Artist: Stage Dolls  

Date:  24 February 2010 

A mere two days before the release of their latest ... and greatest! releases to date, we catch up with lead singer Torstein Flakne to hear how it feels to have reached the milestone of 25 years in the business.

MM - How you doing today?
Torstein - I’m fine, although it’s a bit cold here in Trondeim.

MM - Congratulations on the new album “Always”, without a doubt it is a Stage Dolls album from start to finish.
Torstein  - Thank you, you think so?

MM - Ah yes there's no doubt in my mind, and it's also a great way for the band to celebrate the 25^th anniversary of the bands debut album 'Soldiers Gun'. 
Torstein  - Yes, 25 years, it seems like only yesterday.  As you get older you don’t count the years.  It’s been a great career. 

MM - The band haven’t only been around for 25 years but you’ve actually kept on going together for those 25 years, unlike some bands who have faded in and out. 
Torstein  - That’s true, although this is just our seventh album.  We haven’t been that productive in the studio but we are out touring all the time.  It was a bit hard during the nineties during the Grunge period, but apart from that it’s been good every year. 

MM - Yes the band toured for six months of last year from June right through till December.
Torstein  - Yes, from the early summer till December. 

MM - Yeh, you actually played Christmas Day as well! 
Torstein - Yes.  We have three or four nights over Christmas where we play.  

MM - Back the the album now Torstein, it’s been four ... NO six years since the bands last album!  How long did this album actually take to put together?  Torstein  - It didn’t take six years! (laughs) but I guess we started in late 2008.  I wrote a song ‘Raining On A Sunny Day’ which was the first song I wrote for this album.  And then we started playing it live and realised that we had started something.  So I started writing more songs.  Then from late 2008 we’ve been in and out of the studio, not every day, but when we were available to do so.

MM - Was it important to the band to keep that Stage Dolls feel to the album from the beginning? 
Torstein  - You don’t think about that when your writing the songs, but when you get into the studio you want the songs to sound a special way, it’s easy for us because we can't sound otherwise.  Every song is arranged and rehearsed as a three piece, guitar drums and bass.  We usually record together then we add stuff.  We may use keyboards on one song and background vocals on another, but usually it ends up the way we want it.  Yeh we want it to sound like the older stuff because we like that and people want that also.  I mean you’d buy an AC/DC album but you want it to sound like an AC/DC album. 

MM - Also having the same backing singers as you had on the debut album helps. 
Torstein  - Yeh that was a bit of a coincidence because Darryl Tookes who worked with us in the eighties was visiting Trondiem and recording his own project with  Bjørn Nessjø the producer.  We met him in the studio we got together and he listened to 'Raining On A Sunny Day’ and wrote the bridge part on that.  We talked about getting the girls together, so he arranged it and I really liked the way it turned out. 

MM - I must say it adds a lot to that track, as I said earlier, as soon as you put the album on, who know instantly it’s a Stage Dolls album. 
Torstein  - I think so too, yeh.  I’m really happy with it, especially as I think on this album we have a lot of good songs.  On previous ones it was maybe two or three, or four, but on this one there are a lot of good songs.  I really like it. 

MM - What has the feedback been from the media around the album? 
Torstein  - In Norway it has been pretty good. 

MM - Well it got to number one in the charts, you can't get better than that! 
Torstein  - Yes it went straight to number one.  That was quite a shock.  That was the first time for us.  We’ve had number two but never number one.  I guess from the rock side of the media it’s been very positive.

Both the Norwegian and German press have been very positive, that’s good. 

MM - Touring is obviously a very big part of the band, but this year you’ve one UK show in particular the Firefest festival, are the guys looking forward to it?  Torstein  - Oh yes, really looking forward to it!  As you say it’s only one show but we hope in the future we will be able to do more shows in the UK.  I’m very glad to be playing outside Norway.  We played Munich last year, which was the first time we'd played in Germany for twenty years, and the whole crowd sang along to every song.  It was unbelievable …WE DIDN’T KNOW!  Yes, we are really looking forward to Firefest.

MM - What can we expect from the show at Firefest? 
Torstein  - We’re going to play a lot of old songs, of course, and some new songs, but that depends on how long we’ve got, I don’t know yet. 

MM - The band have also been doing a few signing sessions with a few songs thrown in, how have they been going? 
Torstein  - We’re leaving tomorrow morning for the west coast, in conjunction with the album release and we’ll be playing at a few record stores, where we will play for around half an hour, and we’ll be signing a few albums.  We did some last week and they were pretty good fun. 

MM - Are these full electric sets or acoustic? 
Torstein  - Acoustic.  We just bring a bass and acoustic guitar and small drum kit. 

MM - You also played a full show in Rockerfella, how did that go? 
Torstein  - Yes we did one show at Trondheim and one at Rockerfella.  Both were sold out shows and they were great nights.  We're using a much bigger stage set this year and we used it at these shows, it was incredible. 

MM - The Norwegian fans seem to embrace the 80’s bands more than any other, why is this so?
Torstein  - I'm, not really sure.  It is a tradition from when we started playing this type of music, there were a lots of opportunities to play every Friday and Saturday night in dance halls and rock clubs.  I think that is why there were a lot of bands coming out of Scandinavia.  

MM - Yes is was talking to Tony Mills of TNT about this last week.  He said he’s known nothing like the loyalty of the Norwegian fans.  You can play in Norway in front of 20.000 fans but then you can't sell out shows elsewhere in Europe. 
Torstein  - I’m sure, the population is very small but people do turn out when bands do come.  Last year and this year there were a lot of international bands coming here on tour.  We've had Judas Priest here, Alice Cooper is coming to my hometown. 

MM - Are you going to do any more solo albums? 
Torstein  - My solo album was done during a period when the Stage Dolls were doing very little, it was like having something to do.  I had some songs then, but now we're so busy with the band.  There might be something in the future ... 

MM - Going back the album, to get an album at number one in any charts is a fantastic achievement, but when the album was finished did you feel that this was the best album the band have done? 
Torstein  - Right after it’s finished you don’t want to listen to it! (laughs), but now I feel it’s a very good album.  When you get things more in perspective you feel like you’ve done a good job and every song has something.  So personally I do think this is the best album we’ve done. 

MM - Yes I think the fact that the band has only released seven albums is a good thing, as this not only keeps the fans wanting but also helps a band to remain fresh, because if you just churned out an album every year the whole thing would have gone that way.  
Torstein  - Yes, it’s important to write good songs when you're recording an album and not to release an album just for the sake of releasing an album. 

MM - I know Firefest is the bands only UK date this year but if the opportunity came for you to do some shows either before or after Firefest would you take them? 
Torstein  - Yes definitely. 

MM - For a band like yourselves who are touring on regular basis the issues about rehearsing wouldn’t affect you. 
Torstein  - If the circumstances were ok then we would play. 

MM - I’m sure if the band get the opportunity to put on a full headline show the fans would turn out the see you.
Torstein  - We’ll have to see how things go. 

MM - Thanks for taking time out to take part in the interview, good luck with the album and good luck with the rest of 2010! 
Torstein  - Thank you!  

MM - We'd like to thank Torstein for taking the time out to chat with us today and look forward to seeing him and the band over on these shores again soon.  If you haven't heard the new album yet then be sure to check it out, it really is a cracking release.

All content copyright of The Mayfair Mall Zine unless otherwise stated.