BigBang Interview: SXSW 2010

Posted on Mar 12th 2010 10:36AM by Will Morley
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BigBang have been described as '"Norway's Greatest Live Band," now they're playing SXSW it's time for American audiences to judge for themselves. It's unlikely they'll be disappointed. Combining for the most part classic '70s rock with inspired folk and pop, the operative term here is "crowd-pleasing." Frontman Øystein Greni took some time out to chat with Spinner ahead of the fest.

Describe your sound in your own words.

Three-part harmonizing, song-oriented trio on a skateboard with a broken heart.

How did your band form?

A shattered knee and pro-skate career revived interest in guitar and led to meeting amazing musicians and starting to write songs.

What are your musical influences?

A variety of stuff. Neil Young, southern soul music, Hüsker Dü, Big Star, the Who and Jimi Hendrix.

How did you come up with your band name?

Geography book, first page. We needed a name fast for a poster!

What's your biggest vice?

Iced coffee, Greek style.

What's in your festival survival kit?

Return tickets and food money.

Who was your first celeb crush?

Audrey from 'Twin Peaks' ... Sherilyn Fenn, yeah? Oh, and Penelope Cruz in 'All About My Mother' is too much.

What's your musical guilty pleasure?

There is a lot of great music out there. I tend to like catchy things and I don't feel guilty about it. I feel worse at a boring indie show than singing along at CVS. Making "original" music is overrated -- making great songs is very, very hard.

Beatles or Stones?

Keith Harrison.

What's the craziest thing you've seen or experienced while on tour?

Two people once died after one of our shows in Hamar, Norway. One slid down a set of stairs because of the ice and snow, and then the other did something else. But it's many years ago now and I doubt it will ever happen again, so please come see our show anyway.