The alarm shrilled relentlessly across the cold and otherwise silent house as the clock touched on 7.45am, in the same room Fredrik Saroea shrugged off the chill and prepared himself and his mind with a warm cup of morning comfort, hoping that the caffeine would wake his brain enough to cope with the upcoming onslaught of English interviews coming his way in just a few minutes. It’s hard enough getting an artist up at this time, let alone asking them to refresh their memory of a foreign language for the next few hours of conversation. But Fredrik is ill at ease with it all, as if it’s a routine task, as ITM’s Semone Maksimovic shares a dusty line with him on a warm summer evening. Finding him so relaxed in conversation that once you start him on his local music scene in Bergen (also home to Annie and Royksopp) and the pop culture of the 80s, his passion runs deep and it becomes difficult to get a word in edgewise.
Datarock have been the main name on everyone’s lips in recent months, as they were quickly slapped with ‘the next big thing’ tag the world over with the release of their debut self-titled album and it’s instantly addictive, sexy electro rock anthems ‘Computer Camp Love’ (which made it in at number 12 on Triple J’s Hottest 100 for 2005) and Fa Fa Fa. And after taking in their sound and seeing that it isn’t hard to draw comparisons to some of today’s hottest electro-rock ilk, with a classic 80s pop culture edge, with references to the likes of Revenge of The Nerds, Commodore 64s and Bmxs, it’s obvious that the Bergen trio are on to a sure-fire winner. “Some people might find it easier to draw an influence from one genre or outlet, but I’ve always been somewhat involved in all different sorts of music and grown-up with all different sorts of influences, so it would be silly for me to just choose one genre to stick to now,” Saroea explains of the many different facets that help make up Datarock’s sound today. “The result in doing that has always been quite schizophrenic, so everybody has always had a bit of a problem in trying to pin down one exact genre to fit us into” he laughs.
A problem in which many of today’s bands struggle for years to achieve, hoping to be lucky enough to find a sound that can automatically be placed as distinctly them, but able to slide across many different genres at the same time. “Yeah, sometimes you may hear a band that have worked really hard to try to fit themselves in one particular genre, which isn’t always a band thing if they’re good at what they do and their original ideas are strong, but if they’re just out to copy another leading band in that genre, they’ll just end up being a bad version of the band they love” he stresses of the situation, before continuing “But if you do what we do and take different aspects of music and pop culture in general, you end up with at least an expression that goes in all different directions and hopefully sounds like something new and different. On the album you’ll hear different references to pop culture that we grew up on, for instance on the BMX song, the bulldozer track is a bit of a homage to my generation’s bike, the BMX that came along with ET and of course the Australian BMX Bandits movie.”
Now that they’ve found the successful recipe for the Datarock sound, it’s not likely that these boys have finished looking and experimenting for new sound journeys in the future, something that they’ve proved with their exuberant and sometimes out of hand live shows back at home. Where you’d be smart not to pre-guess the onstage situation, cause if you think it’ll be a straight out electro rock three piece, you’ll be shocked when you walk in to something upwards of 20 people on stage for the show. “Since 2000 we’ve played something like 170-200 shows and covered 11 countries, as the years go by we find ourselves inspired to make our live shows, bigger, better and more exciting, especially when we’re playing at home” enlightens Saroea. “We’ve had up to 30 members onstage in the past actually” he laughs “most of them were dancing and providing back-up vocals, but in the past we’ve also had two drummers, a kids brass band, dancers, saxophonists, different percussionists and guitarists all on at once. Unfortunately we can’t do the same when we’re abroad, the costs would just be phenomenal if we tried. So we come out as a three-piece and hope that the audiences aren’t disappointed when we don’t fill the stage with crazy lunatics and cute choirs” he hopes out loud.
The extended Datarock family back home hardly comes as a surprise when you look at the duo’s outside activities, as they give back to the scene they spawned from, running their own record label and putting out local artists, like Quasimojo (who they’ve hotly tipped as a band to watch out for), Fredrik also finds himself booking his own club nights over there for added excitement and can also be seen on very rare occasions helping man the wheels of steel at places like New York’s Mishapes. It’s obvious that he’s in the right business, it’s something he lives, breathes, sleeps and takes very seriously. “I really enjoy being onstage, being an entertainer, but I also enjoy being behind the scenes in the studio making music, or booking a club night or running the label just as much. I’m in it for all the right reasons, my heart’s invested.”
Be sure to grab a copy of Datarock’s debut effort, out now on Creative Vibes and don’t miss your chance to catch the Norwegian crazies as they hit town to tear your minds apart and fill your hearts with love this month at Good Vibrations and some select side shows:
Fri Feb 10 – Coolangatta Hotel, Gold Coast
Sat Feb 11- Good Vibrations Festival, Brisbane (BUY TICKETS)
Sun Feb 12 – Good Vibrations Festival, Melbourne (ITM SOLD OUT)
Wed Feb 15 – ANU Bar, Canberra
Thu Feb 16 – International Arts Festival, Perth
Fri Feb 17 – Newcastle Uni, Newcastle
Sat Feb 18 – Good Vibrations Festival, Sydney (BUY TICKETS)
