mainstream and masturbating on Ketamine.
How are you?
I’m totally fucked up man. I’ve just taken Ketamine for the first time and I’m naked…on the floor…masturbating. Totally fucked up man.
Uh, wow… are you for real?
Nah, just joking.
Damn, that would have been a great exclusive… Anyway… in recent times a distinct sound seems to have emerged from Northern Europe with such bands as The Knife, Annie, Röyskopp and Mew consolidating that sound. Is there something in the water up there?
Errr, yes, yes there is. It’s a virus called Legionella. It causes diarrhoea. It has actually been in the water up here. They’re not sure if it’s caused any creativity though. The fun thing about that virus was that the antibiotics had the same side effects as the actual effects of the illness.
But back to your question…I’d say that five years ago you would have a traceable Scandinavian electronic sound…The last band that really had a thing called the Nordic sound was The Knife.
So, how would you describe your sound?
Our sound is the peak of pop evolution. It is the peak of our generation [laughs]. Our sound is a very perfect combination of several things. It’s the sound of the past, the present, and the future.
How are all the tours going?
We played in Milan, Italy, yesterday and tomorrow we play in Vienna, Austria. It’s crazy everywhere at the moment. We just did a tour of North America… To put things in perspective: three of our headline shows we did in LA were sold out and 200 people were queuing to get in.
We just did Turkey a month ago and the country’s number one biggest news channel did an interview with us for the cultural segment. And we had to wonder why these people were interviewing us, so we asked. And they said ‘Well that’s pretty obvious: it’s because you’re so famous! You’re so famous and you’re so relevant.’
So 2007 has been just outrageous. We went from being a two-piece underground act to almost being…I dunno… mainstream and household.
You have mentioned elsewhere that you are constantly referencing the years 1977 to 1982 – what’s your affinity with this period?
It’s the pre-’80s period. It’s the pre terrible production period.
And Molly Ringwald? Why does Datarock think she’s so hot?
She’s the It Girl of the early ’80s. She’s our girl!
