Mary Me Young, Oya Festival Summer 2005

Mary Me Young played Friday on "the small" stage at Øya, since the small stage disappeared from the festival premises some years ago(and I could us a page or two to tell about how Øyafestivalen is digging their mainstream grave by doing this, but luckily I have an interview to write!).
It's 4 pm in the afternoon, and Val together with a fairly big crowd is there. The band is new for this Oslo crowd, but they seem to like them. They look self confident and they're tight, without being pretentious or pompus. This is good Rock'n'Roll!
So after the gig and while the music grinds in the background we find Mary Me Young in the press area, behind the toilets, by Vannspeilet in the Midevil park in Oslo. They're pretty nervous, they say - and we do the interview in Norwegian to make them slightly more comfortable and so that as Norwegian artists they can express themselves in Norwegian. This is the translation (no kidding!), and we hope it wont leave out anything we talked about.

Ingrid Brattland - sings and plays bass
Ingunn Strand - sings and plays drums
Anne Sande - sings and plays guitar

OvaryAction: When did you start playing?
Mary Me Young: I guess its three years ago when we thought we had to practise a bit more than once every six moths...so for this to continue...or for this to become something I guess it was three years since we really started. We got us some instruments and then we got to learn how to play them. But that was fun. It was these typical band things, my mom had a guitar at the attic - so then I started to play guitar. We didn’t know anything - we started from scratch and worked ourselves up.

OA: So it was the excess of instruments which decided what instrument you play today?
MMY: That is a bit funny, we didn’t even have instruments in the beginning. We only did this: you play that, you play that and then I play that....none of us could play anything. We used to meet at the cafe and talk about the band. It’s a bit embarrassing though.....

OA: ....so you basically made a t-shirt before you started the band....
MMY: ...yes, almost. But then after a while we got some instruments and then we started to learn and we a sked our friends "how does this thingy work". We know a bit more now. "Yes we do" the guitar player says, but we have a long way left - we are going to learn more!

OA : So none of you have had a band earlier, or played in other bands?
MMY: No...well yes. I was in a band like a tiny bit, but not really.....only for a very short period of time. Nothing to really brag about now. When you get kicked out of a band it’s not always necessary to mention it again....but the band was called Lionheart Brothers though...

OA: ...it could be of some help for you later some time though ...
MMY: ...yes that can certainly happen.

OA: I read your band could be categorised as punk-pop/power-pop. Is that what you would call your music?
MMY: Ok, well...power-pop that’s pretty...was that in this paper Birkelandsavisa (small local paper in Norway)?

OA: No, it was in the Øyafestivalen leflet.
MMY: Yeah well, power-pop...that one was new for us. But we like someone to call it something, cus we really don’t know what to call it ourselves actually. But we play what we know, and what we hear is what it s cool - then it becomes the music it becomes. So we really.....or it has been a bit hard when people have a sked us about what we play. Caus we havent found a word for it. So we just say what everybody else say. So the next time we meet you we probably say that we play power-pop.

OA: But you are in the pop-rock landscape?
MMY: Yes it’s probably pop-rock. We dreamt about hardcore when we started, but early we found out we were pretty bad to do this screaming vocal, so we rather sang with the voice we have.

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