Inlägg 418Veronica Nord (Norway) skrev:den 26 augusti 2009 kl. 04:53
Interviewportrait of Alexander Rybak from MAY 2009 in VG Helg (Weekend)

The Pictures in this portrait is here :

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=22065&l=4c1ee73f37&id=100000150643530

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=22066&l=80ca8cce64&id=100000150643530

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=22071&l=ab1f4ea45e&id=100000150643530

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=22072&l=81172a348e&id=100000150643530

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=22073&l=39fc64d19d&id=100000150643530


Foreword from the journalist, Karin Muri:
Alexander Rybak is music. Music combined with much eagerness. The combination has led him far, but Alex will continue. On the way forward it will be "Sasja" who keeps his hands on the wheel himself, which he did, dead tired, on his way to a gig just days after sweeping Moscow. VG weekend got a ride in the backseat, and learned much about his instinctive relationship to music. Alexander owns definite opinions about his musical career and wants minimal creative interference from others. He will play first violin, second violin and all the other tones in his own live. Which he also do on his debut album, which he has made by playing one and one instrument, and then put them together. Alexander is a whole orchestra in himself. And he has more to tell about the love that slipped away.


Alexander Rybak promises that he will never be a "sunglasscelebrity".

He arrives almost sleepless. His smile is in a different place and the body language toneless. The violinbag hanging melancholy in his fingers. The almost surreal Eurovisionfairytale has crashlanded in the Norwegian critic everyday life, he got 3 on the dice (a scale from 1 to 6 in norwegian papers) for the concert he gave yesterday (in Tønsberg). Alex seeks comfort in arms of his manager Kathrine.
- People expect a Madonnaconcert. But I'm just an ordinary man, an amateur who turned professional three months ago, he reminds about.

He asks for coffee. Just that. And drink a cup. Just one. Soon, Alex sits with his hands on the wheel of a bold black Mercedes and drives up the winding, green landscape.
The 23 year old is an artist who prefers to take control himself. His mood has risen far more than the barometric conditions outside the sooty routes. Windshield wipers pushing away cloudburst around him. - It's so wonderful to be in the countryside, here it is completely irrelevant if you're a farmer or the Eurovision celebrity. I am a farmer in my soul.
While Alexander keeps hard focus on highway 34, his European stardom is growing. A beep from his phone, he gets a message that in yet another country, Finland now, he is number1 on the download charts. Around the next corner 700 are waiting in Brekkeparken in Skien. Next day he will go to the 80 million country Germany. He feels the urge to ”råne”( norwegian slang for driving roughly), and do it by turning the P4-music up to a leven which make the eardrum hurt. The eager to comprehend what he really takes part in these days, gets him to hang over the pc into the night.

Alexander reads everything he comes across about himself, and can not sleep. He finds it hard to deal with untruth. - I should really stop reading about myself soon, I promise.
The former strengthtraininginstructor at ”Friskis & Svettis” is not sure whether he has the strenght to deal with the pressure he is exposed to during these days. - I am far from pro enough to cope with this at all levels. But the main thing is to tackle the musical things and to have my own opinions, "he says. When Alex gets enough of bodyguards, black Mercedes and people who book appointments for him in the backseat, he jumps off and makes it his own way. He takes the Nesodden ferry.

Music. In Alexander's life is related to everything that has to do with feelings. - Music controls me like a puppet or doll, and I have learned to use it to my advantage.

If one is in a relationship and just become single, it’s a bit difficult to go out on the town and enjoy Eminem. When you're with someone, one should listen to Postgirobygget (google it :-) ). The music controls peoples life unconsciously, the music is a unconscious manipulator, saysAlexander.

The violinist, pianist, singer and bachelorstudent at the Barratt Due Institute of Music operates in the tensionfield between Rachmaninov and Postgirobygget, the compositional skills, the conversion of chords and carefully figure out ”the winner recipe formula” of former Eurovisionwinners. -Bad composers borrow, the good ones steals. I have never quite groundbreaking ideas, I always steal. I actually am a little bit angry with people who will put their stamp on things and show off with the finest lyrical words they find in the English dictionary. I have absolutely not renewed Eurovision, but seen what was successful 30 years ago. Common denominator is a good song. I adapted myself and didn'’t put my stamp on it.

The good melody had an intuitive and early effect in Alexander's life.
- He was very interested in anything that had to do with sound, and when he heard a tune he liked, he was completely still, he who usually was so energetic", says mom Natasja Rybak. She sat back in the Belarus capital of Minsk with a four year old boy, when a drama observed in Norway. The year was 1990.

* I have left out the now wellknown story of Igor Rybak coming to Norway *

- What my father did was a great heroicdeed for us", says Alexander. He admires his violinplaying father for his ability to be playful and childlike, and for being one of the best composers he knows about. When the musicianson now, two decades later, publishes his debut album "Fairytales" in Norway and a lots of other European countries, it is mum and dad who will get the thanks. "I will never forget what my parents did for me, and I know I would never have reached so far without them," writes Alexander in the cdcover. - Mom is a super woman with a lot of responsibility, understanding and empathy.

She works with four choirs, is a permanent employee of the Steinerschool and the organist in Nesodden three churches. Yet she has time to spoil me away when I get home. Her little "Sasja" plans to give his mom a surprise artist in 50-year gift. Maybe Hanne Krogh, Stephen Ackles and Dennis Storhøi is among those who will contribute. All together are artists who have become familiar with and fond of Alexander's mother, Natasja Rybak.

Alexander has blinked the lenses in place, messed his hair, cleaned his theets and lubricated pomade on his lips. Soon he is Alexander who toss his head, plays with his hair, plays violin in kneestanding, shares his waterglass with the ”girlsea” below the stage and sings what he describes as the best thing that has happened in his life - "Funny little world". The girls scream. The girls are in love. - When I first am a young girl idol, I am surprised over that when such a large group of girls is there, that also "hard to get - girls" are with. I just wonder how long it will last Alexander interrupt himself, and admits that he in a new relationship is not the one who likes to take the first initiative. He likes to get a clue.

Alexander has been more careful to talk about his lovelife. - There is always a journalist who does not know where to draw the line. I think a few words ought to be able to stand for thought and that some questions need to be able to stand with open answers. Who the girl he had dinner with in Moscow is a secret, but they agreed on that "fans" are the most unsexy word.

Which memories reminds back from Moscow? - That it was great to attend and that I am most of all going to remember the musical parts, and ofcourse the friends. Emotions and relationships are the same all the time. I am not a party man and I had to go to bed early. Party for me to play Super Mario with a girl. I don’t get the thing about parties, suddenly everybody is going to wave with their hands.

-How was it to met with the Russian again? -A meeting with a lot of words I had forgotten and that came back to me. I missed melancholy and had a naive view that everybody went around with an accordion and vodka and sang sad songs. Moscow has changed and it has been a good change.

- What is the story of Alexander Rybaks life? - That I'm proud to have been in love with a girl in many, many years.
The theme of "Fairytale" continues in several of the songs on the new cd, but he promises that he has not made ten new songs about broken hearts with fiddleplay in between. - I want to surprise and maybe teach some. Teens want me to be commercial, while people who know of my classical background wants something groundbreaking. I am perhaps some of the most commercial which has happened in a long time. I am often met with surprise because I have so many opinions about how things should be. I'm tired of meeting people who think I should be satisfied as long as I have been on television.

One of Alexander's first violin teacher, the Russianborn professor at the academy, Isaac Shuldman, taught the boy the demanding exercise to play Sibelius, Bach and Tchaikovsky. He himself played with Isaac Stern.
- Everybody loves Sasja, but he was a young and difficult student, "says Shuldman. - He is very gifted and has had a great development, but it was always difficult to convince him. But I like the kind of musicians, who have opinions and who dare to be themselves.

The evening has robbed the heat from the day. In a black thin shirt, has he who is referred to as Myllargutten, ”Fiddler on the Roof” , Ole Bull and ”Askeladden”, been standing in one and a half hour after the concert and seen the autographqueue only grow. The fairytaleboy who suddenly stands among the Norwegian people again, do not disappoint a single one of them who will meet him.

Alexander Rybak is described as good in being a humanbeing . He is social and loves talking to people. And on a sort of unconscious quest for life's mysteries. - I am hard working, and have decided never to fly on a wave of applause. - What are you more? - Shatterbrained, and a guineapig trying out new formula, which enjoys praise and must take the rap if it dosent works. Besides, I am naïve. Naive in the sense that I think it’s enough to just be me.