Just when you thought you've heard it all, Turbonegro's guitarist, Knut "Euroboy" Schreiner, makes a "come back" and goes under way with a band called the 'Euroboys'.

On a cold dark Saturday night, in the winter of '98', Knut Schreiner sits on a nachspiel with his head buried deep in his hands. He does it time and again, and spices it up with a "fuck". But this time it's unusual to see him sigh in despair over his existence.

Earlier that evening Knut, together with his band, Kåre & The Cavemen, walked away from Chateau Neuf during the peak viewing time. Even though they advertised in the media prior to the event that they were prepared to protest if they didn't get an award at "Spellemannsprisen", (which they didn't get), they showed up at the SAS-hotel for the after party anyway. As it turns, it was a half hearted protest.

"I struggled with some complicated feelings. But all of the other boys had made an appointment with their girlfriends to meet them there. And when I got there I saw our bass player standing right in front of the Norwegian weekly paper "Se & hør" and making out with his girlfriend, while "Se & hør" took pictures. It wasn't that high style grades/marks on it."

Prior to this episode, Knut's career had been a study in exactly that: "Style". Kåre & The Cavemen had, in short time, taken a position as Norway's most decided image and were deliberated as a media friendly band. Being known for his break through show, "Direkte lykke" at the house orchestra in Anne Kat. Hęrlands, and as Norway's only and youngest exponent in instrumental rock with straight doses of surf and easy listening-inspiration, he hit the spirit of the times as clear as a bell.

The debut album "Jet Age" was met with warm applause from reviewers, the general public, and, of course, the band itself. Kåre posed naked in the Norwegian newspaper 'Dagbladet'. Knut ran from interview to interview and set a new standard for self-promotion in Norwegian rock; something that usually doesn't go over well among fellow artists.

"At that time we were so doubtful that we felt that we must pull on with some controversial statements because all the interviews should get entertainment value", says Knut today. "I think that it was a good thought, that was a little bit misunderstood. We destroyed a lot to ourselves because we went out against the most important power element in Norwegian music - Petre, Quart and the Zoom-tour. Afterwards we see that much of what we said was right, even if it could be better formulated."

The band's large inspiration by Oasis soon betrayed Knut, especially in regards to Liam Gallagher. "We thought he was the coolest, smartest and most charismatic guy in the 90's rock. But the circumstance was not in its place too get the same effect." In likeness to Oasis, Knut and his buddies had to learn things the hard way, such as how it feels when the press and the audience thinks that enough is enough.

But first: a sunshine story...

Now, two years after Turbonegro got up from the ash, and Knut, again, got his Euroboy "alias" back, he is ready to be heard with Euroboy's sophisticated second album, titled "Soft Focus". The wonderful single "One-Way Street", has already started a buzz and has been played on the Norwegian radio-channel, NRK Petre, for a couple of weeks, side by side with Phoenix' "Everything Is Everything". Softrock with California-sound are really in the impact/blow now.

Knut doesn't like to be accused for shameless timing, and indicates that the album was started on two years ago. "As the whole 'New rock revolution' thing came stronger and stronger, and we saw that it was a train that came to go away for our part, we want to cultivate the soft rock direction. It wasn't many that carried on with that, and we got a little kick of that - it was something we could do well, and better than the dirty garage rock we did on the last album. (getting out of nowhere)"

The band felt that they made something that was totally on the side of that really was going on. "But little by little we could see its coming. You often see signs in the time and movies and fashion, the music generally came a little bit after. We would make a calm album that you also get in good mood of. We wished to separate us from the typically low-voiced and melancholy Norwegian artists, as St. Thomas, Thomas Dybdahl and representative bergens-wave. (Bergen is a city in Norway).

Meanwhile, the recording was not as frictionless as the album. First, the band built its own studio. "The building of the studio should have, after the plan, taken one and a half months, but it took a year. It went from nice voluntary communal work mannequin to a fucking frustrated and panicky final spurt that went the friendship loose. Me and Anders Møller wasn't made for nailing, carrying plaster plates and glava - we should make good music together."

Was it a danger for you to break your collaboration? "It was a dark turn where we were very tired. And then the whole Turbonegro-thing came.

What do you think the Turbonegro-fans think of this softrock? "It would go both ways. But I have signed a lot of Euroboys albums when I was on tour with Turbonegro. The Turbo-fans has picked it up. Someone had made a comment that it should be a sticker on the CD-cover - "Turbofans beware!" Music is not that long attached to identity, means the often denim uniformed guitarist. "Most of they who are music interests are very all-round. As long as the music has qualities, would many people like it. But also, Turbonegro is a big band we are on world tour and selling over hundred thousand albums, so it's clear that some of the fans also are idiots.

It might not be obvious how many of them are idiots, but when Euroboys came out with Getting Out Of Nowhere in 2000, there weren't so many fans left. Euroboys were not only a continuation on Kåre & The Cavemen, but also an internal obstinacy of classical proportion, which eventually led to a break up among the three original members.

New members came, as well as others including a Swedish guy with the alias Stefan Rockmann. "We found him in the gutter between Last Train and Nylon. He had an authentic Iggy Pop-character over himself, a true rock'n roll guy. And we thought that now we need cool people in the band - people that are tough are probably good musicians too, because they have soul that's right. We thought. And he did it really good on the audition. The problem was only that he got the job to he got fired a half year later, I don't think he slept a hour after that."

On the first concerts Knut noticed that Rockmann was standing and playing with his right hand, but in his left hand he had a bottle of red wine. "But gradually he was standing with the wine in his left hand, while he used the right one to hit in the air - no hands on was on the keyboard. He went to a month-tour with a small plastic bag. After the tour he ran away from Oslo because he had small personal problems. Absolutely a cool guy, but impossible to play in a band with."

The critics weren't positive anymore, and the album went for kr. 39,50 on Platekompaniet, the band had laid out with everyone and everything, and Knut's self-assured handling of media was replaced with a gradually and quite enervating bitterness. It's a fact that he had wallowed in a large city-decadence almost every night for four years.

Didn't the condition get easier to handle? "I never watched TV, I just read the entertainment pages in the newspaper. And when it went down with the band, I saw my whole way of life started to take damage on me, both economic and health. It started to get dark."

Knut noticed how bad it was when Euroboys appeared to a net meeting with Dagbladet that autumn. "I was completely sat out of all the negative questions we got. It was a massive hate! Special from the people in the districts, since I had done an interview where I said that we hate farmers. So I found out it was best to stay low a couple of years and do what I was clever/good at."

In the best "God kveld, Norge"-style he met his life's biggest love at this time. Around Christmas time they went to Mexico, where he and his girlfriend spent their time for a month. Knut joined a local band that played two hours concerts at the beach every night. "I simply played in a dance band, for American fifteen year old guys with the most fat cigarette, yellow-mustaches you ever have seen in your whole life. And from the first cord the dance floor was full. On daytime I had to search on the Internet for lyrics, and then lay on the beach and practice."

He would define himself as an amateur again "I found out that I'm not a artist anymore. I began to look at my self more as a music fan, so I decided to take a distance to my own music and wait until it came naturally."

When he came back to Oslo, he started to work as a producer to a series of Norwegian bands in the beginner stage. He also started a cover band, and began to work as a rock-DJ. "On that way you learn how people react to music, and I noticed that it will be worth to get to the refrain faster."

Knut has lived among music since he dropped out of Blindern in 1996. But now he can relax and enjoy a little. As he should do since he last stayed as an unqualified triumph. "The Success with Turbonegro has made me feel that I'm in a defensive position all the time, and I must defend what I'm doing to feel that I'm a part of the reality. And that gave me a lot of security, safety, and confidence".

He doesn't hesitate to say that Turbonegro's comeback is a classical comeback. "It will relate to the future like an example of how it should be done. When the history of rock shall be written down about 25 years, Turbonegro will probably be the only Norwegian band mentioned, and I'm proud of it. I doesn't think that it is any sickness or unsympathetic elements by it, so long the music is good and it's a congenital interest for that in a broadly class of the population."

One doesn't have to spend much time in Knut's company to know that he has musical understanding and knowledge completely out of the norm. He also indicates that he holds today's pop chart in pleasantly high standards. Is there any doubt that his love for music history is equal to his high regard for the music within himself? "I'm definitive a Mojo-reader, a rockromanticer. I like new bands where you can hear that they have heard a lot of albums and that they have managed to play with references on a entertainment way. Rock is a genre where I don't care about development and innovation. It's a traditional music form now, on the same line with blues, reggae and folk."

"One of my favorites from the '90-century is Bobby Gillespie in Primal Scream", says Knut. "He's not a big musician, but he has still been a important artist in the time we live in, exactly because rock isn't longer a music form in development." Knut has been on a nachspiel with Bobby. "It was a little disappointing because he was so fucked up that he sat an worried about how the drug-combination should evolve beyond the night."

We offer Knut a cigarette. He refused politely. "I only smoke if I take cocaine. Or when it's a decent drinking, can I say." According to Knut, "Crystal Pipeline", the last song on Soft Focus, is also a subject attached to cocaine. "It's about the feelings you get when you still are awake in the morning. You see yourself from another visual angle. But it also is about to like the feeling - you enjoy yourself a little bit on the way down", says Knut, which indicates that he is rather straight at the time.

Euroboys and Soft Focus would be a thing for considerable attention this summer. Öyafestivalen has, a long time ago, booked them as a top name; from the tips we have got high odds for two years ago. "I had expected that people will think it's nice that we came out with a new album, but I didn't expect that people should wait for it, and we're going straight into a higher level than we ever was before. We have been gone in four years now, but that's certainly that works in the Norwegian music business at the time - to be gone."

Now, more than ever, Euroboy is present. He has played in a "super band" called Black Diamond Brigade, and with that has he stands behind one of the most sold rock singles here in Norway. But temporary it will only be that single.

So has Black Diamond Brigade been left for dead? "No, it's only laid on ice. You should never leave a thing dead, haha."

Softrock la Euroboy Knut Schreiners 'bluffer's guide' to American west coast-rock:

1. David Crosby - If I Could Only Remember My Name (1971)
2. Fleetwood Mac - Tusk (1979)
3. Jackson Browne - For Everyman (1973)
4. Buckingham/Nicks - Buckingham/Nicks (1973)
5. Poco - Crazy Eyes (1973)
6. Joni Mitchell - Court And Spark (1974)
7. Beach Boys - Surf's Up (1971)
8. Crosby & Nash - Whistling Down The Wire (1976)
9. Gallagher & Lyle - Breakaway (1976)
10. Dennis Wilson - Pacific Ocean Blue (1977)



Translated by Marius Gjervik