After touring the world, and as the most international active Norwegian band, Datarock has played more than 600 concerts all over the world in about 30 countries, Greece being number 30 on the list. This spring, you get a chance to see them live both in Athens the 4th of March and Thessaloniki the 5th of March, as they play their first ever concerts in the country. He’s passionate when he talks to us about the show.
– We’ve played all sorts of places, mainly in North America. We’ve been to Switzerland, Finland and Singapore, we’ve even played a gig in Lithuania I think it was, only 5 meters away from the boarders of Belarus. It was pretty weird, you could see the armed border patrols just a stone throw away, says Fredrik.
Energetic and fun, get your red tracksuit on and join Datarock for two memorable nights in Greece. . Photo: Tom OxleyDatarock has gathered lots of fans all over the planet, much thanks to their webpage , which when started in 2000, was not such a common way of promoting your music. Their Myspace-page got lots of fans at a stage before the big hype hit as well. Nowadays, every band and aspiring musician has a Myspace page. They have over 3.000 000 listenings so far!
– We left remix-kits on our website, and dj’s started picking them up. All of a sudden we had remixes of our songs from different communities all over. Even though we’ve redone our homepage after the early start in 2000, it’s still a great way to reach fans. On our Myspace, you can see several videos and listen to our latest tracks, says Fredrik.
Live
Known for their bright red tracksuits, Fredrik says that lots of fans show up in matching clothes at their live shows, and the fans just enjoy themselves and leave the last bit of uptightness behind.
– No matter if we play a show in Bergen or London, our fans seem to get the most of it, with dancing, fun and party. I would say we are better when it comes to party and fun at our shows than most other artists. People are dedicated to have a good time. The tracksuits they wear on stage are to be found at a store in Bergen called robotbutikken.no.
– People keep complaining they are expensive, but it’s not our fault, this is high quality tracksuits, guys!, Fredrik emphasizes.
Datarock consists of Fredrik Saroea and Ketil Mosnes. They bring a long drummer Tarjei Strøm, Ketil Traavik Møster on saxophone and Thomas Larsen on bass. When it comes to the genre, Fredrik tells us there’s a lot to pick from if you want to label the band as something.
– It’s post punk inspired, but if you should ask like some taxi driver, he might say that it is rock you could dance to. We have a lot of passion and aggression in our music. We’ve been labeled as new rave, funk-punk, indie-dance, and dance-punk, but I believe we fit into a lot of concepts. We’ve been touring with Shiny toy guns, Ladytron, Devo and Kaiser Chiefs amongst others, as well as playing the main stage at the Sonar festival in Barcelona, which features electronic and techno music.
As for their relationship with Greece, Fredrik Saroea has been studying literature and art history, and has been to Athens, Delphi and Naxos in younger years. The drummer of the band, Tarjei Strøm, will be doing some traveling of his own in Greece prior to their show.
Fredrik Saroea and Ketil Mosnes of Datarock play both in Athens and Thessaloniki in their first ever shows in Greece. Photo: Tom OxleyActive
Along with their releases of the albums “Datarock Datarock” (2005), ”See What I Care” EP (2007), “Red” (2009), and their smash-hit “Fa-Fa-Fa”, a song which has even been used in a Coca-Cola TV advert and in video games like FIFA 08 and The Sims 2. In fact, 22 highly profiled games on several consoles features songs from Datarock, and in that way reaching out to millions of people around the globe. The band also made two appearances on the American TV Show Jimmy Kimmel Live. Being a very active touring band, Datarock has played 17 tours in America alone since 2007, amongst them CMJ (NYC), WMC (Miami), SXSW (Austin), Coachella (CA), Download (San Francisco), Detour (LA), Virgin (Toronto), Montreal Jazz Festival (Montreal), MX Beat (Mexico City), Planet Terra (Sao Paolo, Brazil) and Personal Fest (Buenos Aires, Argentina). They visited 42 different cities the summer of 2008, and played in 26 cities on the release tour of their latest album “RED” during the autumn of 2009. The band will release the 4th single from the album “Red”, “Amarillion”, the 6th of April 2010. Datarock just finished touring Norway with Rikskonsertene and Statnett, and after touring clubs and bars in Australia and Japan, they are now heading to Europe, and for the first time: Greece. The concerts takes place at Kyttaro in Athens and Block 33 in Thessaloniki. Entrance fee is 20 Euros, but at the show in Thessaloniki the pre-sale tickets will cost 17 Euros and 20 Euros in the door. Sponsored by The Norwegian Embassy in Greece and The Norwegian Institute at Athens, promoted by SPS Projects in Greece.