“IT’S still a mystery to me how music travels and how I end up in the most unusual places,” says Sondre Lerche, the 25-year-old singer from Norway who has endured a long flight to Singapore to perform at the Mosaic Music Festival. “The songs, they’re really fast. I have to sit on a plane and read, and my back hurts, but the songs have different ways of getting there.”

Having toured a great deal in 2007, Sondre intended to slow things down this
year, but when the Mosaic Music Festival invited him he couldn’t turn it down. “It’s terrific to perform in a country for the first time. It’s quite a kick, and a sensation. When the audience knows the songs, and some shout for other songs, for an artist, it’s the biggest privilege of all,” he confesses.

Sondre on times when he feels uninspired

“It’s also always a nice balance, between recording in the studio and performing live. When I made my first record, it was such a kick to be allowed into the studio and see all its possibilities. That’s why my first record, Faces Down, was a very colourful record. I was a kid in a candy store, and wanted to make every song different from the other. For a moment, I thought the studio was where I really lived.

“Then I toured that album for two to three years, and I found that even though I was exhausted at the end of that whole tour, it was such a pleasure to come out every night to perform in front of an audience. It’s something about the simplicity of being able to play a song live. In the studio, you need this to be able to get that, and when you record it, you have to wait a while until the music meets the audience,” he adds.
Trying to be part-time crazy is important


Performing To Be Surprised at the Late Show with David Letterman

Sondre’s songs can be categorised under pop, and they’re generally described as
“happy songs”. He considers performing live to be one of the craziest thing to do.
“Once, I opened for Stereo Lab and Air in Los Angeles. I went up there by myself while 18,000 people were trying to find their seats. I just started singing my songs, and only after I’ve performed that I think, ‘This is insane!’ For some reason, I felt compelled to go up and do that, and I’ll do it again, anytime.”

It was while growing up in the suburbs of Bergen, Norway, until he was 12, that Sondre was given the opportunity to develop fully as a songwriter. “Bergen is a terrific city to be a part of. It’s easier in a way because if you’re from a bigger city, it’s sometimes more difficult to have the patience you need to develop as a songwriter or artist. There, you feel that you have to go straight to the top of the charts in one move. In Bergen you don’t. You just develop slowly in its creative environment,” he shares.
Admitting that solo albums are just ego trips

After breaking a couple of rules and scoring gigs at a club where his sister worked, Sondre met people in the music scene and gradually worked his way up the charts. Thinking back on his career, he confesses that it’s still tricky being a songwriter in the business.

Maybe that’s what Sondre meant when he sings, ‘So start the two way monologues that speak your mind’. Besides going part-time crazy, and holding conversations within his own head, Sondre explained that the making of solo albums is indeed very self-indulgent.

“When you’re recording, you’re trying to express yourself, and you have people to help you express yourself. It really is just one big ego trip. So it was the right time, after making four solo albums, to get to do the soundtrack for Dan in Real Life. It was a refreshing perspective to have to be forced to make music with a different way. In a film, it’s not about me, it’s not about expressing myself, and I had to find a way to make my music work in a different context.”

Sondre Lerche and his band The Faces Down performs on Friday, 14 March, at 11pm. The Esplanade Concert Hall. Tickets at the door for $58.