Elektrik Steel’s Mathias Bronnes and Johnny Rotvær’s interview
Written by Kevin Tanza on February 18, 2020
It’s funny how some of these interviews come to be. A friend from Norway handed me this song called Go Big or Go Home by a group called Elektrik Steel and I found to be very enjoyable. It had a very solid guitar work, a strong 80s influence (always a plus for me) and while the vocals were a really rough around the edges, it had a lot of feeling and that did it for me, so I asked my buddy about their albums and he told me they were just starting out. That the guys of the band were only 18 years old.
That obviously caught me off guard and it was a very pleasant surprise. A lot of people love saying that Metal is dead, but you always find new bands trying to make it and creating great metal music. This time, it was the case of Elektrik Steel and their band members, Mathias Bronnes and Johnny Rotvær, who I had the pleasure of interviewing for you for a couple of minutes. I hope you enjoy it.
Thank you, Mathias and Johnny for taking the time to do this. Let’s start from the beginning: What is Elektrik Steel and how it came to be?
Elektrik steel is a heavy metal band i guess you can say, and was two friends that met. We both had a huge dream to become a band. We probably got inspired from the 80s bands.
I know you have been working on your first EP with Modus K Productions and are going to release it with Husmanskost Records. What can you tell us about the role of these companies in your development as a band?
We can’t think of a better answer… they made our dreams possible in a way by helping us produce this EP, and they are huge part of this band’s life. They helped us make a song and we are going to make an EP with them. So it’s amazing to have our dreams just thrown in our laps.
You’re obviously very young and starting out in the music business. Have you developed a certain methodology for your writing process?
The songs we make and come up with are just us sitting in our underwear and jamming together and just say “that was cool, should we keep that”. And just a loud fucking 100 watts amps and guitar. I mean, we are young, but we listen to a lot of metal music from the 80s, so we probably took some methods of theirs, but of course we like to think that we play in our own style.
How much experience do you have doing live performances?
We have done one major live performance, in front of our school. And I know for sure we will play more because we love to play live.
You have a song, Go Big Or Go Home. How was the process of making that song, considering it was the first time you worked in a studio?
It was messy, took some time to put together, but thanks to Modus K and Husmanskost Records it was done in a professional way and it went well in the end. We wrote that together and in that song we tell a story and thanks to the producer we got to do it well.
Thank you so much for this experience, guys. Can you leave us a final message to our readers? Where can we follow you on social media?
METAL UP YOUR ASS
You can follow us on Facebook, just search for Elektric Steel. Same goes for YouTube. And the song go big or go home will be on Spotify and iTunes soon.
You can find Electric Steel on the links below: