Bjørn Riis
The Airbag guitarist on his new solo album and the future of the band.
“I met the Airbag guys at high school; we all wore Pink Floyd shirts on the first day which pretty much sealed our friendship!”
Bjørn Riis’ passion for Pink Floyd shines through his work both as a solo artist and with Airbag, the band he helped form in 2004. So it comes as a surprise to learn that his biggest influence is actually a theatrical hard rock band.
“When I was eight years old, I would stand in front of the mirror with a Flying V that my teacher had helped me carve from wood, and my face made up like [Kiss singer] Paul Stanley’s,” confesses the Norwegian musician. “I grew up in the 80s so I did all the hair metal, and Kiss were one of the first bands
I got into. Their message of doing what you believe in has always been a huge influence on me and I’m probably a bigger Kiss fan now than I’ve ever been.”
Prog gasps and Riis quickly adds with a chuckle, “But I don’t think you can hear them in my music!”
It’s a warm and sunny day in Oslo when
Prog catches up with Airbag’s leader at the band’s windowless rehearsal studio. He comes across as happy and relaxed – “I’m looking forward to going out in the garden with a cold beer later!” he says – even if such clemency seems at odds with his tempestuous latest offering, A Storm Is Coming.
Where Riis’ 2014 solo debut, Lullabies In A Car Crash, earned him further comparisons to Pink Floyd and Marillion, his fourth recording takes him back to his heavier roots with elements of Deep Purple and Black Sabbath. Riis even admits he used the latter’s Vol 4 as a production template for this album’s stripped-back style. A Storm Is Coming combines those hard edges with tender touches that build on the Porcupine Tree-esque soundscapes from last year’s mini-album, Coming Home. There’s further inspiration from
Archive and Tim Bowness as the guitarist explores the difficulties of human relationships with a little rhythmic help from drummer and Airbag bandmate Henrik Bergan Fossum.
“I’ve always been fascinated by human emotions and human psychology; what makes people fail in their relationships and in their lives, or at least feel that they’re failing,” says Riis. “There’s always an emotion behind my music and people always ask me if I’m feeling okay or if I need help, but it’s not autobiographical. I work as a musical teacher in a kindergarten and I ride the subway every day and see all kinds of people; they’re happy, sad, arguing, yelling at their kids, and you start to wonder why they’re doing that.
“I’ve tried to write both a musical and lyrical narrative using the storm as a metaphor.
I think everyone can relate to that feeling of something bad about to happen; it can be pretty frightening but there’s always a sense of calmness afterwards. Musically, there are quiet passages that go into something heavier to create the same kind of contrast.”
These stylistic variations were born from the guitarist’s desire to experiment with details he wouldn’t normally merge into Airbag’s atmospheric sounds. Opener When Rain Falls and the 15-minute Stormwatch are prime examples of his approach. Both balance their satisfying heaviness with a lighter feel; the punchy former clearing the way to a jazzy second half, and the brooding latter complemented by keys from OAK’s Simen Valldal Johannessen, and Mimmi Tamba’s (from Bowie’s Lazarus musical) stunning vocals. Elsewhere, the soaring
Icarus reaches new heights as Riis switches between a melodic acoustic and grungy electric guitar, with additional bass from Wobbler’s Kristian Hultgren.
“I didn’t get a guitar until I was about 13 or 14 and borrowed an acoustic from a friend so I think I must have been about 20 when I first started playing electric,” he admits. “I discovered Pink Floyd in the early 90s, which was a huge turning point for me, and that led me to wanting to play guitar. I was at an age when music was starting to mean something more and I found comfort in music. I met the Airbag guys at high school; we all wore Pink Floyd shirts on the first day which pretty much sealed our friendship! I remember sitting in my friend’s home, listening to his old vinyl of Pink Floyd on his huge hi-fi system, night after night. Not just The Dark Side Of
The Moon but also the older stuff: Meddle, Atom Heart Mother, Obscured By Clouds, and later on Animals, which is now one of my favourite albums. It was a very magical period for me and I have some really memorable experiences from that time. We all went to see Pink Floyd play at Valle Hovin Stadium here in Oslo on their 1994 [The Division Bell] tour and straight after that we decided to start a band. That’s pretty much when I got my first electric guitar. I believe that’s part of Airbag’s strength: we have a bond not just as musicians but we also discovered music together.”
All this talk of bonding does raise the question of what is going on in the Airbag camp? The band’s last studio album, Disconnected came out in 2016, during which time the five-piece shrunk down to a trio. It was a difficult period, especially given the band’s shared history, yet the personnel changes afforded the opportunity not just for Riis to develop his own solo career, but also for the remaining members to look towards the future. Although it might appear that the band have been on hiatus, behind the scenes there’s been a great deal of activity. Not only have they been working on new material, but earlier this year, Riis, Fossum and vocalist/ guitarist Asle Tostrup regrouped for three shows, including their second Close To The Edge cruise where they debuted a new song with the working title of War.
“It was great fun to play that live.
I think we needed to come out and have that experience to get psyched about the progress ahead,” says Riis. “[Losing keyboard player Jørgen Hagen and original bassist Anders
Hovden] forced us to sit back and figure out where we wanted to go. We’ve been friends since high school but we’d never had that talk; everything came very naturally to us so now we’ve had to sit down and have the talk, and figure out where we want to take the band in the next five or 10 years.”
Although Riis dismisses any suggestions that his solo career might now be eclipsing Airbag, Prog can’t help but wonder if he ever thought Airbag were finished and he’d be better off focusing on his solo work.
“No, not really,” he says almost immediately. “Airbag has always been mainly me writing the songs so I knew if I wanted to keep the band alive, it would stay alive. We had a fairly long pause and it was a case of either starting to work on an Airbag album or me recording a new solo album. I don’t want to sit around waiting for the other guys and I realised that it would be faster for me to make a solo album. I enjoy working on my solo stuff; it’s been great fun and very challenging working on my own and I can definitely see myself making another solo album. I’ve also learned a great deal which I think will enhance Airbag.”
Airbag’s new album is due in 2020. It’s too soon to discuss the music, but Riis does reveal one small detail with a big laugh: “I wouldn’t dare bring any Sabbath riffs to Airbag!”
With a handful of solo shows and a lot of studio sessions already scheduled this year, there’s little danger of the guitarist getting bored. Just as the crepuscular rays of the postrock-infused Epilogue close A Storm Is Coming with a feeling of optimism, it’s clear there are no clouds obscuring Riis’ future.
A Storm Is Coming is out now via Karisma. See www.bjornriis.com for more information.
“There’s always an emotion behind my music and people always ask me if I’m feeling okay or if I need help, but it’s not autobiographical.”