"We were supposed to stand at the crossroads where Johnson learned the blues," sings Kåre Virud on the Spellemann award-winning "Ild & Vann." But even though the blues is the soul of much of Kåre Virud's music, he is too restless to stay in one place for too long.
/ 22/05/2014 / codexFrom TONO-News, no. 2 – 2013
"We were supposed to stand at the crossroads where Johnson learned the blues," sings Kåre Virud on the Spellemann award-winning "Ild & Vann." But even though the blues is the soul of much of Kåre Virud's music, he is too restless to stay in one place for too long.
Kåre Virud is just as often into reggae, rock, soul and the folk genre as he is into blues, but the deep blue nerve is always there. Virud found both the blues and his first guitar at sea in the 60s, and what Virud did on his debut album in 1974, which no one had done before him, was to sing the blues in a Norwegian-sounding way. Virud has been called Norway's foremost blues ambassador. He believes it is undeserved:
– There are many who love the blues more than I do, he points out. The Notodden Blues Festival has still given him an honorary award, he has a Spellemann award winner in the genre and Rita Engedalen calls him a "bluesman". So let's put it that way. Kåre Virud is a bluesman.
Dylan and Norwegian Excursion
But Bob Dylan has also left his mark on Virud. Together with the poet Jan Erik Vold, he released two albums with Dylan lyrics in Norwegian (1977 and 1981). Later, he made his mark with Norsk Utflukt, where another word artist writes the lyrics: Lars Saabye Christensen. The band most recently released the album "Long Distance Call" in the fall. In parallel, albums have been released from "Kåre Virud Band". All in different blue tones.
– Blues is the music of legends, where is Kåre Virud's crossroads?
– I haven't learned anything from Nøkken, but I've never gotten rid of the experience I had when I was 11-12 years old and heard "Heartbreak Hotel" for the first time, without knowing that it was a blues.
Virud about songwriting
– Tell us about the path to the song “sitter”
– A finished text is a good map to start with to find a mood. I find my way from the text, and try to find a guitar riff and a guitar sound. I have a Mac, but I use an 8-track cassette player when I write. The lyrics are not traditional blues lyrics, but are often in the blue corner.
I have a Mac, but I use an 8-track cassette player when I write.
– Do people recognize themselves in that?
– Yes, I've discovered that some people do. Most people can identify with some blues lyrics.
– Do you choose the topics first, or do you let it flow freely and find the topic along the way?
– I usually start with a linguistic “hookline” that I think is good. An experience or something I want to say something about, and then I write around that. But I rarely write songs with a lot of lyrics.
– Is there something mysterious about songwriting?
– When things come really fast I have that “where on earth did that come from” experience. All songwriters have had it. Those moments… there’s something mysterious about it. Inspiration often comes from things I experience, and that it might be nice to say something about. I’m a city person, and that probably comes across on the records. I like to mix in things that are a little jarring.
– There is a very tough sound on the album "Fire & Water" from 2005...
– Yes, do you think so? I'm very happy to hear that.
For your information: "Fire & Water" varies in typical restless Virud fashion between reggae, rock, songs and blues. The sound is organic, analog and ragged. Tremolo guitars, Hammond and pump organs, the sound of space. Tube preamps that run red. And in the middle of all the musical play: Virud's warm and hoarse, but still young, voice.
– I like unpredictable things. On Aretha Franklin's "Live at Fillmore West" you hear a Fender amp that's not quite grounded. It's so fascinating! Then you're on stage with the band.
– How has Notodden shaped your songwriting?
– When you grow up in a small, isolated place, you write music that is about getting away as quickly as possible. But I still have a strong relationship with the city, and I have several songs about coming back and seeing it with new eyes.
– Are there any songs you are particularly proud of?
– There are some that stand out. I haven't played the songs from the first album for many years, but I've picked them up again with Kåre Virud Band. Many people seem to like them, and it's been a great discovery. A song like "Ville bare se byen din" is about going to visit someone who wasn't there. Themes like that never go out of date.
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– How is Norwegian music currently doing?
– It used to be said that something was “good for being Norwegian”. Now there is impressively good music in all genres. I am almost glad that I am not 19 years old today, and should make a mark in this landscape. But I miss hearing more Norwegian-language music. I am not really that concerned with what others are doing, but if I were to sing my songs in English I would struggle to feel like I was communicating. I have a band in Brazil too, and there we play my Norwegian songs. No one understands a word, but it works.
– Will never be finished
– How do the golden moments in music arise?
– When I play with the band, and sometimes there are glimpses where everything is right. How that happens, I don't know. But I can also have those moments at home when I'm working with the 8-track recorder.
– What kind of projects are you currently working on?
– We released a new Norsk Utflukt album earlier this fall and we're going on tour from February. I also play with the Kåre Virud Band, and I also have a couple of other projects going on.
– What is it about music that you never finish?
– Music has been one of the most important things in my life since I was a child. It's not something you stop doing. I'm glad I can still take playing assignments. There have been some physical limitations in my hands, but I've learned new ways to play. But no, I'll never finish music.
Two about Virud:
Rita Engedalen:
Kåre Virud is a very important songwriter, musician and artist for the Norwegian blues community, the music community in general and not least for Notodden. He has shown that blues in Norwegian is possible, and in a very special and unique way.
Lars Saabye Christensen:
After collaborating with Kåre Virud for more than thirty years, since we met on either side of the Norwegian mysteries of blues poetry at the end of the seventies, and from 1992 in Norsk Utflukt, there is only this to say: Virud is the incomparable and undoubted gentleman of the guitar. You can hear it's him already when he opens the guitar case. In his tone lies the sum of everything he has heard plus what makes the sound unique: his own fingerprint on the strings. Virud is in possession of one of the blues' foremost and most underrated qualities: discipline. What is blues? Experience multiplied by feeling. And then he sings so damn well. And then he has made some songs that should have been public property long ago. What else? And then he is a good friend. (Photo: Hans Jørgen Brun)
The article is taken from TONO-Nytt, no. 2-2013