They're back. 16 years after Wig Wam took the Melodi Grand Prix by storm, and eight years after they broke up, the band that gave us "In My Dreams" is out with a new album. - It's been an incredibly exciting journey, and I can die tomorrow and be happy with life. The rest now is pure bonus, says Åge Sten Nilsen.
/ 05/02/2021 / Kristian DugstadName: Aage Sten Nilsen
Current with: Wig Wam – Never Say Die
Åge Sten Nilsen, can you tell us a little about who you are?
I am originally from Sarpsborg, now living in Melhus, Trøndelag, and have been involved in music since childhood. It started with the Beatles and Elvis Presley before hard rock took me. But it was through participation in various musicals and shows that initially pulled me out of the rehearsal basement. With the band I played in, we had maybe one concert a year, or two, but I wanted to perform more often, so I joined various shows and musicals. The first national musical I got a role in was "Hair", in the role of "Woof". It played 83 performances at the Bryggeteateret in Oslo, and gave me many new contacts in the industry. In the 90s, I trained as a social worker and got a 100% position, while I worked in various shows, had a job as a chorister and vocalist at Nrk, and wrote songs and toured with a number of bands. Eventually I also started producing musical shows and released my first solo album on my own label, after turning down a record deal when the company wanted to make me a Norwegian-language adult pop artist. Today I make my living 100% from music, which I have done since 2003. I am currently a songwriter, show producer, artist, singer/songwriter and vocalist in a number of bands and constellations, including Wig Wam and AMMUNITION.
In 2005, the whole of Norway became familiar with Wig Wam, when you won the Melodi Grand Prix with "In My Dreams". The song entered the VG-lista in Norway, you got 9th place in the Eurovision final, and as I remember it, the whole population went around singing "Come on, Come on, Come on!" and saying "ROCK N' ROLL!". Can you tell us a little about what the Grand Prix adventure meant to the band?
In the 80s and early 90s, Melodi Grand Prix was almost a genre of its own with its own clear guidelines for both the musical and the visual. In 2003, Wig Wam had been going on for a few years, almost like an 80s show. But eventually the desire came to do original songs in the same concept. We mixed in our own with cover songs without presenting them as ours, to see the reactions. We had already finished our first album "667 The Neighbor Of The Beast" when the song "Crazy Things" was submitted to MGP. And against all odds, they loved our image and the song. At that time, they had an audition at Smuget, and I remember well how the gentlemen in suits smirked when we took the stage in spandex and make-up. But once we started, it really took off. Showtime was kind of our thing. I remember Ivar Dyrhaug sliding on his knee to the edge of the stage and screaming "rock'n roooooll". In MGP 2004 we came in 3rd place. It worked as a fantastic promo for the band. Especially since we brought OUR own image and our music and filled Oslo Spektrum with our fans. Oh my god, it was a pure rock concert, and MGP, who were pretty down at the time, were delighted with what we brought to the table. This was a mega-breakthrough for us, and the tour was incredibly successful.
Then we were contacted by Nrk again. They really wanted us to participate in MGP 2005. We politely declined, been-there-done-that, and thought that MGP had already done enough good. If we were to participate again, we had to choose the song ourselves, decide on the packaging ourselves and get permission to release the song on our own record label the first possible day after the final. "In My Dreams" was our big breakthrough, and put us on the map all over the world. Even Alice Cooper's assistant called Alice and asked him to turn on the TV when we were on. A few days later we were booked as a support act in Sweden. The 70 concerts that were booked ahead of the Norwegian final suddenly became well over 200, and the price had suddenly tripled. Unfortunately, many of our colleagues and rock fans in Norway did not take us seriously after MGP, solely because we had been in MGP. But we gave a damn. And proved over the years that we could blow any band off the field. We took the opportunity to promote ourselves, and got a huge audience and a whole career. Both with and without Wig Wam. Worth it! Several of those who criticized us back then probably still play one club gig a year, and dream of making a living from music.
You toured for a number of years after this, and have supported Kiss, among other things. Then, last year, the news of a reunion came. Wig Wam is back! How did it come about, and why now?
We opened for both Kiss and Alice Cooper, and toured all over Germany with Gotthard. But we mostly played headline concerts. Mostly in Norway of course, that's where we got the best hires. But we played a number of sold-out tours in Japan in everything from 1500 seats to 4-5000 seats, and in large parts of Europe. We toured so much that the air went out of the balloon a little bit, you could say. At times there was such great demand that we played three concerts a day, and spent a lot of money on helicopters and private planes. When you live like this for many years, there's always a risk that you'll get bored. And in 2013 we went our separate ways after a few years of internal arguing and bad atmosphere in the band. We wanted different things and Trond and Bernt had already started a new band and joined JORN. I found out about the latter via Facebook, haha, while I thought we were going on another tour soon. Talk about communication. So after the last gig we went our separate ways and didn't talk to each other for many years.
After a few years, Stig Karlsen in MGP started calling me to ask if we could imagine a one-off performance in the MGP final as a break number, like Jahn Teigen did, among others. But got a flat refusal. It wasn't until 2018-2019, after we guys had finally started meeting again and had sorted out all the miscommunication and arguments, that I mentioned the request to Trond one day when he was visiting. And together we decided to say yes. It was going to be a surprise performance in the MGP final from Trondheim 2020. Trond was so excited and inspired that he suddenly started writing a new Wig Wam song titled "Never Say Die". And suddenly we thought, why not perform the new song when we first get back together on stage, and then release it as a single. Then the thought came; once we're started, it would have been fun to do a festival or something too. So I contacted United Stage Norway, who we had never worked with before. Before we knew it, we were booked for Tons Of Rock 2020. But when they wanted to release the full festival poster in November 2019, MGP suddenly wasn't as interested in our participation anyway, since the element of surprise "would be ruined". We were put in a difficult situation, but then chose "Tons Of Rock", after all, that's WHERE we belong. Then we just as well added a couple more festivals while we were at it. Don't regret it in retrospect. MGP Trondheim will probably be remembered primarily for the voting chaos... But justice must be done. Stig Karlsen should actually take the lion's share of the credit for this comeback.
On January 22nd, you released your first album in almost a decade, "Never Say Die," with 11 solid songs. How has the response been?
The response has been overwhelming!!! 360.000 streams in just under two weeks is not exactly everyday fare for rock bands in 2021. And it seems that both fans and new followers are loving the slightly heavier version of Wig Wam. For once, it also seems that both reviewers and the public agree. Great reviews are pouring in from far and near, and so far we have mostly gotten 90/100, 5/6, etc. To be honest, we never sat down and analyzed which way we were going to go. We wrote and recorded this album primarily for our own sake. Four friends who had missed being together, and rediscovered each other, you could say. Zero pressure from fans. Zero pressure from record companies. Nobody knew that we were sitting together far away in the woods in Aremark writing new music. We didn't have a deadline either, so we did what we wanted and only started the machinery when we were 100% satisfied, the four of us.
On the same day, you had a digitally live-streamed release concert at Chateau Neuf – naturally without an audience in the hall. It is difficult to completely avoid the corona situation. How has your work and that of yours been affected?
We are so incredibly privileged to live in Norway, and actually get compensation for cancellations and hopefully stimulus payments. The pandemic came as a shock, and I never thought in my wildest dreams that we would still be sitting here, a year later, with lockdowns and social distancing. It came to an abrupt halt when the corona arrived, and I just thought that I would at least have time to get settled up here in Melhus. I started moving here in the summer of 2019, after the madam and I bought a house here. Then it went bang! Carina Dahl and my version of Shallow, "Så Ekte Nå", took off completely, and the first few weeks suddenly became surprisingly busy. Then Kariann Sissener Amundsen and I released a song to raise money for the Salvation Army, my first Norwegian-language song, "Ikke Gå Fordi". We filmed the video at night in a completely deserted Oslo. Then there came a time when I tried to get some activity started via live streaming. So I established "HjemmeKonserten" with Helge Johansen - the initiator of Shallow in Norwegian. That's when I really got to know the local community up here. Sound companies, artists, radio, mayor, etc. We ran live stream concerts to raise money for artists who were suddenly left without money, and started planning for what would be Norway's first Drive-In concert series, at Melhus. Lillestrøm got ahead of us because of a flat no from the police up here. Despite the fact that the municipal doctor, the mayor and everyone else were unanimously positive. I therefore started my solo band, FULL CIRCLE, which I just managed to premiere with before the Corona came. This is a solo concert that covers my entire career, with the best from Ammunition, Wig Wam, solo albums and the best from Queen. We ran a live stream from EC Dahls, full production, and did the Drive-in at Lillehammer. When it became legal to play for 50 people, I called the guy who books my acoustic concerts here in Trøndelag and told him to book like hell. I brought a small sound system and my girlfriend as a guest artist, and went on tour. We had an incredible number of great experiences, and played completely in front of the door to at least get out, and not least to get people out a little. At the same time, we recorded the Wig Wam album, which was ready for mixing in June. I continued my tour for 200 people per concert until September, and was then supposed to do larger productions with my concept "One Night With Queen" until Christmas. It didn't turn out that way...
What is the first plan to be realized when society fully opens up again? Will Wig Wam hit the road?
I have to admit that we are starting to get pretty impatient and want to hit the road with Wig Wam. We were looking forward to the festivals like kids last year, and it doesn't look exactly bright in terms of gathering thousands of rockers this summer either. Everything is uncertain. But we have at least taken the Ministry of Culture seriously, and are now gearing up for headline concerts as early as March, April and May in case it becomes possible. Ergo, we will at least start producing the show we will hit the road with eventually. The goal is to play the places we never got to play when we were an active band. USA, Australia, South America. Of course, there are also many places we want to return to before we bury Wig Wam once and for all; Japan, Germany, France, England, Iceland, Scandinavia, Spain, Italy. But this time we will probably be more concerned with enjoying the tours.
The songs on the new album are written by you, Trond Holter and Bernt Jansen. What strengths and/or challenges does having multiple composers in the band offer?
I think it's obviously a strength. If I don't deliver songs well enough, they won't come. Period. And Trond is a fantastic songwriter who is like a bottomless well. It just kind of comes. And Bernt has become a bit of a songwriter since the last album too. He contributed songs more and more often over the years, and now that the band has a heavier sound, it fits Bernt like a glove. Even though he suddenly and unexpectedly presented "Silver Lining", which is like a rip-off of Paul McCartney. Another strength is of course the joy of writing together. When you have 3 songwriters in the band, we have the opportunity to work in different teams with different songs. On this album, there were mostly Holter/Nilsen and Holter/Jansen compositions in addition to those we have written separately. A Holter/Nilsen/Jansen song would have been incredibly interesting to write once. The biggest and perhaps only challenge with 3 songwriters is if they diverge in different directions, as we experienced on "Wall Street". There were both lobsters and canaries.
Wig Wam is far from your only project. How do you know if a song is a Wig Wam song?
I'm constantly writing, but I rarely finish a song 100% before I know what it's going to be used for. I have hundreds of unfinished songs that I give different labels to. When a project is about to start, I actually spend a lot of time listening through old ideas. Checking the warehouse first, sort of.
The songs I write with Trond ARE already addressed to Wig Wam. They go through the Wig Wam magic dust from the first note. But of my own, there were probably a couple of songs there that already had an AMMUNITION label. "Kilimanjaro" reminded me a bit of the same feeling I had in "Wild Card" from AMMUNITION's debut album "Shanghaied". Funny, but both "Shanghaied", "Hit Me With Your Bombs", "Give Me A Sign" and "Do You Like It" from this AMMUNITION album were originally intended as the sequel to "Wall Street" with Wig Wam in 2014.
"Kilimanjaro" didn't strike me as a WIG WAM candidate to begin with... until I started writing the lyrics. Without knowing it, I was writing about the wild time in Wig Wam, about regret and a critical view of the life I was living at the time. Suddenly it just became clear that it belonged on this album, which needed a slightly softer song in between all the heavy stuff, and lyrics that were about our past. "HARD LOVE" is a very atypical WIG WAM song in the blues landscape. A bit of an AC/DC vibe if you will. And was exactly the path we've started to take with AMMUNITION. I played it for Trond acoustically one day in the studio, and he loved it right away. With WIG WAM it became much heavier than how I had originally visualized it, but I think it suited it incredibly well. Trond's solo on the song is one of the sickest and rawest things I've ever heard. I still remember the first time I heard his suggestion... I simply had to sit down, ha ha. That timing is just sooo unique. My third solo song on the album is the ballad "My Kaleidoscope Ark". This is probably the softest song on the album, and the only one that's about love. A personal lyric about not forgetting to give back. The song was written on piano a while ago, and was marked with a thumbs-up. When it became clear that the rest of the material was mostly about heavy riff-based stuff, I finished it and played it for the guys.
Where and how do you write?
I rarely sit down to "write a song". It's more like the songs come to me. Then I just have to sit down to "get them down" and transform them into something physical. Often a song can come to me in the car, verses, choruses and even parts of the lyrics. Then I just have to stop the car and record. It can also happen while I'm with people... Then I just have to find a toilet or a quiet place to sing the idea. When I write on the piano it's often through just sitting and almost meditating. Having a quiet moment for myself and just playing a little, when melodies suddenly appear that end up as songs.
The most fun is of course writing with others. Like when I wrote "Faith Bloody Faith", JORN's (Jørn Lande) contribution to this year's MGP. This was in connection with a songwriting camp for Arctic Rights. Eirik Renton, Kjell Åge Karlsen and I had never met each other before, and spent about 30 minutes getting to know each other. Then we were off and running. Seven hours later we had recorded a demo tape of the song with lyrics and everything. Incredibly fun and exciting to work like this. And incredibly exhausting of course. But throwing the ball, building on each other's ideas... This is probably the way I like EVERYTHING best to write. Trond and I also had a few moments like this during the songwriting process for the new album.
What inspires you?
Absolutely everything in life and the world inspires me. When I write about personal things and heavier themes from my own life, it often ends up being songs that end up on a solo album. With WIG WAM or AMMUNITION, it is primarily the riffs or the mood of the music that take the driving seat and set the tone for what the lyrics are going to be about. And there are so many things to write about. The most fun thing is when funny lyric ideas come up that you can make funny twists on or stories. Like "Shanghaied" which is about waking up next to a trance after a humid walk in the city ... or "Baby Don't Believe" from my latest solo album "Crossing The Rubicon" which is about a guy who just REFUSES to let his lady leave him. No matter what.
Have you experienced that you have changed as a composer and lyricist throughout your career?
If I have. Songwriting is a skill that you simply get better at with age. And with age, of course, the content becomes more and more important too. You have more on your mind, more life experience and you dare to go your own way more and more.
Do you have equipment or tools that are indispensable in the process?
An iPhone, a guitar and a piano, pen and paper.
As mentioned, Wig Wam became a household name with MGP 2005, and you also participated in 2004. However, this is neither the first nor the last time you have contributed to the competition. You already participated in 1998 under the artist name g-sten, and most recently with Ammunition in 2017. What is it with MGP?
What is it about MGP? Yes. Simple answer. It is the most watched TV show of the year that gives you the opportunity to play your latest single in front of thousands of audiences, with the coolest stage production, with lots of extra attention around the songs and performances. Then of course there is the competition element - Something I hate by the way. Can you compete in music? Not at all! It's not a fucking sport!! But all TV today is built on competition, damn it. We compete in cooking, baking, being a farmer ... You name it. Even "Hver Gang Vi Møtes" has almost become a competition: "Who interprets whose song best" etc. That's why I have NEVER thought of MGP as a competition. The competition element is like Lotto. And today you don't even get to know how many votes you have received. Who writes the script ...? The ONLY thing that is absolutely certain is that your song will be heard, your performance will be seen and you will get promotion worth millions through all the engagement and editorial mentions. The alternative is to work your ass off to maybe get a performance of the song on "God Morgen Norge", acoustically, in a small corner of the TV studio at 8 in the morning that most people miss in the middle of preparing for a new workday.... The biggest newspapers don't even bother to review music anymore. In fact, I don't think a single one of them bothered to review "Nerver Say Die". But if you have a scandal to share...
This year you also had a hand in the game, as one of the authors behind Jorn's song "Faith Bloody Faith". The genre range in the competition is great. Do you think it can help make new musical expressions available to the public?
This is my second MGP as a songwriter only, and my sixth overall so far. One first place (Wig Wam), one second place (Ammunition), two third places (G-sten and Wig Wam) and a song that did not qualify for the final. Now I hope JORN cleans the slate in Wild Card… In terms of genre breadth, I know that Nrk's goal is to give a broad and varied show. When "Wrecking Crew" (Ammunition) participated, it was "Eye For An Eye" that I wanted to include. But MGP needed a song with energy. I think MGP reflects the music that is being written out there. And the great thing these days is that you can participate in MGP regardless of genre and style. In the 80s, everything had to go through the "MGP mill". There was sort of a set of recipes for an MGP song back then. But that was the case with everything else. The record companies were not slow to look for Bon Jovi copies when Bon Jovi was a success. Suddenly everything had to be Bon Jovi. The same thing happened after Nirvana came along. Seattle was almost bombarded with record people ready to sign. As long as you were a bit of a drug addict and dirty and came from that city, it was probably okay. Today we have incredible diversity, thanks to the fact that the commercial forces have lost their power. There are no longer bands that sit in the studio for months and spend their time partying. Now we musicians have finally been made more responsible, also for finances, promotion and the way forward. The kindergarten is closed. Now we have to be adults while we play.
What would you say is your career highlight so far?
I have had so many career highlights that it is difficult to choose. The list is long. And the highlights have different values. Of course, the MGP series in 2005 with "In My Dreams" is a significant highlight that represented the biggest breakthrough. But selling out concerts in Japan, singing in front of 25.000 screaming fans in the Tokyo Dome while Ronnie James Dio, the Machine Head guys and Marilyn Mansson's band sit side-stage with thumbs up, or being asked to join a band with Motörhead's Mikky Dee and Europe's John Norum, or selling out Kulåsparken in Sarpsborg where you stood on stage for the very first time, or selling out Oslo Spektrum... It has been an incredibly exciting journey, and I can die tomorrow and be happy with life. The rest now is pure bonus.
Can you share your greatest music experience – as a listener?
The first time I heard "HELP" by the Beatles was probably one of my greatest musical experiences. Since it introduced me to rock'n roll. The first time I heard "I Want You" by Kiss at the same time as I saw the picture of Gene Simmons in 1978 was also a great experience for a young boy. As an adult, it was an absolutely absurdly great musical experience to have breakfast in a café and eventually understand that the voice belonged to Tom Petty. My first meeting with his old band Mudcrutch. It was amazing to sit down in the hotel room afterwards and just enjoy every note. But I think the GREATEST musical experience sonically must have been a symphony concert I attended in the Oslo Concert Hall. THAT is powerful and beautiful.
Finally – Can you give us a tip for a Norwegian artist you listen to a lot these days?
Of course I listen to a lot of WIG WAM at the moment, since we are in the middle of the production of our "Nerver Say Die" show. But, after working closely with Jørn Lande I have become completely JORN saved. So he gets a lot of streams from me at the moment. Especially the first albums. It's JORN for vacuuming, JORN for snow plowing, JORN for breakfast and JORN for dinner. In bed, however...