By Jase Walker
Following on from their first ventures outside their homeland last year, Norwegian proggies Avkrvst are about to head out on their debut headlining tour. I caught up with the guys to find out a bit more about them and the upcoming dates…
ÜR: Firstly, congratulations on the fantastic album released last year. ‘Waving At The Sky’ was a superb listen. I discovered yourselves via Ross Jennings following him mentioning it on Instagram, how did this collaboration come about?
Simon Bergseth (composer, guitars, bass and vocals): Thank you so much — that truly warms our hearts! We had a track on our album that we couldn’t quite figure out in terms of the melodic and lyrical direction. Since we are label mates with Ross, love Haken, and he had already posted about our first album, we thought we should try to get him on board.
He said yes! He wrote the vocal melodies and the lyrics for the track ‘The Malevolent’.
ÜR: Looking back on live show history, you’ve had a couple of very notable appearances within The Netherlands and the ÜK in the form of Midwinter Prog and ArcTanGent respectively. Were these both your first appearances in each country? If so, how would you gauge the response to your shows?
Simon: Yes, those were our first and only shows over there (until this upcoming tour). The response was great. ArcTanGent had a couple of thousand people show up at noon, mid-day! Who goes to shows that early!? It’s a great festival with an amazing crowd.
The same goes for Midwinter – another great festival. We completely sold out of merch within ten minutes after our show.
We’re really looking forward to coming back to both England and the Netherlands!
ÜR: Arctangent and Midwinter Prog seem to have a reputation as a ‘rite of passage’ for a lot of progressive aligned artists, is there any particular event you’re aiming at with a similar reputation?
Simon: Not specifically, but since we’re a good mix of prog rock and prog metal, we think there are plenty of bigger festivals that would suit us well.
ÜR: And looking forward, you’re about to embark on a headline tour across the ÜK, Netherlands, and Germany… I’m always curious how these tours are determined, can you share how you planned on these shows?
Simon: Yes! This is our first tour ever, and we have to start somewhere. We figured this would be a great way to begin without going too crazy with dates and cities. Instead of doing a support tour for a bigger act, we wanted to do a smaller headline tour. Some of our tracks are quite long, and we feel the audience deserves more than a 30-minute show!
ÜR: The Nordics are well known for being a hotbed for producing a lot of music in the rock, metal and prog scenes, how would you describe your journey starting out and making a name for yourselves?
Simon: Indeed! We grew up with our dads playing in a prog rock band and have always been determined of doing it ourselves when we grew up. We didn’t try to make any specific kind of genre of music, but this is how it turned out. We’re not trying to please anyone else other than ourselves, so we’re always focusing on just having a good time rather than think too much about things.
ÜR: Your music aligns heavily with a lot of prog ethos and live shows often need care to curate the right flow and atmosphere, what would you say your approach to building a live performance is like?
Simon: We’ve always loved music and live shows that flow well without too many pauses in between, and where the songs blend into each other. You’ll have to show up to experience it!
ÜR: Lastly, if each member could summarise themselves and their role in the band in one sentence, what would it be?
Simon: The social one, and the guitarist that ended up «singing» since no one else wanted to.
Øystein Aadland: The warm one, and the keyboard-player that didn’t want to play the keyboard, so he picked up the bass guitar instead.
Martin Utby: The slow one, the drummer, and that says it all.
Auver Seim: The thinker/the nervous one, and the great keyboard player.
Edvard Gaaren: The walking lexicon, knows way too much about things that’s really not necessary and also plays the guitar.
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