Ungdomskulen: Drumming To Their Own Tune

So you think Norway is just this derelict, empty, cold, mitten friendly, land of the midnight sun whose only music exports happen to be death metallers Satyricon? Well you’d be dead wrong wouldn’t you?! Norway is the new epicentre on the musical map, bringing us exciting new artists like Ida Maria, and now Ungdomskulen. We find ourselves downstairs in Astoria 1, which tonight will brings us the strange, slightly obscure, wonder that is Ungdomskulen (pronounced ung-dom- skhulen, don’t you know?).

Ungdomskulen are comprised of Kristian Stockhaus (Vocals/Guitar), Frode Kvinge Flatland (Bass) and adopted Norwegian Øyvind Solheim (Drums) who looks a bit like Dave Grohl and claims he “started to grab onto Mother Norway’s leg and has been dragged along for so long that (they’re) now intertwined” – a very cute little simile, for someone whose native language isn’t English.

Ungdomskulen are full of these little poetic insights into the English Language. Telling us that they most like playing in London because they can mess around with the language, and people always listen to them between songs: “You hear all these stories about the London audiences being really jaded but in between songs it’s a lot easier to say things in English than in Norwegian. You can throw these clichéd phrases like ‘oh yeah, how are you feeling tonight?’ and in Norwegian, it just feels stupid. We make fun of the English language, pretending we can’t speak English very well. Generally people are more interested in what we say than they are in other places”.

They are currently touring with the Young Knives, who they love. Kristian tells us if they lived in Norway, they’d definitely be hanging out. They also love America, having just come back from their second cluster of tour dates across the pond; finding themselves in New York, North Carolina, and even the Hollywood Hills. What they most love about America is the house parties. Kristian says, “We’ve watched a lot of American films but it’s so strange because all those stereotypes you see in films are true! We went to this random house party and hung out, and it was like those films. There’s some people snogging all night on the sofa, the bathroom is busy for the whole evening so people end up pissing in plant pots and you do get geeks, and cool people, and kegs. It’s really cool. Luckily no jocks turned up at this party. We’d have beat them!”