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Datarock Ride the Bulldozer
By Marinko Jareb
Coming from Bergen, Norway, a beautiful city known for its music and culture, Frederik Saroea (vocals/guitar) and Ketil Mosnes (bass/keyboards) naturally started making music. “Bergen is a melting pot for musical genres and in our social circle there are many musicians who all do different things,” relates Saroea. “When we started Datarock, there was ten years of rave music, music software was inexpensive, everyone had computers and we had our guitars and instruments and we just made it work.”
The self-described “scruffy punks” cut their teeth playing punk and thrash metal before Datarock, an influence that remains strong in their music. They’ve also take tons of inspiration from Devo and Talking Heads. Saroea says, “That’s the great thing about Datarock, we can do a club night with the Ed Banger guys one night, in Cannes we played with !!! and TV on the Radio. We played with Beastie Boys, and then we played Sonar Festival, which is an experimental music festival. My tip for everyone is to not limit themselves to one genre because you limit your potential bookings.”
The duo has managed to freeze that moment in time where punk rock, disco, synth pop and hip-hop collided to create their fun and funky sound, epitomised by their songs “Fa-Fa-Fa” and “Bulldozer,” which asserts, “BMX! Better than sex!” “In Norway, as a kid, you had organised sports like soccer,” Saroea explains. “Then all of a sudden, BMX bikes, and you go in the woods and ride your bike and do tricks. At the same time break-dancing; you bring out a fucking cardboard box and there you have your athletic environment. Graffiti; no more art school, just get a can of spray and do it. Skateboard — same thing! It totally changed everything — organised sports were replaced by freestyle, independent activities.
It’s important to pay tribute and homage to our generation’s bike. So Kraftwerk have their Tour de France and Datarock has their Bulldozer.” With shows in Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, and the U.S., the boys from Datarock are out to flatten North America.
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