Kaizers Orchestra

Kaizers Orchestra is a Norwegian alternative rock band formed in Bergen on 1 January 2000. They are notable for being among the first non-black-metal Norwegian artists singing in their native language to become popular beyond Scandinavia. In 2012, the group announced that following a 2013 "Farewell Tour", they would take a long break. Their final concert was held on 14 September 2013 at DNB Arena in Stavanger, and was also streamed live online. In November 2022, following weeks of teasers and speculation, the band confirmed a reunion and comeback tour scheduled for 2023. In 1998, childhood friends Janove Ottesen and Geir Zahl released their only album by their band gnom called Mys. Of its 1000 copies, only 500 or so were sold the first year. However, they were known well in the area around Stavanger in Norway, having played as the local band Blod, snått & juling, and one of the songs they wrote after Mys called "Bastard" got good crowd response. A line from "Bastard" ("A certain Mr. Kaizer took me in/He is the proud owner of the world's heaviest siamese cat") and the song's overall crowd response became a source of inspiration for Ottesen, and after gnom dissolved after disappointing record sales, he formed Kaizers Orchestra. In 2000, Kaizers Orchestra recorded the Kaizers Orchestra EP, containing four songs: "Bastard", "Bøn fra helvete", "Katastrofen" and "Dekk bord". During by:Larm, a Norwegian festival focusing on up-and-coming artists, the band's songs were played frequently on the radio. Kaizers Orchestra's sound and creative use of instruments was noticed by the small, Scandinavian label Broilerfarm. Their first album, Ompa til du dør, was released on this label in September 2001. It was critically acclaimed and became a success, first in Norway, later in Denmark and the Netherlands. The album won a Spellemannpris (Norwegian Grammy) for "Best Rock", as well as two Alarm-awards (underground version of Spellemannprisen). Ompa til du dør also made Kaizers Orchestra the highest-selling rock debut to be released in the Norwegian language. The second album, Evig pint, was released in February 2003. The third album, Maestro, was released on 15 August 2005 in Norway and Europe. In connection with the release of Maestro, Kaizers Orchestra signed an international record deal with Universal Germany, taking them from one of the smallest labels to one of the biggest. Their 5 and 6 October 2005 performances at Vega, in Copenhagen, Denmark, were recorded for a live DVD, titled Viva La Vega, and double CD, Live at Vega. A book by Geir Zahl's older brother Jan, called Kontroll på kontinentet was released 18 October 2006. It is close to 300 pages and include almost 150 pictures documenting the 2005 Maestro tour. In 2007, the members of Kaizers Orchestra took a break from playing live. All members (bar Helge) are involved in some sort of side project, and they concentrated on these in their break time. They only played three shows in 2007: one in Hungary, at the Sziget Festival, one in Norway, at Cementen, and finally at the German art expo Documenta. On September 6, 2006, the band released information about their upcoming fourth album. The album was recorded in Berlin, Germany, assisted by producer-engineer Mark Howard (producer). The audio mixing for the album was done in Los Angeles, California. The album title was revealed to be Maskineri in December 2007, and around the same time, the first single, "Enden av november", was released. The album was released on February 19, 2008, on Sony BMG. They claimed to have chosen the smaller label instead of working with Universal for more freedom. On 12 December 2007, Kaizers Orchestra received "Bragdprisen" (Achievement Award) from the county of Rogaland, due to their efforts to promote their native Bryne dialect. Helge Risa was the only one available to show up at the award ceremony, as the rest of the band were busy doing the album mixing. In February 2008, the band released their fourth album, and toured to support it, recording the audio of all the concerts. Not long after that, in fall 2008, they released a live album called 250 prosent. The live album consisted of what they thought were the best songs recorded while they were in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The album was released primarily on vinyl, but it was made also available as a digital download through the iTunes Store. They supported the release of that album by a "rarities" tour, playing songs they rarely played live. After that it was believed they were taking a break, for the members to work on their other projects and work on writing songs for the next album, but on 14 February 2009, they revealed that in January they had recorded several songs for a compilation album scheduled for release on April 20, which was then pushed back to April 27 for marketing reasons. The album, Våre demoner, consists of surplus material from each of their previous studio albums. On 18 December 2009, "Ompa til du dør" was voted as the best Norwegian song of the decade in a public poll on the website of NRK P3, one of the biggest radio stations in Norway. "Kontroll på kontinentet" and "Maestro" got third and fourth place in the same list. The band performed all three songs live on the radio after being announced as the winners. At a press conference in August 2009, the band announced that they were working on a stage musical together with Tore Renberg (who wrote the stage play). It is named Sonny ("Maestro" abroad), and is based on the text universe and characters from the band's first three albums. Several of the songs Kaizers Orchestra recorded in 2010 were used in the piece. The musical premiered at the Rogaland Theatre November 11, 2011. In January 2010, the band performed new material as part of Eurosonic in the Netherlands. In February, they announced the title of their next album, which will be a trilogy of albums. The album's title is Violeta Violeta and its recording sessions will be financed by the income produced by their tour in February 2010. People attending the tour are to be given special edition versions of the album. They released their first single from the trilogy, "Philemon Arthur & the Dung", in August, 2010. They released the sheet music for their second single, "Hjerteknuser", in October; in the same month, the single and its accompanying music video were released. The first volume of the trilogy was released on January 31, 2011. Stian Kristiansen has been said to be directing a music video for a song from the album; however, currently the only video, "Hjerteknuser", has been directed by Thomas Berg. Their tenth-anniversary concert, which coincides with the final performance of the supporting tour, was held at Oslo Spektrum on 9 April 2011. The performance was recorded and was released as the live DVD/CD Live i Oslo Spektrum on 11 November 2011. In 2012, the band was awarded Årets Spellemann (Spellemann of the Year) in a ceremony in their "hometown" of Stavanger. During their acceptance speech they announced that following their 2013 tour, they would retire after thirteen years together. In 2013 they also contributed to the book Think like a rockstar ("Tenk som en rockestjerne"), written by Ståle Økland. Their 2013 Siste Dans Tour (Last Dance Tour) ended in Stavanger on 14 September 2013. The concert, which was their last, was streamed online to fans and published on DVD and Blu-ray exactly one year later. On October 26, 2022, the band announced that they had discovered boxes of old merchandise, namely T-shirts, and would be donating them to the charitable clothing store Fretex to sell (incidentally the same store where they had bought their stage outfits in 2001). In the following days, fans who had bought the shirts noticed QR codes printed inside, which led to the website dinegamledagererna.no. Those who accessed the website through a QR code received a one-time message telling them they were "one of the 107", while for other visitors the