Interview with Lars Horntveth
photo:
Martijn Maas / www.martinjnmaas.com
The gig Jaga Jazzist did at Pukklepop festival 2002 was one of
my personal musical highlights of the year. I quite liked the Norvegian
10-piece third album " A Livingroom Hush", but I certainly wasn't prepared
for such a dynamic and powerful live act. I saw them again on the following
spring at Barcelona's Sonar, and it was just as good as the first time,
with the same rush to the merchandising stand once the concert was over
( a good indication of how people enjoyed a gig or not). As I was on
the verge of seeing the band play for the third time, this time in Reims
at the Octob'rock festival, I felt that time had come to put them some
questions I was itching to ask. The interview with Lars Horntveth (
Saxes, flute, guitars, keyboards, main composer) took place as a part
of Radio Primitive's information show "Expresso". We were given only
ten minutes ( translations included) to do the job, but we tried to
get the best of them.
ROCKOMONDO: I suppose - maybe I'm wrong - that forming a
10-piece band is a well thought-out action. I mean, it's not like a
group of three or four people who can be schoolmates, or met in a
record-shop or whatsoever... It takes more than only chance to assemble
a band like Jaga Jazzist. How did it start, actually ?
LARS HORNTVETH: It
started ten years ago. Seven of us have been in the band from the start
and we were in fact, like you said, old friends, relatives, schoolmates,
all that stuff. We were quite young at the time: I was fourteen and most
of us in the band were around seventeen years old. But the fact we did
this band wasn't mere chance at all. The main reason was another old
Norwegian band called Oslo 13, which had also 10 members including the
likes of Jon Balke, Nils Petter Molvaer, and other great Norwegian
musicians. So, we wanted to start something like that, but not trying to
play jazz only, playing all kinds of music.
RM:
When journalists ask about your influences, you say you're no more
influenced by jazz, but much more by bands and artists coming from the
rock/ electro scene like Björk, Radiohead, Aphex Twin or the Flaming
Lips. But obviously, jazz is still a major component in your music. Who
are your heroes in that domain ? Who are the people who first gave you
the desire to tackle with jazz ?
LH: Well, it's
difficult to say because there's so many musical backgrounds in the
band... Of course, Miles Davis has had a very strong impact in our
music, mainly the 70's stuff, but everything else too... Also Charlie
Mingus, Duke Ellington, Keith Jarrett and many Norvegian musicians,
especially 70's ECM records. We have a very broad musical taste, so
maybe it's one of the reasons our sound is kinda unique, as everybody
has so many influences.
RM:
It's already difficult for two people to live together, so how do you
manage to keep a harmony in the band, to relieve the tensions that are
inevitable with such a number of people ?
LH: It has been
quite a struggle, particularly the first seven or eight years, but the
last couple of years has been much more easier. To travel that much as a
band - I mean, we do maybe a hundred gigs a year, mostly in Europe, but
also in US, Japan and Australia - kinda brought us together. The thing
is that we're in Jaga Jazzist for more than ten years. Some of us have
known each other for 2 decades. So I think, we just managed to get more
mature with years passing by, and we try to give all the discussions the
best possible turn, not trying to overdue them. But it hasn't been easy
all the time.
RM:
I quite like your records, but - whatever you can do in a
recording-studio - it is difficult to match the stunning live energy
that you deliver on stage. Isn't it a bit frustrating not to be able to
fully channell all that energy into your recordings ?
LH: We think of it
in another way. We try to do the best possible studio albums that we
can, and we're not interested in doing live albums in the studio. So the
best thing is to make the most creative, the most bizarre, extreme music
we can do on records, then try to manage to re-create that kind of
special feeling in our live sessions. The live energy, you can only do
it live, it's simply not possible in a studio. We see it as two
completely different things, and we really mean it to be this
way.
RM:
Since I saw you on stage for the first time at Pukklepop 2002 in
Belgium, you've been almost continuously on tour. How is it possible to
find the time and the right state of mind to compose new numbers of some
value when you're all the time on the road ?
LH: That's a strange
thing. It's true that we've been touring a lot the last couple of years,
but maybe it seems more than it really was. This year ( 2003), we have
done seven weeks in Europe, then a month off, then 14 days, then a couple
of months off, and now we're doing that 10 days tour. But it's not that
much really. And when we actually need to compose new numbers, we just
have to set a couple of month spent at writing music, and we do it very
strictly. That's what will happen very soon. In january 2004, we'll
start writing new music, and in march we'll get into the studio to record
Jaga Jazzist's forthcoming album
RM:
To play music in a ten-piece band is a choice that means that you have
duties, obligations one for each other. Don't you feel the need
sometimes to take some rest from the band, and try something lighter,
for instance solo or side-projects ?
LH: Of course we do
! That's even one of the most important thing with the Jaga: all the
musicians have their own solo or side project. This year, I have written
the music for a pop group me and my brother have in Norway.It will
involve a singer, it's not instrumental music this time, and we are
going to record this in december 2003. Also there is a solo project with
nine string-players and myself *. Finally, I'm currently writing the
score for a theatre play. Everyone in Jaga Jazzist has those kind of
projects going on, and it's very important, not only for each one of us,
but for the band too, as it helps in broadening the mind and getting
further into the music.
* An album ( "
Pooka") has been released in january 2004. Check http://www.smalltownsupersound.com/
and http://www.jagajazzist.com/
Thanks to Christelle " Expresso" and Sebastien "
Links"