Erlend Øye


Erlend Øye is a Norwegian composer, musician, producer, singer and songwriter from Bergen, best known for being one half of the indie folk duo Kings of Convenience, along with Eirik Glambek Bøe. Among other musical projects he is front-man for the band The Whitest Boy Alive, and has contributed to tracks by electronic music artists such as Dntel and Norwegian duo Röyksopp. He is also the co-founder of the independent label Bubbles Records. Since 2012 he has lived in Sicily and played extensively with trio La Comitiva.

Biography

Bergen

Erlend Øye was born on 21 November 1975 in Bergen, his parents met in 1974 in a demonstration in support of the victims of the 1973 Chilean coup d'état against Salvador Allende that took place in Bergen, at which time his father read a poem, which allowed him to meet Øye's mother. Having grown up listening to Leonard Cohen, Nick Drake, Suzanne Vega and The Smiths, during high school in the early-mid 1990s, he and some of his friends formed the band Skog, taking inspiration from the famous song "A Forest" by The Cure. In 1996 he joined the band Peachfuzz as electric guitarist, playing several times in London between 1996 and 1998.
In 2008 he started to collaborate on a project with Mikal Telle of Tellé Records and they created the independent label Opplett with the aim of producing young talent from Bergen and the surrounding area. The label Opplett published three projects: the album Opplett 2008 that contains seven songs by seven different artists ; the first single of Indie rock band Razika called Love is All About the Timing; and the first album of the band Fjorden Baby!.

London

In 1998 he moved to London and then in 1999 to Manchester.
When he was back home in Bergen for vacations he jammed with Eirik Glambek Bøe, his former high school and Skog mate. The duo formed Kings of Convenience in 1998 and released the debut record, Quiet is the New Loud, in 2001.

Berlin

In the same period, he collaborated with the electronic Norwegian duo Röyksopp, lending his voice for the song Poor Leno and Remind Me on the record Melody A.M.. As a result, he became interested in electronic music and spent the next years in Berlin from 2002 to 2006 or travelling around the world, recording his solo album Unrest in ten different cities with ten different electronic artists. He toured as a DJ, singing along with the records that he played and released a remix record for the DJ Kicks series in 2004. In the same year, Kings of Convenience released the second record Riot on an Empty Street. Meanwhile, he founded another project in Berlin, The Whitest Boy Alive. The band originally started as an electronic band, but slowly developed into a band with no electronic elements, releasing the debut record Dreams in 2006, while the latest record entitled Rules was released in 2009. Both the records were released by Bubbles Records, the independent label founded by Erlend Øye and Marcin Öz in 2006.
In 2006, he appeared in the Italian movie Shooting Silvio acting as DJ during a house party. In 2009, Kings of Convenience released the third record Declaration of Dependence. In 2011 and 2013, he produced the records Hest and Six months is a long time by fellow Bergen band Kakkmaddafakka.

Sicily

In 2012, during a small concert organized in a vernissage in Ortigia in Sicily, he publicly stated that he had bought a house in the city of Syracuse to move there with his mother. In 2013, he released a new single, entitled La Prima Estate, sung in Italian and inspired by his time living in Italy, which is accompanied by a videoclip shot in Syracuse. He is currently working on more songs in Italian, which will be made into an album. In 2014, The Whitest Boy Alive announced the end of the project. On 3 October 2014, he released his second solo album Legao, recorded in Reykjavík with Hjálmar, a reggae group from Iceland, which was anticipated by the single Garota with a videoclip shot in Seoul. Despite currently living in Sicily, he is still involved in the Bergen music scene, promoting local bands and assisting the organization of the annual Traena Music Festival.

Chile

On numerous occasions Øye has visited Chile. His first presentation was in 2006, during his tour in South America. In 2017 he traveled to Chile to spend a season at the home of a close friend who lived in Santiago, where he mainly dedicated himself to composing songs in ukulele. After playing at the "En Orbita" Festival, he meets Tiare Galaz, who also used ukulele. After talking with Tiare in the backstage, they agreed to meet another day to share their experiences on the instrument. After being invited to dinner the next day by Tiare, he meets Diego Lorenzini, who brought him a chord notebook. Some time later, he was invited to a series of concerts of the Matiné Uva Robot, where he meets musicians Rosario Alfonso and Javier Bobbert. In an interview with CNN Chile, he said "from that moment on we started to play regularly while I was in Chile. It was very surprising to see how the musical search of these four Chileans was very similar to what I was doing with the support band that I had formed with three Sicilian friends - called La Comitiva -, so I finally decided to invite them to open my tour of Germany together". Chilean artists were invited to a tour with Øye through Europe, where he established a great friendship with Chilean musicians. During the summer of 2018, he returned to Chile to accompany the Swedish-Argentine singer-songwriter José González, and later accompanied Niña Tormenta, Diego Lorenizi and the band Salanca Selector at an outdoor concert in the Chilean town of Pirque. In 2019 Øye collaborated with Diego Lorenzini in his song Me voy a Valparaíso from his album De algo hay que morir. In late 2019, The Whitest Boy Alive announced a new series of performances in Chile and Argentina and in 2020 released the non-album single Serious, the project's first new material since 2009's Rules.

Discography

Albums

Singles

YearSongArtistAlbumNotes
1999"Brave New World"Kings Of ConvenienceKings Of Convenience
1999"Failure"Kings Of ConvenienceKings Of Convenience
1999"Toxic Girl"Kings Of ConvenienceKings Of Convenience
2001"Failure"Kings Of ConvenienceQuiet Is The New LoudRe-issue; different tracklisting and artwork
2001"Toxic Girl"Kings Of ConvenienceQuiet Is The New LoudRe-issue; different tracklisting and artwork
2001"Winning A Battle, Losing The War"Kings Of ConvenienceQuiet Is The New Loud
2003"Sudden Rush"Erlend ØyeUnrestMusic video directed by Jarvis Cocker
2003"Sheltered Life"Erlend ØyeUnrest
2004"The Black Keys Work"Erlend Øye
2004"Misread"Kings Of ConvenienceRiot On An Empty Street
2004"Inflation" / "Dance With Me"The Whitest Boy Alive / Cosmo VitelliKitsuné MidnightSplit 10" vinyl maxi-single in promotion of compilation album by the label Kitsuné Music; early version of 'Inflation'
2004"I'd Rather Dance With You"Kings Of ConvenienceRiot On An Empty Street
2004"Know-How"Kings Of ConvenienceRiot On An Empty StreetFeaturing Feist
2006"Burning" / "Inflation"The Whitest Boy AliveDreamsDouble A-side single; album version of 'Inflation'; 'Inflation' music video directed by Marcin Öz
2007"Burning"The Whitest Boy AliveDreams
2008"Golden Cage"The Whitest Boy AliveDreamsMusic video directed by Mauro Vecchi
2009"1517"The Whitest Boy AliveRules
2009"Mrs. Cold"Kings Of ConvenienceDeclaration Of Dependence
2009"Boat Behind"Kings Of ConvenienceDeclaration Of Dependence
2013"La Prima Estate"Erlend ØyeNon-album singleMusic video directed by Gabriele Galanti and Marcin Öz
2014"Garota"Erlend ØyeLegaoMusic video directed by Mike Beech
2014"Fence Me In"Erlend ØyeLegaoLive studio session video filmed by Magnus Atli Magnusson
2014"Rainman"Erlend ØyeLegaoMusic video directed by Clara Cebrian
2015"Estate"Erlend ØyeOnde Nostre: Guarda Dove Ti Ho PortatoOriginally by Bruno Martino; from the soundtrack for the documentary 'Peninsula', directed by Luca Merli
2019"Paradiso"Erlend Øye and La ComitivaNon-album singlesFeaturing Stargaze; music video directed by Mike Beech
2019"For The Time Being"Erlend Øye and La ComitivaNon-album singlesOriginally by Phonique
2020"Valdivia"Erlend Øye and La ComitivaNon-album singlesFeaturing Stargaze; music video directed by Abril Shaw
2020"Serious"The Whitest Boy AliveNon-album singles

EPs

YearEPArtistNotes
1996Tom Tids TaleSkogFour-piece band, with Anders Waage Nilsen, Øystein Gjærder Bruvik, and Eirik Glambek Bøe
2000Playing Live In A RoomKings Of ConvenienceLimited release ; live session
2001Magic In The AirKings Of Convenience
2010Kings of Convenience's Live Acoustic Sessions – Milan 2009Kings Of ConvenienceLive session

Collaborations and Guest appearances

Other work

Erlend Øye often performs significantly reworked versions of other bands' songs during his concerts, which is reflected in the vocal interludes on his mixtape album. Among his most-played covers are: