Monday January 5th. We meet three members of the band Dive for an informal interview at Ska, the cafe-venue-bar-hang-out of the Art Academy. Our meeting occures a couple of months after their record, Eyes Closed, was released at Mir , Oslo.

Bib/OA: You too girls are very present in the imagery of the band (posters, the record cover), does it mean you were the original chore?
Hanne: we started the band with another drummer. When he quit, Thormod and Lotte joined, a year and a half ago.

Bib/OA: The songs you perform now, are they from back then or did you start all over with a new set of songs, writing them all together?
All 3: it is a mix.
Merete: Perhaps half of the set was written after they joined.
Hanne: We still play the songs of the cd in live performances, but we are quite fed up with them (laughter). We have been playing them for a long time now, so we need fresh thing.

Bib/OA: I heard you had a lot of new songs in the last concert you had. Are you planning on recording them?
Merete: We have been talking about doing some live recording in our practice room, that we could then put on our website, for people to listen, as a start.

Bib/OA: Your first record was self-released, right?
Dive, altogether: yeah

Bib/OA: Hence the internet instead of the expensive cd release! Are you going to be looking for a label, though?
Hanne: Yeah, we are trying to look, though we haven't found the perfect thing yet and we haven't sent out anything, like demos really.
Merete: We were talking about doing that this Spring, working with trying to find a label for the next record. We want to find a suitable way of playing our music.
Hanne: And we consider this record as a record, it is not a promo thing. It is a real release.
Merete: It was way easier to just release it ourselves, instead of waiting to find a label, because this takes a lot of time, and it is important to just get things out. That way we could start on the second one.

Bib/OA: As far as music writing is concerned, is it a team work? Is it somebody's specialty? Still more like the two of you?
Hanne: The arrangements are team work, so it depends on who shows up with the ideas.
Thormod: Yeah, usually the two of you show up with the ideas and then we make the arrangements together when we rehearse.
Hanne: ... and we rearrange the whole thing together, several times.
THormod (laughing): yeah, we love to re-re-rearrange the songs.

Bib/OA: Why are you called Dive? There are a couple of others, aren't there? Starting with this dark electro band...
Merete: Yes, I know, there are several bands called Dive. We didn't know at the time.
Hanne: and the name we chose is a compromise, really. It was the best we could find that everyone could agree on.

Bib/OA: What were the other propositions, then?
Hanne: It was usually some things about the sky element..
Merete: ...and the rain, the stars.... all kinds of abstract, floating things.

Bib/OA: Sounds quite pagan to me.
Hanne: and then it was Dead Moon, but it was also already taken.

Bib/OA: Although you are tired of them (laughs), can you talk about the songs on the record? Any memories or stories behind them?
Hanne: I do not know whether it is really interesting, but one of the songs was made 12 years ago... from some pre-...... . Can you imagine why we are so tired of it?

Bib/OA: You have always been writing songs, basically.
Hanne: Well, since I was 18, I think. What about you?
Merete: Yeah it's the same.

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