{"id":1058,"date":"2020-03-30T13:12:44","date_gmt":"2020-03-30T11:12:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aormusic.de\/?p=1058"},"modified":"2020-05-27T09:43:49","modified_gmt":"2020-05-27T07:43:49","slug":"interview-return-the-last-chorus-is-yet-to-come","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aormusic.de\/?p=1058","title":{"rendered":"Interview: Return – The Last Chorus Is Yet To Come"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Seems I\u2019m the anniversary man at the moment. First MALLET, then HARTMANN and now it\u2019s time for RETURN. March 27th saw the re-issue of \u201cV\u201d, originally released when the lousy Grunge movement was at its peak and limited to 1000 copies only. So it was the right time to re-visit the album and the 40 year history with singer Knut Erik \u00d8stg\u00e5rd<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nmust confess, I discovered your music quite late. 1995 was the year, when I found\n\u201cV\u201d in a bargain bin and I was thrilled immediately. Without the help of the\ninternet, it took me quite a few years afterwards to complete my RETURN\ncollection. Which of all your albums means the most for the band and why?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The debut album means a lot for us all, because these were our first steps in the music genre. For the second record, we were signed by CBS and copies were sold not only all over Scandinavia but in Germany as well. Maybe it\u2019s the CD we are talking about, not only because it has a lot of \u201chits\u201d on it. In our opinion it\u2019s the longplayer which comes nearest to our live sound!  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Return – (c) Norway’s National Library<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Thinking back more than a quarter of a century, has the record stood the test of time? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think so \u2013 we\u2019re still playing a lot of the songs live.\nWe had a break with RETURN a few months after Grunge started to rule the world.\nI think it was better for us to stop the machinery, We didn\u2019t want to adapt the\nwave into our sound like so many other bands did. RETURN came back in 2000,\nrefreshed and could play on as if Grunge never had happened.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Never\nthought \u201cV\u201d needed any, but are you satisfied with the remastering from Chris\nLyne?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We only have heard a few songs at the moment and they\nsound really great. Chris did an excellent job. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have\nyou recorded exactly the number of songs needed for \u201cV\u201d or why aren\u2019t there any\nbonus tracks on offer?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before we started the recording process, there were\nabout 20 songs to choose from. But Ole (Evenrude) forced us to a hard judgement\nwith our music, so we sometimes were one song short. So when it came to the\nsurprising offer of that re-release, we had no bonus tracks for AOR\nHeaven.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Norway must have been a village musically at the time, because well-known producer\/ songwriter OLE EVENRUDE supervised the whole thing. How was working with him?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fantastic \u2013 he had a clear vision how he wanted us to\nsound. Working with him was quite easy, because he is a musician as well. His\nparticipation made the record so good. The band wasn\u2019t quite sure which direction\nto follow, so we needed a strong producer, which Ole was. We became close\nfriends and we did an acoustic show with him in his hometown a few days ago\n(mid February). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well\nknown Swedish songwriter Nestor Geli helped with his skills on some of the\ntracks. How did you convince him to contribute?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was the idea of Ole or maybe from Dag Finn of SHA-BOOM as well. Nestor helped us a lot with the lyrics by just changing two or three words in a song. Our English was simply not good enough at the time, so his expertise helped a lot. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tell\nme about your songwriting \u2013 do you sit in your studio and jam around on your\nacoustic?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A bit if everything. Steinar Hagen, our former lead guitarist, wrote a lot of the music in the early days. That changed a bit for the next albums. I did quite a few songs as well and Henning Ramseth, Steinar\u2019s follow-up, contributed some stuff for \u201cV\u201d. Before it came to recording, we met ourselves to arrange the music. As you know, doing an album in the 80s and 90s was really expensive. Two or three songs were changed in the very last minute due to Ole\u2019s influence, but it made the record better!  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Return in 1993 (c) Marius Nilsen<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Don\u2019t\nyou think it was very courageous to start the album not only with two of the\nsofter songs but orchestration on \u201cLife Must Go on\u201d as well?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The band wanted the album to open with some Rock N\u2019 Roll, but the producer\u2019s will won in the end. I learned that a producer has to fight against the musicians and I have no problem with it when the result is better. And a good song will always be a good one, no matter if it\u2019s soft or heavy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGoin\u2019\nBack\u201d is a very cool song with its GOLDEN EARRING \u201cRadar Love\u201d parts thrown in.\nWas this intentional or coincidental?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That came accidental. We needed some click track to\nhelp the drummer and somebody threw in this idea to make the song sound as it\nnever stops. In my opinion, it\u2019s the most American song we ever did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRoom\nIn Your Life\u201d, \u201cRidin\u2019 On A Rainbow\u201d and \u201cLion\u2019s Eye\u201d are my most loved cuts of\nthe CD. What can you tell me about it?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLion\u2019s Eye\u201d wasn\u2019t played live quite often \u2013 maybe a few times just after the CD was released. Glad you like the song, because I think, I wrote it. \u201cRoom In Your Life\u201d is still in our set until today. I love \u201cRidin\u2019 On A Rainbow\u201d very much as well \u2013 a raw rock song, good to play on stage. The guitar solo is very cool, too!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nquite famous German \u201cH.e.a.t Festival\u201d will take place again in November this\nyear. Have you asked Georg Siegl (AOR Heaven) if RETURN could play there as\nwell?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We played there already a few years ago. It was\nfantastic, because every person in the room came to listen to your music. We\ndefinitely have to show up there again!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Will\nyou record a new album in the not too distant future?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don\u2019t think so. Doing two or three new songs each year\nis realistic, but recording a proper album is very much time-consuming. And as\na musician you have to look for opportunities which bring you money! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andreas\nH\u00f6hn<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seems I\u2019m the anniversary man at the moment. First MALLET, then HARTMANN and now it\u2019s time for RETURN. March 27th…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":1056,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews","category-interviews-interviews","wpcat-5-id","wpcat-20-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aormusic.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aormusic.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aormusic.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aormusic.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aormusic.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1058"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.aormusic.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1058\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1233,"href":"https:\/\/www.aormusic.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1058\/revisions\/1233"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aormusic.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aormusic.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aormusic.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aormusic.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}