interview with Dead Dispute

Have any of you played in other bands?
Yes, too many to mention really! We love playing music <3

What are your names? / Who plays what?

Even Oakley – Bass

Bjørnar Kolbjørnsrud – Guitar

Alexander Jahr – Vocals

Sander Wold – Drums

Kristin Siljan - Guitar

Have you had other previous members? 
Roundabout ten former members, give or take a few! Mostly drummers, our Achilles heel.

Where are you from? We are from Norway, from mostly the southern and eastern part, and also from the south-eastern part.

What year did the band form? Sometime in the fall of 2013

What's your style of genre? We play Rock’N Roll, baby! With mainly a punk influence.

What inspires you? Hot dogs, bunnies, beer and D.D.R (The band, not the former country)

 

Are you looking for a label, and what are your thoughts around that? A label would be nice, if we can give as much of any/all responsibility to anyone other than ourselves, that would be amazing!

What are your songs about? Life, death and anything in between. Mostly with a dark sense of humor and/or observations about our own lives.

Who does the composing and writes the lyrics? We make as much as possible together, but sometimes (read: every-single-time) someone else has to pick up Evens slack.

Do you compose in a certain environment? No, anywhere, at any time with any one.

Have you done any covers live? Yes, quite a few. We like to mix a few cover songs into our set lists depending on where we’re playing and who we’re playing with.

What are the least and most people to attend one of your gigs?

Least: About 10 people, and that includes the band members.

Most: A few hundred, however that was at a festival, so they were probably not there to see us!

What ages are most of your concert attendants? We haven’t been very good at doing a consensus for every gig, our best guess is between 20 and 55 years young.

Do you always play the same songs live, or do you vary? We vary quite a bit, but usually with the same songs, in a different order, although sometimes we mix it up by playing some of our older stuff, and sometimes we play more of our new stuff, so I guess in short the answer is what was the question again?

Do you have a regular place you play live often? Not really, we do play quite a few locals gigs, but the places we’ve been playing frequently have all been shut down subsequently to us playing there. (Correlation is not causation)

What was your first gig like? An intoxicated chaos like nothing we’ve ever seen before or since, except for a few other gigs, so I guess we’ve seen it since then, but that was the first!

What was your latest gig? We played a show in Tønsberg (Norway) and the place was shut down more or less while we were finishing the show due to Covid-19 violations from our amazingly crazy audience <3

Where have you played live this year? Four concerts in Norway, once in Kristiansand (Our base), once in Skien and twice in Tønsberg.

When did you start to sell merchandise, and what do you have for sale? Since we released our first album back in 2014 we’ve been selling CDs, we recently acquired some really sexy t-shirts and kick-ass stickers and buttons.  

Where can people buy your merchandise? Contact us on Facebook or come to our shows (we will also have a merchandise stand both outside and inside of Wembley every time we play there).

What do you think of people downloading music instead of buying records now a days? We don’t like it, but there’s not much to do about that! We’re all guilty of it at some point, so I guess we shouldn’t be throwing rocks inside of a glass house or something like that. After all, we are anything but hypocrites.

How do you think the music industry has changed because of this? We think its focus has shifted from physical distribution and tours/shows to streaming and tours/shows. Shows and tours have become even more important than they used to, because the music is so readily available to anyone with an internet connection. This allows your music to reach more people due to convenience, but it also means music doesn’t play the same role in peoples lives due to it being so readily available to anyone, a lot of todays music suffers the fate of becoming background music because of this. Perhaps we should make a background noise album with some high quality elevator music? Even, take notes of this.

What do you think of my work? It’s genius, we envy your business model and the success you’ve had with it!

How do you think and know that this interview will help you in the music business? We don’t, on the other hand, we hardly ever know what we’re doing, much less what what we do will lead to. I’m scared, someone hold Evens hand. And stop taking notes Even.

Do you have any role models or idols?

Sander (Drummer): Karl Marx

Alex (Vocals): Princess Diana

Kristin (Guitar): Stephen Fry

Bjørnar (Guitar): His Excellency, the Royal Majesty, Sheikh Ben Redik Fy Fazan

Even (Bass): Celine Dion

Why do you think that they exist? We’re not quite sure what this question means, do you mean “why they exist”, “why we think they exist” (implying they don’t), or “why they are our role models/idols”? Fear not, because they all apply to our answer, which is; We are silly people who don’t take life too seriously, so our answers have reasons, but they may be lost to others, and some of them are even lost to us. Great answer Even.

Is it easier to find inspiration from older bands, or bands that are more active today? Given the fact that we are all predisposed to liking bands we heard in our youth, and some of us are getting quite old, we’re gonna go with the older bands. (Looking at you, Even)

What have been your biggest obstacles? Evens ability to take notes... No, but seriously, there have been so many obstacles over the years, but hey, we’re still around, somehow. I guess the absence and subsequent replacement of members has been a problem more than once, and being a five member band with only three or four members is quite difficult. Covid-19 has not exactly been a walk in the park either, but we figured we would go against the tide of what everyone else says. (Oops!)

What advice would you give other bands or artists? If you ever find what you love, keep doing that. (Especially if what you love is Even.)

Do you have any new material? We’re constantly working on new material, the difficulty is finding the time to record, mix/master and distribute!