“Music is an escape route for those who are lonely and find the community” – interview with Vreid

It doesn’t happen very often that when you get an interview, you also get a special guest. But this time it happened! Alongside Jørn, drummer for Vreid, we got the immense honor of interviewing Agnete from Djerv. We talked about their spectacular perfomance at Wacken Open Air and more!

I’m here today with two of my favorite artists of all time. How are you doing guys?

Jørn Holen: Very good.

I saw your performance earlier and I was so emotional because it was my first time seeing you all. I’ve been a fan for so many years and you moved me so much. So thank you so much for your performance. It was just the most spectacular of all Wacken so far. I had goosebumps. How does it feel to play on such a legendary edition of Wacken in its 35th anniversary?

Jørn Holen: I think it’s great to be here. We’ve been here since our sixth show at Wacken but always amazing. It’s a great festival to visit, a lot of good friends, a lot of people and always well organized. Everything is really, really cool so we’re honored to be here.

Agnete Kjølsrud: Yeah, me too. I think it’s my third or fourth Wacken and hopefully I will come with Djerv next year. 

So you have a lot of performance because you’re such an experienced artist and you play a lot of live shows but you also have experience in the studio working on music. Do you think that the life of an artist is a lonely life?

Jørn Holen: It could be. It definitely could be. A lot of us in the band have jobs additional to doing music. We also have families and kids and dogs and cats and goldfish. But still it can be lonely, it can be anxious, you can be worrying a lot for both live recordings and live shows and also albums. In general I like to turn it around and seize the opportunity to do stuff I love with my best friends. Going traveling the world and managing to play in big festivals and then come back and have a family life. So for me it’s not lonely but it definitely can be, I think.

Agnete Kjølsrud: Good answer. I think the same. Actually I felt in the last year, I’ve been out of work in the last year because it feels difficult to be having all these different personas. So I’ve been working as a teacher sometimes for some years. But it’s too difficult for me to be an expressive artist and not doing that and being in two different personas. Like one minute a mother, one minute a teacher, one minute a sister, daughter and so on and so on.

So I think it can be lonely sometimes because also we were talking about, you were not in the car right then, but we were talking about being a misfit kind of. I’m sad to say that I think I felt a little bit like a misfit my whole life actually. So always a little bit lonely, always a little bit sad actually. But I’ve been much more lonely if I didn’t have the good people around me and people that loves me and loves me for who I am.

Jørn Holen: I think music can be kind of an escape route for someone. Being a misfit or an outcast, that’s what we felt when we grew up. We had no one around us playing the same music. Of course people were playing soccer and football or whatever, and we also did. But when you get into music, the style of music you play, it’s not always common in small places. So you make your own small community and then you find the joy and happiness of doing music. And that’s kind of when you talk to other artists as well.

Big artists or smaller ones, or the ones that founded Wacken, they just founded because no one wanted to book them. So they started their festival and then here we are 35 years later and still doing it. So it could be kind of an escape route for those who are lonely and find the community within music.

Guys, thank you so much for being such a good sport and for taking the time to do this. Thank you. Is there anything else that you want to add to our viewers and readers?

Jørn Holen: I’m just happy to be here. I’m really proud. Hopefully, I’m not just asking the organizer to book us next year. So, both Vreid and Djerv can play again.

Agnete Kjølsrud: It would be awesome. I love being here. For sure.