I ventured down to Cheltenham to watch them play their UK debut at the Prog-Power UK festival, where I hooked up with guitarist/vocalist Oddleif Stensland to ask him a few questions before going on stage.

LH: Hello! First up, thanks for agreeing to do this interview! How’s it going?

Oddleif: Well so far it has gone really great we arrived last night so we have just chilled out and hung out at the hotel and yesterday and today at the venue, so far it’s really good.

LH: In a couple of hours you will be playing your first UK appearance, as far as I’m aware at least! Are you expecting a good reaction from the crowd and what can we expect from your set?

Oddleif: Well this is our first time in the UK as you said so of course we’re a little bit nervous about it because this is our first appearance and we hope that we can give a good impression. We did the Prog-Power in Europe earlier this year and the crowd there was amazing and so hopefully the Prog-Power UK audience is even better, so were really looking forward to it.

LH: You’re playing a few festivals over the summer. Do you have any plans to tour, or will you just be doing the festival appearances?

Oddleif: Well right now we have to focus on doing the festivals that we’ve booked for summer. Other than that, right now we’re in writing mode for a new album so I don’t think there will be a new tour until the album comes out. Hopefully we can have a new album out in early 2008 so after the summer festivals we will try to find a studio and record our third album. That is the major plan.

LH: That answers one of the other questions I had for you! Okay, onto your current album “Waves of Visual Decay”. It’s a fantastic album I must say and one of my favourite albums of last year. Listening to the lyrics on the album you seem to be inspired a lot by real life situations. Would you say that the lyrics are a very important facet to your music?

Oddleif: Well, in the beginning of the creative process of writing songs the lyrics aren’t that important to me. In the beginning I’m more into the song structure and I only have like melodies to sing, no actual words. Later on when the song is beginning to take form I begin to get some ideas on what story I can put on the melody line and then find some words. In the end I’m trying to put out like a story within the song, and so in the end it’s really important to me but not in the beginning with writing songs. It’s important to try to tell something, to tell a story. Most of the songs are quite sad actually, it’s not happy lyrics so I guess it’s easier to sing about those things when you’re playing a bit aggressive or playing heavy metal. It’s better to sing about, well, not the good part of it all because usually we’re happy guys who don’t think too much about everything else but when your playing aggressive music it’s better to get out all that.

LH: So where does the inspiration come from to write your lyrics?

Oddleif: Well inspiration comes from a lot of things. Inspiration to write music is coming from just sitting down with the instrument, playing the guitar and rehearsing with the other guys but inspiration for the lyrics comes from just looking out the window or looking at city street life…

LH: Looking at the things going on around you?

Oddleif: Things that are happening around us and things that people use to kind of shut their eyes to that…they see it happening but…

LH: They would rather ignore?

Oddleif: Try to ignore it. Yes.

LH: I understand that you are very inspired by the relationship between the media and the way that the public are sucked into believing everything they see on television.

Oddleif: Yea, because the media, and how it works these days are really important for people. They go to work in the morning, come home from work, shut on the TV and see what is happening in the world and we believe that what we see is the actual truth but we can’t be too sure of that.

LH: You never see the exact truth…

Oddleif: No. You never know what’s actually happening. Every bit of news has to go through filters; what to be said and what to be shown, so it’s kind of raising some questions about what is actually going on and who is controlling everything. I won’t say that next album will continue the same theme, but it’s important to move on and move into other themes as well, but we will have to see what inspires!

LH: The cover art seems to depict the theme of the album very well. Clearly Anthony Clarkson had a good idea where you were coming from. Did you give him any kind of concept to work with?

Oddleif: Well when we started to work with the artwork we wanted to work with a man called Anthony Clarkson. He is an American and we never met him, just sent him the lyrics and the title of the album and we wanted him to come up with his own ideas of what he thought the album was all about and the result is just amazing. We also gave him like a few clues about what we wanted to see, and what he came up with was like “Wow, yea” so it’s really good.

LH: So you gave him quite a bit of freedom then.

Oddleif: Yea sure and that’s how I want people to read the lyrics as well, take their own interpretations of what it’s all about because it probably means something else for you or to somebody else than what its means for me. So it’s important that people can make up their own minds on what it’s all about.

LH: After such fantastic praise for your first two albums I imagine it will feel like quite a challenge to make the next one live up to these high expectations.

Oddleif: Yea there has been some pressure but we try to just ignore it in some way and just continue to do whatever we do because that is what we did in the first place. When we recorded our debut album all the songs were really long, quite complex structures and everything and a little bit far away from what mainstream heavy metal bands release these days, so we didn’t know what to expect from the media and from the fans buying CD’s and stuff. So we just followed our own intentions of what we wanted to do and people can say whatever they want and that was what we tried to do on the second album too. We make music our way, the way we wanted it and people can say what they want.

LH: I’d say that’s a good attitude to have.

Oddleif: And that is the same mindset we have now. Even though we had album of the month two years in a row in the biggest magazines especially in Germany and a lot of polls, voting albums high up in polls of “best album”, so it’s kind of a pressure out there but we try to do it in the same way that we did earlier and continue the way that if we feel its okay, or good, then we will release it.

LH: You get compared to Nevermore quite a lot for the vocal similarities. How much of an influence would you say Nevermore are to you and does it ever annoy you to get compared to them as vocals aside, your music isn’t all that alike.

Oddleif: Well personally we feel that we have our own sound but of course I can understand that people compare us to Nevermore mainly because of the way I’m singing, but I’m trying to do it…I’m singing with my own voice that I have…

LH: You try to sing in your own style…

Oddleif: Yea

LH: But they have to compare it to somebody else?

Oddleif: Yea! When you’re a new band, when you’re talking to a reporter or whatever they will always try to compare you to somebody, or if they are reviewing your album they will always try to find a band to compare you with because they need to tell the readers what kind of music it is and what can they expect, and then to be compared to Nevermore is just more than an honour than anything else, because they’re a great band. I don’t go around being bugged about the comparison. I think that in time people will notice that we have our own stuff that we do and I hope people will recognise that. Maybe on the next album people will see that it’s more than just that.

LH: I think your music appeals to fans of all styles of metal and not just one, as I’ve discovered a lot. Are you glad that your music is able to appeal to such a cross-section of metal fans, and what is it about your music that you think is so universally appealing?

Oddleif: Well it’s cool that the younger kids can like it, and also we see a lot of people who are 35 or even older who are really into it and sending us e-mails saying “wow, something I can listen to again”. It’s difficult to say, but to see there is a wide audience that actually wants this kind of complex long songs away from the mainstream, I think that’s cool.

LH: You all have very different musical influences so I’d imagine that helps you with creating a sound that is unique.

Oddleif: Yes, because we are three guys in the band and everyone is listening to totally different metal. Erik is the oldest. He listens to more old bands like Rush, Black Sabbath…and that is probably why there are only 3 people in the band because of Erik and him playing guitar. I’m more into the early thrash metal from the late 80s and early 90s, mostly the American thrash metal like early Megadeth, Testament, Metallica, stuff like that. Then the drummer, he is more into like aggressive music, groovy aggressive bands. When you combine all that you get Communic, so that is what we try to express as well.

LH: You have keyboards on both albums. Would you ever consider becoming a four piece and bringing in a full time keyboard player?

Oddleif: We have tried. For the first tour we did in Europe we brought along a keyboard player, mainly because we thought that we needed it.

LH: So do you feel that you don’t need a keyboard player in the band?

Oddleif: After the tour we did when we had the keyboard player we realised that it actually sounded too nice! So we wanted more to try to capture that energy that we have in the rehearsal room. Because when we rehearse the songs it’s only the three guys and that’s what we wanted to do live as well. People don’t think that we can do it but it works without keyboards, no problems.

LH: You got quite lucky signing to Nuclear Blast for your first record deal. You already had your management deal in place by that time, was it IntroMental who scored you the record deal or was this already in the pipeline beforehand?

Oddleif: Before we signed the management deal, we had already been in contact with Nuclear Blast and they were interested but it wasn’t really on the hook yet. Then we went into an agreement with IntroMental and we started to work on a more professional promo package that we sent out to a lot of companies, and in the end we had a lot of cool record labels that actually wanted to sign us.

LH: Perhaps they took you more seriously once you had the professional management deal.

Oddleif: I don’t know if they took us more seriously, but they knew they had to approach us in a different way. It would have probably been arranged if we were alone as well, but it’s good to be a fresh band that nobody has heard about and if a record company want to talk to you they have to go through your management and they can sort it out. They also know how to read a contract and stuff, whereas a band, they just want a record company and to just sign, but its good to have somebody to check that everything is okay and say “wait, this isn’t working”.

LH: Make sure you get the right deal as well…

Oddleif: Yep. Absolutely!

LH: Originally Communic began as a side project as you were all in other bands at the time. Did you ever envision that Communic would become this successful?

Oddleif: We always worked to get as far as possible and we have done this for so many years now, we have played in the underground and tried everything. But we aren’t doing this for the fame of the money or whatever, we do it for the love of playing this kind of music and that’s why I think we are a bit off whatever other bands are doing, with the long songs. We don’t do this because we want to be major rock stars or whatever, we just want to create some interesting music and to be able to release it through a record company is just a bonus because then you know that people have the opportunity to check it out if they want, but it’s more like a bonus. But playing festivals like this, to be able to play the big summer festivals in Europe, going on tour, it’s every musician’s dream I think.

LH: I’d say it definitely has to be about that passion in this kind of music.

Oddleif: Yea if it’s not fun anymore, I could just go to my regular work and just be home so it has to be fun and…have a good time.

LH: Was it difficult for you to develop a fan base in your home country and is there much of a demand for the more melodic stuff like what you are playing?

Oddleif: It’s not that easy to get a big audience in Norway. It’s also a difficult country to arrange concerts and stuff because there’s not that many people to attend to the concerts and its difficult to drag them away from the sofa and the television to get them to go out on a Friday or Saturday night to check out new bands, but you have to keep on working and play gigs in Norway as well. But it’s so much easier to just go to Germany or places where people are dying to get out there and check out new bands.

LH: I think it can be a bit like that here also. It can be difficult for bands if they aren’t particularly well known a lot of people tend not to bother watching them.

Oddleif: Yea but, well what can you do about it!? I guess people have other things to do as well than just go to concerts!

LH: There is nothing you can do about it!

Oddleif: No. Even if there are just 15 people in the audience you just have to do what you’re there to do and…

LH: Give it your best.

Oddleif: Give it your best, and those 15 guys will have an amazing show!

LH: Final question. Have you managed to watch any of the other bands here today or do you intend to catch any of the bands playing later on?

Oddleif: Yea sure! I just watched the first band Heed so that was pretty good. We had some beers with them last night at the hotel. So hopefully I can check out all of the bands that I can.

LH: Any bands in particular you’re looking forward to?

Oddleif: I’m really looking forward see Kamelot!

LH: Me too! That’s all the questions I have for now. I’d just like to thank you for doing this interview and as usual ask if there’s anything you would like to end with?

Oddleif: Thank you for the interview, it was my pleasure. It will be really cool to play tonight, first show in the UK so we’re really looking forward to it, so fingers crossed!

You can visit Communic on the web at www.communic.org
And their record label can be found at www.nuclearblast.de

Interviewed by Luci Herbert