Lister

By Thomas Meesenburg
Translated by Lea Enslev

If you find yourself facing many troubles one day, then listen to this advice in order to get relief from your pessismism: Listen to the Bodebrixen hit “Keychain” or maybe take a look at their charming video of “Clock Radio”. It is not a very frequent experience to come across pop carpentries that life affirming – especially in Denmark, where the band differs strongly from the broad spectre of melancholic indie rock bands.

From Jazz to Pop

I have found all seven members of the band, which have started to prepare for their concert that evening on the Pavilion Junior Stage by consuming an unusual menu consisting of coffee and nachos. They arrived from Italy the day before, where they played a gig for a group of partying Italians, who did not know their music beforehand.

The name of the band stem from the men in the front, Aske Bode and Andreas Brixen, who originally met each other during a stay at a folk school, where they agreed on creating a jazz band. Meanwhile, things did not quite turn out as planned, Aske explains:

“Our music changed along the way and became less jazz-like. We went to the studio, and at that time the point was that all members should sing. Andreas started singing, and we thought to ourselves: ‘That sounds kinda cool, actually,’ and from that day he was the singer.”

The connection to Sweden

Bodebrixen has described themselves as being “A Danish band who wants to be Swedish” on their MySpace site, and the connections to Sweden still remain a central idea:

“We found out that a great deal of the bands we listened to were Swedish,” Andreas says, before Aske takes over and explains their fascination: “It’s cool to be able to create pop music while remembering your heart and soul in the process, so everything isn’t just plastic and surface. I think that Swedes are very good at daring to create catchy music, believing in it and following your heart.”

If you listen closely, you will be able to hear the connections to Swedish indie pop hot shots like Peter, Bjorn and John, Håkan Hellstrøm and Jens Lekman in the band’s use of themes, odd texts, multi-faceted orchestration and several twinkles in their eyes.

The Roskilde-Gig

Many of the band members feel a close relation to Roskilde Festival and look forward to trying their strengths with the audience:

“We really expect to have fun. In Italy we needed to convince people, but here the audience is very open and not prejudiced. We feel sure that the audience is cool, so all you need to do is to do a proper piece of work. And then we really want to enjoy it.”