Credit: Found On Internet

The Animal Alpha circus has getting ready to ride into town. One of Norway’s best kept secrets, since signing to indie label Racing Junior late last year they are now threatening to push over into the global mainstream, like some kind of Nordic bird flu. Albeit a Nordic Bird Flu with some killer riffs and an album full of songs that could singe off a Gallagher’s unibrow and still have enough fire to scorch your CD player.

Following a storming performance at this year’s SXSW festival, the band have returned to Norway to prepare for a Summer assault on the world’s senses. Music towers caught up with bass player, Imre Bidtnes, to talk festivals, fanbases, and just what the hell they are doing with all that clown get-up.

Starting with the basics, how did you guys get together?
“We’ve all of course been in other bands before, but none of us knew each other before Animal Alpha formed. Pretty often it’s old friends from school or something, but none of us knew each other from before this band. I used to be Christian [Wibe]’s neighbour and he saw me carrying around equipment and we just started talking and it was kind of a coincidence that we met.

Agnete [Kjølsrud] - she had ads all around town, in clubs and stuff, and she met Christian through that. We got together with Crister [Cederberg], the other guitar player who we’d known from earlier, and then we auditioned drummers to find Thomas Jacobsen. And then we were five people.”

Why did you settle on the name, Animal Alpha?
“First of all, we thought that it sounded good. It’s from the “alpha male” in the animal world, it’s kind of the leader, like the main lion of the pack.”

Is that where you see the band going – leading a musical movement?
“Yeah, but there’s a bit of humour in there too. Animal Alpha, the strongest animal, it sounds tough and rock’n’roll, but it’s also a bit humorous. But we didn’t want to say “here we are in our little band, please listen to us”, we wanted something tough, cool sounding name.