How do you feel as an ex-Trashcan?
Good! Very busy at the moment with the other band I'm in, Ronny Pøbel. We released our second album in January and have between 1 and 4 gigs every week from January till mid-April, so it's busy times. I have also had the time to start a new band, but because of all the gigging with Pøbel, we've only had a couple of rehearsal. We already have about 7 songs more or less finished though and they sound great.

How was the last gig in Oslo for you?
I thought it was cool as hell! We played 6 - 7 songs more than we usually do in a set and still I think we did an excellent concert. Kept the energy level up during the show, everyone did great and we had a very good atmosphere among the bandmembers both on and off stage. It was very weird to look out into the audience and see people crying for the whole show though. I've never seen that before, but also a great confirmation that we have really meant something to someone out there and that's all we ever set out to do. The show was in a venue that is about twice the size of the venues we usually play in Oslo and it was sold out as fuck, with people coming from all over the world to see the show and a long line of people outside that couldn't get in. I don't think we could have had a better last show.

Have you realized that there will be no more Trashcan Darlings?
Yeah and I'm happy with it. When members' motivation and enthusiasm for a band vanishes, it's very difficult to get things done and it starts tearing on your own motivation and joy of doing it. So there really was no sense in going on. I had almost forgotten how much fun it is to dream up new concepts, create logos, slogans and start with everything fresh. The way it was in the beginning with the Trashcan Darlings. So I'm having a lot more fun now.

A classic one: You were on tour in Germany a couple of times. What is your best / worst tour memory?
That's a tough one. We've been on what...... 12 tours of Europe that all included Germany? There are so many both good and bad memories from all that, you know. You guys were there for some of it! I guess my best memories are of the times when everything seemed to work for us. When the band was being friends and all pulling in the same direction, when the concert was great, the crowd was big and so on..... and there are many times like that. The Force Attack festival in Rostock was very cool in that sense, the tour we did with the Revolvers was another good one. Fuck, I don't really know. Too hard to pick just one thing.
Worst tour memory is pretty much the whole first Getting Away With Murder tour. The atmosphere within the band sucked for most of that tour and all the cancellations and off days made it a lot worse. That's also the only time I can remember our backstage problems interfering with the concerts and we had a few shitty concerts on that tour. Not sure if the audience noticed every night it was off, but I certainly did. We managed to step it up again for the second Getting Away With Murder tour and everything that happened after that, but that first one was mostly a low point for all of us, I guess.
Besides that I think some of the things that were obvious low points of certain tours have turned into the funniest memories, but there are way too many of those to list.

What comes to your mind when you think of your time as a Darling?
Lots of stuff. When you put so much time and energy into something and finally call it a day, it's kinda like looking back on an ex. I guess most of the memories are connected to the songwriting for me. I think we had some truely great songs and writing them was always the coolest part of the band for me. Trashcan Darlings was a great band and I'm glad we quit while we were still great.

During your last shows you played some new songs which you have never played before and said you would put on the next album. What happens with a song like "Sick Of War" now?
I only did the riff during the stops and some background accents and arranging for that. Frankie did the highpitched riff over the second part of the intro. The rest of that song is all Strange?'s, so I guess you have to ask him what he plans to do with it. My new song was "No Hard Feelings" and we're playing that with our new band. It will be on the first album. Not much has changed with it, except I sing it in a higher pitch, which works better for the song.

Are there any plans to release more Trashcan Darlings stuff in the future? For example material from the 10-Year anniversary gig, a live album or another DVD?
We'd love to! We contemplated filming the last show with several cameras, recording the sound professionally and releasing a Goodbye On A Chemical High DVD with the whole show and 4 or 5 unreleased music videos + new interviews as a "going away" thing, but at this day in age with downloading being such a big problem for bands our size, we couldn't possibly justify a release like that financially. Especially now that we are broken up and won't tour to promote it. It's a shame really, cause it could have been a very cool release, but the market just isn't there anymore.

When you played in Oslo you often gave new bands like "Hell Dörmer" and "Hollywood Vampires" a chance to play in front of a bigger crowd. Did you select your own supportbands? Do you support new bands with other things?
In Oslo we always chose our own supportbands. Sometimes in other places too, but it's easier in Oslo where we know more bands than in a city we've never been before. We had bands like the Backstreet Girls and others giving us cool supportslots when we started out, so we're happy to help out other bands as well.
Support with other things? Well, I do mention the ones I like in interviews, if it fits, and I'm also producing the next "Hell Dörmer" record. They are in the process of writing it now and I pop my head in every now and then and suggest changes to the songwriting which they implement into their songs. If my schedule permits it, I will also be in the studio with them to finish the producer job. I was supposed to produce the "Gatecrashers" album, but schedules fucked it up. Still I might be helping them with the mixing and such. We also help bands with connections of course, for gigs, media and stuff like that.

There's a lot of different bands and a many sided music scene in Oslo / Norway, but I don't know any other band that combines Punk with Glamrock like Trashcan Darlings does. When people start to call for a reunion in a few years, is there a chance that you will play together again?
Trashcan Darlings definitely had a unique sound. If you put on a record and you are familiar with the band, you'll know it's Trashcan Darlings even if you've never heard the song and that was always our aim.
Reunion? Anything is possible for money, but it will have to be a REALLY sexy offer!
Realistically I don't see it happening though. We've worked so hard on this band for so many years and really used all our energy on it. Now we've called it quits and we'll all be busy with new projects in the future. So no, I don't really see that happening.

What will you do in the future? Will you continue to make music and what kind of music?
Of course I will! There's a lot of it too..... Let's see, there is Ronny Pøbel, where I play guitar. That's a hard, stripped down punk band with Norwegian lyrics. It's really Ronny's band, but I play guitar and write some music for him as well. Andy is also in that band. We have a good record deal, a booker and a promotion agency. So that band is "well connected", which is a nice change after so many years of doing most of that stuff myself.
Then there is the Suicide Bombers which is my new main band. Including me, Andy and Frankie from Trashcan Darlings and a new bassplayer. I sing lead vocals and play guitar. It's similar to Trashcan Darlings in sound. We're analyzing Trashcan Darlings and working out what we'd like to change and trying to better that before this band launches. The aim is to record an album before we play a gig, so it will be quite a while till anyone hears anything, but Trashcan Darlings fans are gonna love it. It's not punk, it's hard rock, but so was Trashcan Darlings a lot with songs like Electro Shock Rock and Rocket Madonna, so yeah. I'm really enjoying that.
I also have nearly an albums' worth of acoustic ballads and rolling stones type rockers written, which I hope to release as a solo album sometime in the future. Some of those songs you will have heard when we did them as the Strange Dolls, but there are also some fantastic new ones just waiting to be recorded. I'm looking very much forward to that as well, but it's a little on the backburner as the Suicide Bombers and Ronny Pøbel take so much time.