Malossi’s ‘Blanke Barter’ is out 13.august. Last week we had a chat with the band – just days before the album release. Read on!
- Blanke Barter will be released this Friday! What would you like to tell our audience about your new release?
Well, this is our first full album in Norwegian. By writing in our mother tongue we slightly shifted our mindset and direction, and ended up adding more weight and bleak honesty to the music. The songs are 10 small stories that portray experiences and characters from our own lives.
Although we inhabit a genre that typically focuses on “the riff”, we have been focusing on the songs as a whole without sacrificing those sweet sweet riffs. The album looks awesome, and sounds even better. It’s got ten solid bangers, all with great melodies, groove, and torrents of heavy riffs.
2. Can you please elaborate a bit on the process of making the album and why you chose to record it at The Boogie Bunker?
The Boogie Bunker is Malossi’s own project studio. We actually started by recording drums as a sort of pre-production, while we were sorting out which studio to choose for the “real” sessions. The drum recording turned out great though, and we began to consider using them for the final product. We sent the raw tracks to Chicago-based producer Matt Dougherty (Megadeth, Disturbed, Alien Ant Farm etc.) for a second opinion, and on his advice decided to stick with the original drum recording and do the rest of the tracking ourselves as well. Covid struck shortly after, but we were then able to keep the process going, as we sat isolated in our own little den.
We had the idea of including musical friends from outside of Malossi as well on this album, and as soon as the C19-situation allowed it we started inviting musicians to “The Bunker” to lay down parts for different songs.
The final mixes were done by Daniel Bergstrand in Sweden. We have been a fan of his work with bands like Meshuggah and In Flames since the late nineties. For our album he worked with Meshuggah guitarist Fredrik Thordendal, and together they lifted the production to a whole new level, without compromising on our sound.
3. Can you expand on how the artwork for the album came together?
We used Thomas Moe Ellefsrud aka Hypnotist Design for the album- and singles artwork. We discovered him on Instagram, just slid in his DMs and hired him on the basis of what we had seen on his profile. I guess that concept wise we only knew we wanted a big face with a mustache on the cover, and that we wanted to have a strong and bright color for the sleeve. Thomas immediately catched the vibe of what we were looking for, and the artwork was conceived and finished as we watched him work real-time in video meetings. It was a really cool process, and the result was perfect!
4. What’s in store for Malossi the coming year? Any tours planned?
We’re aiming to play as much live as possible following the album release. We’ve had no opportunity to set up a continuous tour, given the uncertainty regarding the live situation these days. We have booked a number of “one shot” gigs though, are stocked up on merch, vinyls and cassettes, and are aching to play. So let’s keep our fingers crossed for a return to something that resembles a normal live music scene within 2021.
Ah, and also we are recording a new music video after the summer! Not gonna spoil too much of it now, but we can say it will be quite different from the “Kløpp Dreieventiln” video.
5. Anything else you wish to share?
We’ve gotten help from a lot of people this time around. For instance, from our friends contributing musically: Richard Gjems on blues harmonica, Bjørn Einar Hanstveit on percussion, Rune Flobakk on keys, Kristian Plassgård on slide guitar and a sparkling solo, Egil Stemkens on double bass and finally Børre Mølstad on free jazz tuba. Also, the video for “Kløpp Dreieventiln” would never have happened without the moped gang Slakteradn and the multi-skilled Anders Håheim directing, editing, and doing nearly all the heavy lifting. That video ended up awesome, and we owe them everything for that. Same thing with the lyric video for “Drømmer På Boks” by Finn Aagaard.
We were throwing around some ideas after a rehearsal one day and started talking about how it would be cool if we could give the listener a bit of an 80s movie vibe when they’re looking at the album front cover. You know, like one of those campy werewolf or slasher flicks. At the same time, we also wanted the listener to understand right away by just looking at the cover that this is THE ultimate rock ‘n’ roll album. One of the guys remembered that we had a great picture of Paul laying around, where he got his back to the camera with his leather jacket on, doing this cool pose. This picture (as well as the other band pictures) was taken by a photographer named Magnus Aune. With the image and the 80s vibe as a starting point, Martin (our bass player – who’s also a graphic designer) started to work on the album cover and created this awesome design. It really represents us and our music in a perfect way. You got the moon, the title and logo and of course Paul, overlooking Oslo city at night – with his magic hands, ready to raise hell and party hard.
