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| 13 March 2004 |
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| On the journey up |
| Source : Avisa Nordland |
When is Lene Marlin going to do a concert? She doesn't know herself, but is pottering and playing with the thought. Lene has never been singing in a microphone in a concert hall.
The challenges and surprises have been queueing up for Lene Marlin Pedersen. Many girls are writing a diary when they're fourteen years of age. Lene was writing songs in her girl's room in Tromsø.
- I had no dreams about becoming a pop singer back then. Just loved making music. Playing the guitar. Singing. Not a single day passed by without me doing that, she says.
Found the peace
Lene Marlin is sitting talking with Avisa Nordland in a sofa in a room at the record company Virgin in Oslo. She is talking a lot. Talking fast, is pleased and smiling. Lene is like other charming, North-Norwegian girls in the first half of their twenties.
She claims that she's found a tempo and a calmness now that makes her thinking it's fun working again. Four years ago, she received a whole suitcase with Spellemann awards. Then it really hit. Lene Marlin had not been able digesting everything that had happened, from the girl's room to the fact that the whole world was bothering her. She did eventually exceed 1.7 million copies sold of her debut album.
- The Spellemann awards on February 25th, 2000, was my last official appearance. I was insanely tired then. Had been traveling a lot across Europe, without knowing how tired I was. I ran out the back door after the show. Media had no respect about me going to my brother's wedding the same weekend, she says.
In a winter lair
Lene Marlin withdrew. She went into her winter lair, like she's saying herself.
- I was staying in Oslo for the most part the following years. Kept writing songs, but I had not the psychic strength to be able thinking about another record, she continues.
She needed peace. Not everyone handed her that.
- Some of what I easily could have been without in this industry, is the spy journalism. Parts of the media crossed the line in my hard period. I don't accept that Se&Hør is present with two cars with darkened windows for hours outside my apartment, she says.
- But you must expect some bother when you're a pop star?
- I'm doing music. I don't run the country, she answers determinedly. And continues:
- The civility must not disappear even though I'm selling a lot of albums. I don't want it that way. In a period I got really scared about how limitless parts of the media were.
Sad melancholic
Lene Marlin is a pessimist. A pessimist straight through. Someone is calling her sad as well. Not that strange, considering all the sad and melancholic songs she writes.
- I have a changing mood. From the happy part of the scale, to the sad part. Many say that Another Day is about myself. That is also correct to a certain degree, she continues.
The lyrics she won't go into in depth. Lene believes that part of the excitement disappears for the listener if she deepens what setting or what story lies behind.
- It does me well as a songwriter when somebody says that the lyrics mean something for them. No matter whether if they are fourteen or fifty years of age. I wish to have people putting their own thoughts and moods to the things I deliver, she claims. One of Lene Marlin's most pleasant memories is the following:
- I received a letter from a man, 62 years old. He wrote that my album was the reason he had to go and buy a CD-player. That was emotional for me, she says.
No visions
Emotional it also was when her first single, Unforgivable Sinner, got its first noting on the Hit 40 chart of the most played songs on the radio.
- I was seventeen years then. I was seriously delighted, was super-pleased that I was allowed to release an album. To hold the album in my hands. I had no visions of reaching farther than that. When the demand took off, I decided to complete high school in Tromsø. Be a graduate together with my friends, she says.
Marlin didn't foresee the road ahead, but still doesn't have any regrets about that she signed the record deal and threw herself out into the pop roundabout.
- There are things I could be without, but I just have all these wonderful memories and experiences. Even though I got mine to struggle with eventually, I have a relaxed and okay relationship with it now, she continues.
Perfectionist
The album Another Day has exceeded 85.000 copies sold in Norway. She is still doing promotion rounds across Europe for the record, and is especially great in Italy. It's from Italy she's having the largest pressure of doing concerts.
- I have no concrete plans about that. When I do embark on the road to do concerts, I will perform and deliver the very best I have in me. I have a serious respect for being on a stage. I'm a perfectionist.
- This is the greatest challenge now, to do concerts?
- Yes. I didn't come from any band environment or a music environment in Tromsø. Things hit off in such a way that I didn't get the time to prepare anything at all, she says.
- Could there be any concerts during the summer?
- I don't know. Time flies fast. I'm far from finished promoting Another Day out in Europe, she smiles.
Translated by Tef Johs
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