Could you first introduce yourself?
Yes, my name is Thomas Dybdahl I am a 27 year old Norwegian artist, sometimes called singer/songwriter but that’s a very vague description, so I don’t really know what that means, I do sing and write songs, so I am a singer/songwriter.

I am from a small town Stavanger from the west coast of Norway and we are here tonight to do a show at Vera in Groningen.

How did you started playing as an artist?
That was probably the same way a billion other singers did it, by Metallica. When the Black album came out there was a song, which you could play with all the strings open (Nothing Else Matters). It was very inspiring and motivating to play a song which you were able to play without really being able to play anything at all. And you know about Metallica, what is cool as a kid, they have guitar parts for all different skills. So if you suck at guitar you can play it, and later if you are better you are able to get better with different parts of the same song and then you get really good.

Did you manage to do the solo’s?
I was pretty nerdy, I was buying all the tablature books. We wanted it to be 100% correct.

Did you play in a band instantly and how did that evolve?
I started playing in lousy cover bands were we played Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Metallica and the Ramones. And then I started writing my first songs at the age of 14 and joined a band for a couple of years were we were playing our own songs. Not ripping of anyone’s music but using what you have learned by ripping other ones music. After that I went to school. In Norway in the last three years of mandatory school you can start to specialize, so I went to a school with music dance and drama. And obviously I didn’t choose dancing and I hadn’t a talent for drama so I choose music. And the last year I started in a band called the Quadraphonics. An acid jazz band influenced by anything by Stevie Wonder to Incognito, Mother Earth all that stuff. I was 18 when I joined the band, and since then full time musician, not making money all the time but we tried. I have played in that band for four years I think. And then we got a bit disillusionized because we got some record deals that didn’t work out. I think we kind of saw the ugly site of the music industry. And I got a little tired of the whole band democracy. I think it was so tiring that everyone had to play on every song and everyone had to be involved in the writing. If someone wasn’t involved and didn’t have to play on one song he got pissed off. That’s when I started writing my own songs for potential solo projects. I was making songs more influenced by my musical background then on the members of the band musical background. The band did not use my songs so my pile of unused songs grew so after all I had lots of songs and started recording them in my own room. It was then becoming very easy to do, just buy a laptop and a microphone and use acid or Vega or a tracker program. And then I just started recording.

I released my first EP "bird" in 2000 and we printed only 300 copies. We didn’t sell them out until last year. And after some time I released another EP “John Wayne” which I combined with an instrumental album. Then I started to get a little bit of attention. In 2001 we started to make very cheap videos that played a little bit on TV. In 2002 I released my first full cd called “That Great October sound”. It was kind of a sleeper hit in Norway. It wasn’t regarded as commercial music, but people liked it and it was being played on the radio and I received some awards for it. Then the ball was rolling. Since then I released three albums, "Stray Dogs", "One day You will dance for me New York" and I released the last one a couple of weeks ago in Norway and is called "Science". Which will come out here in February.

On tour you are playing with a band called The Great October Sound. How did you get in contact with this band?
It was very arbitrary and accidental, because I didn’t really know any people in the music scene in Stavanger because I just moved to Stavanger so then I started looking for people. It was like “If anyone knew someone who could play a Harmon organ then he was in the band”. Except for my drummer he came from the same band as I was in. We had played together for already four years.

Over the years the line-up has changed, just a couple of months ago we had two people quit from the band. So we have now two new people on this tour. We have a guy who is called "the potato" he plays almost everything his name is Mathias Eick he is also playing in the band Jaga Jazzist. And then there is a new pedal steel player called K.K. Karlsen. He comes from The International Tussler Society. The new band is now starting to get really good! The only problem is that they are looking for a new name, but they have to do that for themselves.

You are pretty well known in Norway, playing many sold out concerts, can you still walk around easily in Norway?
No one cares really, and I try not to become like a celebrity thing, which is hard to control. But it worked so far, the gossip magazines are not really interested and that helps a lot. So no worry’s about that.

We saw your show at the Studentersamfundet last year in Trondheim, and we were amazed that the audience mainly consisted of beautiful Norwegian girls. Is there any difference if you compare the people attending your shows in Europe in contrast of Norway?

That’s the funny part of going to Europe, and places in Holland. Know one knows who I am in Holland so people who come to your show are just curious people. It's not like you become a thing. At the concerts here there are all kinds of people. From 70 year old man to a 17 year old girl. If I play here I know I get a honest response, there is no hype around it and it is not a happening. In Norway there are a lot of people who might not really care too much about the music but it’s like the thing to do at night. I love coming here to play, because you truly get honest reactions.

Be sure to read the next part of the interview next week.