Kaizers Orchestra

Kaizers Orchestra saw light in the year 2000, their debut record "Ompa Til Du Dør" was released in Norway in September 2001, on a very small one-man label. Nobody, except maybe the bandmembers themselves, had expected the breakthrough that was to follow.

At that time the band was unknown on the local music scene, but their energetic live-shows and the strong songwriting on the first album, made the band a must, both on the live circuit and in peoples record collections. "Ompa Til Du Dør" sold the incredible amount of 100 000 copies in Norway alone, and was awarded the Norwegian equivalent of Grammy awards.

Kaizers Orchestra started working on their sophomore record in the fall of 2002. The album "Evig Pint" sold 50 000 copies locally, and the video for the title track earned the band another Grammy.

A very succesful show at the Danish Roskilde festival in 2002, started KO's international career. This was followed by Eurosonic in Netherlands, a festival for booking agents and music industry across Europe. In the fall of 2003 they did a six week European tour. It became a huge success, silencing all the voices that had told them that a rockband singing in Norwegian would stand no chance outside their native country.

In 2004, KO, as the first band singing in Norwegian, signed a record deal with Universal Music Germany. Their third album "Maestro" was released in nine countries August 2005.

"Maestro" got raving reviews, and was backed by a new European tour. 32 shows in 38 days, through ten countries.

The DVD “Live at Vega” released in Spring 2006 captures gig nr. 30 at Vega in Copenhagen. 2006 saw the band playing another European tour in March, with even more people turning up at the gigs. This was followed by a number of festivals in the Summer of 2006. Establishing Kaizers as one of the heavily touring festival bands of Europe.

2007 saw Kaizers only playing the Documenta Contemporary Arts exhibition in Kassel and the Sziget festival in Budapest. The bands focus this year was the recording of “Maskineri”. The band was experimenting with some new sounds and wanted to bring another producer on board. They picked Mark Howard who had worked with the likes of Tom Waits, U2, Bob Dylan and Daniel Lanois.

As they also wanted a change of studiofacility after 3 records in Bergen, they went to the former DDR national radio production headquarters in Berlin. Here they found the right sound to record anything from oil barrels to their new marimba.

“Maskineri” is definitely a new Kaizers Orchestra, though with the bands main elements still in place. The album was release in Scandinavia in February. It has already sold platinum in Norway. Release of Maskineri (translate as machinery) in Europe set for March/April.

The release is backed by a “Maskineri Tour” taking the band to all their favourite cities around Europe, and even some new places in Eastern Europe. From May Kaizers will do festivals all around Europe.