Band Of The Week #217 - Tigerstate
This week’s Band of the Week is one of Oslo’s most exciting new acts - indie collective Tigerstate, who have just released their new self-titled album via Fig Tree Music.
A sum greater than their individual parts, Tigerstate wear their influences proudly on their sleeves while remaining current, fresh and exciting. Produced by Marius Elfstedt, Hans Kristian Nordin and the band, the album is packed with pop bangers. Leading with the irresistible first single ‘Occupied’, the album features the hazy, funk filled ‘Besserwisser’; the psyche, soul influenced ‘Back To You’; sun-drenched indie hit ‘Loose Ends’ and cosmic summer anthem ‘Sunrise’.
The band took a moment to talk to us about how the album came together.
Hey there Tigerstate - how are you? So your album is out now - how does it feel to have it out there in the world?
Hello, When The Horn Blows! We’re good. Just got back from LA, and back to the Norwegian fall. Thankfully we keep ourselvs busy with this new release. We’re so excited to show everyone this record. We feel like we’ve kept it to ourselvs for so long now. So finally it’s out for everyone to listen to.
Where was it recorded? Any behind the scenes stories from the creative process you are happy to share with us?
We wrote most of the songs together in the basement of the old Swedish embassy. We rented this place for a year in 2020/2021. We needed a creative place where we could share ideas and play music together. After creating a demo album we were ready to record it. So we went to our main guy Hans Kristian Nordin at the Arctic Saga Studios, which is a studio just 20-30 minutes outside of Oslo.
When we’re in the studio we create out own bubble. This bubble is a place where there are no bad ideas. We try basically everything we can think of and then we strip it down afterwards. Nobody knows where the songs will end up. This is the fun thing about being such a big group of people, there are a lot of crazy ideas.
What are the key themes and influences on the album?
While writing the songs for this album we kept in mind an overall theme/concept. We wanted to create a dancy and groovy album, but with a feeling of being a bit misplaced and uncomfortable. Like something’s not quite right. The record is divided into two parts in a way. One side is like the night out, and the other is waking up the day after. One side is like the summer and the other is like the fall. One is like LA and the other like Oslo
The record is very much inspired by disco music from the 70s and 80s, but with a modern twist. We think we achived a clear and crispy sound on our songs, and we hope that our sound seperates us from all the other disco music that we’ve heard. The records is an attempt to represent tigerstate as a group of different songwriters. This makes the record fit into many genres. It is not a disco album, but it has a lot of disco inspired songs. It is not a indie-pop record, but it has a lot of indie-pop-ish songs. We could say that it is a very diverse record, with a lot of small details and easter eggs for the particularily interested.
If the album could be the soundtrack to any film - which one would it be and why?
If the record was to be the soundtrack for a film, it would have to be «Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit». I think we can all agree that this is a great movie. We are a kind of geeky group of people and we like things that are corny and weird. To us, there is no point doing something that has already been done. If we were to make the soundtrack for a movie one day, it would be the coolest thing. How cool would that be! That would actually be a dream come true.
Do you have a favorite lyric on the album - if so, which one and why?
One of our favorite lyrics on the album is the «Loose Ends» lyric. It goes:
“Honey,
I got a lot of loose ends
and far too many fake ass friends
but you’re not one of them”
The lyric kind of sums up our relationship to each other. We are a group of friends who does a lot of different things. We have a lot of unfinished business. Some of us are still in school as design and architecture students, some of us are working as chefs and bartenders, some of us are learning programming, some of us are playing in other bands, some of us are in real estate and some of us are in the healthcare. Tigerstate is a space where all these loose ends meet up and create something together, across different lifestyles.
Now the album is out there - what next?
Finally our album is out! We’ve been looking forward to this. Next up for us is playing gigs around in Norway. This will happen after christmas. We are preparing the biggest showcase we’ve ever done and we’re really stoked to show the world this tour.
While we were in LA a few weeks ago, we worked on some new material. We will work with these ideas in the studio the upcoming months. We also have some really big news for the summer, but we can’t tell you just yet, but we promise that it will be awesome.
