Going For The One
Motorpsycho had an action-packed 2020 planned. With three different albums recorded - including a collaboration with an old-school Norwegian icon - and a summer of touring scheduled, along came a crisis like no other. But at least their new, politically charged double album, The All Is One, has emerged. Vocalist and bassist Bent Sæther reveals how their sleeve artist influenced their most ambitious music yet.
Words: Jo Kendall Images: Terje Visnes
In 2019, Trondheim’s hairiest experimental rockers Motorpsycho were on a roll. That February they released the second part of a trilogy, The Crucible, a three-tracker that followed 2017’s The Tower. They’d recorded three new records, worked on various production projects, set up tour dates. But, come spring this year, everything changed.
“We had big plans that went on hold,” says bassist-vocalist Bent Sæther, on the phone to Prog during a heatwave in Trondheim. “No touring. No income. The same for us as everyone else.”
“After the American presidential election, it really hit home how fragile this world is. Two of us have now turned 50. We’re grown up, we have children, we care a bit more than we used to about the world. So this is our third album about this.”
Sæther is remarkably relaxed about the scenario; he and the band have had half a year to get used to it. And for most of the summer of 2020, Motorpsycho were to undertake an unlikely engagement: touring as a backing band for national folk-blues hero Ole Paus.