Datarock recently followed up this success with the See What I Care  EP and a ‘World Domination’ tour to all their favourite haunts.  On the back of this tour WB caught up with vocalist and guitarist (sometimes keyboardist and drummer) Fredrik and discovered his relationship with Australia, ‘associated’ band members and why the band stick to a  ‘winning stupidity’.

You’ve been touring around the world like it’s going out of fashion, how is life on the road going?

We're still doing okay. I mean, now that it's really going crazy it's almost just as much fun as when we just started off.

Within this flurry of touring you’ve made three visits to Australia in just over a year, what keeps drawing you back?

The crowds. The Aussies are still our best audience. And getting to sleep for a long, long time on the plane.

You nominated your show at Melbourne’s Hi-Fi Bar in December as one of your best.  How did the most recent visit stack up in comparison?

Hi-Fi yet again proved to be sick. Don't know what drives them, but that crowd is insane. Love the place and can't wait to get back! I'd say it was just as good if not better. Yeah, better. Tops!

Between your last two visits you’ve made some personnel changes too, scaling down to a four-piece.  Are these changes an experimental move considering that only Ketil and yourself are full-time Datarockers?

Datarock has always had a bunch of associated members, and none of the ones on stage with us now are freshmen. They've all been doing shows with us over the past seven years, so no experiment: this is what Datarock live is all about.

How does this reduction affect the live show?

Even the very first shows we did would feature tons of guys on stage. For some reason it's always just guys though. We've had everything from brass bands to dancers and men’s choirs up there, and at the most we've had more than 30 on stage. That said, the ones we're working with now did stick out and have lots to add, both musically and when it comes to communication and energy in general.  Now about everything is performed live whereas drum machines and pre-production were more vital prior to the new era. The current show is not just different, It's ...better.

It looks like a bit of a free-for-all sometimes on stage with the swapping instruments, how much does that diversity help the band?

One thing is that it makes playing live fun. We don't get to grow tired of the same old story, and we get to perform in a way we never quite get on top of. Many times bands bore me with their autopilot professionalism. That at least you'll never experience with us.

How did finishing your set off with a karaoke style encore of Bill Medley and Jeniffer Warnes’ ‘(I’ve Had) The Time of my Life’ come about?

I'd been hosting these alternative club evenings back home featuring a disturbing mix of artists (see myspace.com/fredrikswonderfulevening and myspace.com/operamints), and not quite knowing how to label them I started using Dirty Dancing as the defying term. That's how we ended up naming our European tour in 2006 DATAROCK's Dirty Dancing Tour, and thus ended up with that track. The response was overwhelming and you know us: we'll always stick to a winning stupidity.

Your sound incorporate so many genres between dance, pop, funk, rock and so on, is this mix and unpredictability something you aim for?

Not really. I mean, it's a hell of lot of stuff we start and never finish. It's just that we've both been exposed to such a broad variety of genres, and writing is definitely coloured by that.

You aren’t afraid to put a bit of novelty and quirkiness into both your live show and the songs you write. Is this something you’ll continue into the future?

The way we started the band, adding humour was essential and there was no way to go around it, and I don't see how that can ever really change. But listening to the lyrics of ‘Fa Fa Fa’, you'll see that our set up doesn't really limit or restrain us in any way. For instance, I'm sure we'd get away with just about any satire more easily than most bands, just because we'd be such a stupid backfiring target for anyone to attack.

Norway seems to be a bit of a secret hideaway for some really interesting acts that don’t get much international exposure.  Why do you think this is?

It's actually possible to survive as an artist just working within our national borders, but it's terribly difficult to make it abroad, not to mention expensive. You don't even have to be too mainstream to survive here, and for lots of exciting artists, being a full time musician isn't even a goal. I think public funding and a craving for experimentation creates exciting scenes. It's just not necessarily what ends up on the cover of a magazine. Norway isn't a hideaway. It's a sanctuary.

Could there be a sudden breakout in popularity of the Norwegian scene in the same way a lot of Swedish acts have jumped into prominence lately?

From what I know about the Norwegian scene I'll unfortunately have to assume that's very unlikely to ever happen. It's a million complicated reasons why, and too much to indulge in right now...

Your latest offering, the See What I Care  EP, has more of a serious lyrical theme while keeping a similarly upbeat musical approach, is this a sign of things to come?

Not at all. This is practically a tribute EP paying homage to the music of Manchester. Primarily the Manchester scene and bands like Happy Mondays, Stone Roses, Charlatans and Inspiral Carpets, but also bands like A Certain Ration, Joy Division and New Order. With references like that the words couldn't really be to out there, and anyways the lyrics aren't really supposed to be a focal point, but more than anything it's not at all a follow up nor a sign of things to come.
 
Your debut Datarock Datarock has been released and re-released in Australia a number of times, what was the story here?

We initially released the debut on our own label, Young Aspiring Professionals, with distribution through a small company with no means to really push it out there and no marketing assets of our own. Then Triple J picked it up, gave it a good spin with ‘Computer Camp Love’ eventually ending up as number 12 on the Hottest 100, the distribution company got a small drop of blood on their teeth and wanted us to sign the album over to them, and so a re-release emerged with even less visibility and marketing spend.

Simultaneously we started getting lots of media and attention elsewhere, we got aboard the world’s second largest management, the world’s second largest independent record label and a very influential publisher. With this new era we got out of the deal we once foolishly signed, and finally willingly walked into the open arms of  Ministry of Sound. Of course what they really wanted was a brand new album, but as Datarock Datarock was about to get it's first release in 30 countries or so, we had to, for the third time, re-present the debut, this time however altered modestly with four new tracks and three videos. For our BMX Bandits Tour 2007 we even released a tour edition, so I guess we've taken it just a little bit too far. Sorry bout that folks.

Some of the tracks on the LP seem to have themes related to growing up and adolescence (‘Bulldozer’, ‘Computer Camp Love’, ‘I Used To Dance’…).  Any significance?

That's a theme I guess anyone sitting down to write lyrics encounters. In our case our upbringing just happened to be in the eighties, and the lyrics therefore ended up being quite centred around the cultural phenomenon of those happy days of the cold war, post-modernism, information society, the computer age, emerging underground subcultures and ambitious entertainment. Those days just happened to be incredibly exciting years in modern times and thematically matched the sound we were into perfectly. It's become somewhat old, but there is still too much we haven't addressed, so don't get too disappointed if the theme recur yet again.

Your retro red tracksuit outfits are a really iconic part of the band.  What was the inspiration for such a costume?

No real inspiration, but a need to find outfits that were available in large numbers, that looked good but not too much like DEVO or some other obvious reference, something that went along stylistically with the moment in time we're orbiting, and an outfit that could make you wonder.

Tell us a bit about what we can expect from Datarock heading into the future?

We're still touring like madmen, but in January we'll start recording new material. It'll probably include quite a few songs we've already performed live down under, such as ‘True Stories’, ‘Molly’ and ‘The Fall’, and it'll be a follow up desperately trying to replicate the debut. Nowadays our sound is perceived as oh so modern and updated, and who would pass on a freak accident like that.