Datarock - Fredrik Saroea Interview

by Tina Whelski

Datarock will dance its way into your heart, head and memory bank with its first full-length CD, Datarock Datarock (Nettwerk Music Group). Bergen, Norways Fredrik Saroea (vocals, guitars, drums, percussion, keyboards) and Ketil Mosnes (bass, background vocals, programming, keyboards), reminisce 80's entertainment culture with electro-pop grooves as steamy as their matching red track suits. Fredrik Saroea talks about the view behind his vintage Porsche wraparound glasses.

Can you pick a track from Datarock Datarock and talk about the sounds that influenced it?

We’re both into lots of different genres and a number of periods in the history of music, but in the case of say “Fa Fa Fa” we’re deliberately paying tribute to the post-punk, punk-funk or new wave of the late seventies, early eighties and bands like Television, A Certain Ratio, ESG and Talking Heads mixed with a gentle touch of Madchester era such as Happy Mondays, Charlatans, Inspiral Carpets, Stone Roses and so on. The childlike backing vocals, however, is supposed to remind you of Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick In The Wall.” Just for production. The title, of course, is taken from the Talking Heads’ Psycho Killer, themselves borrowing from Otis Redding’s Fa Fa Fa Fa Fa (Sad Song), but musically it’s all basic songwriting growing out of a repetitive guitar riff, a simple chord structure, a pumping bass and a funked up groove.
You inject lyrics with a lot of fun and humor.

Can you talk about a track from that perspective?

Well, let's talk about “Computer Camp Love.” This insanity plays on the title “Computer Love” by Kraftwerk, but turns it around to a love of the weirdest of social scenes: the factual computer camps that came about in the eighties. A good portion of the first verse is actually directly transcribed from a dialogue in Revenge Of The Nerds, whereas the chorus is paraphrasing the all time summer fling classic “Summer Nights” of Grease. The monotone second verse, on the other hand, is supposed to resemble Green Velvet or Peaches’ spoken words. On top of that there’s the element of musical with call and respond. It just had to be done. I guess it’s just a mix of lots of different ideas with no good reason and no grand plan. It’s simply a loony tune that emerged out of nowhere.

What is your mindset when you hit the stage?

Thanks to our ego-altering tracksuits, our on-stage persona somehow projects a hell of a lot more energy than any of us ever do off-stage. I guess our approach is just trying to make the most of the ritual gathering a gig is, the weird setting of a venue, the stage apparatus (whatever the standard), the potential energy of a live performance, and the interaction with an audience. No mindset though. We move our ass, and the mind merely follows.

What makes you want to write songs?

The occasional chord structures, riffs and beats, or some cultural artifact we’ll find stupid or stupendous, being a song or a band, a film or director, a series or an actor, a book or an author, an artwork or an artist, a design or designer, a product or a brand, a stand-out event or a moment in time. I guess the process is kind off like old school post-modernism with heaps of inter-textuality. A crazed mix of form and textures and a deconstructed construct of reassembled sign and symbols.

Watch Datarock perform "Fa Fa Fa."



And "Computer Camp Love."



Interview originally published in The Aquarian Weekly (May 31, 2007).