Absent Elk 'Where Id Rather Be' album

In Grimstad, on the southern coast of Norway, there wasn’t much local music to interest Kjetil Morland. As a teenager his eyes and ears were set southwestwards, towards Britain. And like Grimstad’s other famous teenage resident – playwright Henrik Ibsen – Morland began to write his way out of the small town confines. He channelled The Beatles and Blur, The Clash and Nick Drake. He worked on his songcraft, and on his acoustic guitar playing, and on his vocals. But all the while another country was calling him….

In Shoreham, on the southern English coast, for as long as they can remember the only thing school friends Ross Martin (guitar, keyboards), Mike Hillman (guitar) and Ric Wilson (drums) wanted to do was play music. So they formed bands, constantly, repeatedly, from their early teens. They were a funk band, then a melodic rock band, then an indie band. They gigged relentlessly around Brighton and London. They were Freeride, and they were the unfortunately titled Locals Only. ‘We didn’t think that might sound dodgy,’ says Martin with laugh. ‘We were only 13.’ After leaving school they hooked up with James Penhallow (bass). They worked on their songs, and their live shows. Several singers came and went. As soon as they could give up their day jobs, they would...

By 2005, Morland was studying in at Kingston University in London. He’d used the cover of a graphic design degree to get to the UK, the better to have a crack at making it as a singer-songwriter. He gigged around the capital’s dive-bars and grot-clubs, a fresh-faced troubadour with a great line in stunning melodies. Reviewers compared him to the likes of Jeff Buckley, one of the artists who had inspired him in the first place; plaudits didn’t come much better than that. But there were a lot of singer-songwriters in Pete Doherty trilbies cluttering the London scene. Plus, Morland had written a lot of his songs with whole band arrangements in mind.

As it happened, Morland’s girlfriend was from Shoreham. She knew Martin, Hillman, Wilson and Penhallow had just lost a frontman. The timing was perfect. Introductions were made at a beer festival in Shoreham.

‘We’d listened to Kjetil’s demo CD and loved it,’ recalls Martin. ‘As soon as we met him we decided to go off and rehearse together, see what happened.’ The Shoreham boys had a bunch of instrumentals they’d written – could this Norwegian come up with some melodies? Equally, would these English strangers be able to help Kjetil’s ‘folky’ compositions burst into colourful, clattering, noisy life?

Wilson still remembers Morland’s first song that day. ‘He sat down and you’d think he might be nervous, playing in front of four strangers. But he sat down and sang this song he’d written, That’s All. I couldn’t believe it. I got goosebumps. I filmed it on my phone and kept playing it.’

Band had found accomplished frontman; singer had found young-but-seasoned musicians.

‘It was almost a merging process,’ says Morland. ‘This acoustic artist and a band coming together.’

‘We had to take each other out of our comfort zones,’ adds Martin.

Within a matter of weeks the newly-formed five-piece had found a name – ‘it’s a nod to the Scandinavian influence,’ says Morland of Absent Elk. ‘The elk is the king of the forest in Norway... Other than that,’ he admits, ‘the names a bit random’. And they’d written an entire set. A melodic gold-standard was set early on, with Change My World, a beautiful, stripped down song that, in the hands of the ever-evolving young band, soon became an upbeat indie pop number. Once they were in a proper studio, making their tune-stuffed debut album, it would change again, into a sweeping, momentous epic.

Absent Elk spent two years writing, gigging around the south coast and London, and recording a demo. Having created their own DIY buzz they eventually attracted interest from management firms. But as they’d built their own fanbase off their own backs they weren’t about to sign on the dotted line for any old Tom, Dick or Harry Redknapp. If a manager could secure Absent Elk a record deal – and a decent one at that – they’d sign to him.

The band eventually hooked up with hugely respected manager Steve Morton, who in turn hooked the band up with Craig Logan, RCA Label Group MD, in spring 2008. Now Absent Elk could get stuck into what they’d been dreaming of, in Grimstad and Shoreham, for as long as they could remember: writing and recording their songs.

Working with producer Toby Smith, who previously played keyboards with Jamiroquai and runs his own residential studio in Buckinghamshire, Absent Elk set about crafting their songs.

Emily, addressed to Morland’s three-year-old niece ten years in the future, began as an angular choppy guitar riff but has now burst into a jump-around live monster, suffused in layers of soaring backing vocals. First Guitar has a muscular reggae bounce (imagine The Police’s Walking On The Moon rebooted for the noughties) that, on paper, sounds improbable but, in reality, works brilliantly. Martin: ‘That’s one good thing about the way we work, in that some songs begin with Kjetil and some with us: we’re all pulling in different directions, so you get a dynamic album and range of songs.’ As much is evident in Where I’d Rather Be. It started off as a reflection on Morland’s nostalgic longing for Norway but, with all five fast friends chipping in ideas, became a singalong smash.

Most glorious of all is Sun And Water. When, last year, Absent Elk endured a baptism of fire by supporting The Script on a big sell-out UK tour, they had to prove themselves fast. Sun and Water was an instant hit in 3000-plus capacity venues across the country, the strings and brass giving what Wilson calls this ‘big, dramatic James Bond soundtrack feel to it’. With the rousing, climactic Nothing I Can Do closing their sets nightly, it was no wonder Absent Elk’s myspace profile went through the roof after the tour. ‘We got mobbed in our van after the first Script gig,’ remembers Wilson wistfully. ‘A great experience.'

And now they’re about to start doing it – touring, performing, jumping around, encouraging fan mobs – for themselves, on their own tours. The camaraderie that comes of five best mates who’ve come together with a shared, intense enthusiasm for their music is immediately apparent.

‘We’re all from seaside towns on southern coasts,’ notes Morland in his impeccable English. ‘I feel we’re all kinda similar personalities, and that’s one of the reasons we clicked.’

That, and a gift for supremely catchy songs. As Martin puts it, ‘we’ve come a long way together, but we reckon this is only the start.’

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Absent Elk - Where Id Rather Be