It’s been five years since we checked in with the Norwegian bluegrass band, Strengeplukk. The group, which is based in Oslo — with the exception of mandolin player Andreas Barsnes Onarheim, who is based in Stavanger on the country’s west coast — was founded in 2015 at the music conservatory in Stavanger, where most of the members were studying to be jazz musicians. “Our former banjo player, Thorbjørn Olsen, was the one to introduce many of us to the genre,” Onarheim says. “And for different reasons, we very quickly became pretty much obsessed with it. Everyone was studying their respective instruments. I was an ex-guitarist who had to pick up the mandolin.”
Last year, Olsen, a founding member, left the band, but they quickly recruited Mikael Jonassen to replace him. Currently, the band’s lineup consists of Jonassen (banjo), Onarheim (mandolin), Jakob Folke Ossum (guitar), Nikolai Storevik (fiddle), and Vidar Starheimsæter (bass).
“Everybody in the band sings, but on our upcoming fourth record, everyone does lead vocals on at least one tune,” Onarheim added.
The personnel shift isn’t the only development since we spoke to the band last. “Our sound has changed, depending on which project we are doing,” Jonassen noted. “We have gone through periods diving into traditional, modern, and progressive bluegrass, as well as doing one EP where we recorded traditional Norwegian folk music arranged for a five-piece bluegrass band. A common denominator has always been our Norwegian lyrics, sung in our own Norwegian dialects. This latest project has all the band members featured on lead vocals, and so the dialect variety is bigger than on the previous albums. Each track is arranged differently depending on the song.”
As before, Strengeplukk continue to cull their influences from a variety of sources. “Like many other bluegrass bands of our generation, we find inspiration in both new and old, and of course not just in bluegrass, but in all kinds of genres,” Onarheim continued. “When we started out, we were coming from jazz, and we quickly got sucked into the virtuoso sounds of artists such as Bryan Sutton, Punch Brothers, and Béla Fleck on the progressive side, as well as more traditional powerhouses like Jim VanCleve (who actually mixed one of our previous records!), Bobby Hicks, and, of course, all of the classic greats.”
The band has toured in their native country every year since they started out, and they now estimate that they’ve played around 300 gigs in total. In addition, they’ve performed annually at Norway’s biggest bluegrass festival — or, as they put it, “pretty much the only festival in Norway.” They’ve also played at several country music festivals.
“Two years ago, we split the bluegrass stage at Norsk Countrytreff with Seth Mulder & Midnight Run, which was a blast,” Jonassen recalled. “Lately, we’ve been booked to play bigger non-bluegrass festivals in Norway, which has been very exciting. Now we’re working on how to translate our tried-and-true single microphone setup onto bigger stages. Last year, Andreas built a wireless in-ear rig that we’re still getting used to.”
“Abroad, we have played at Rotterdam Bluegrass Festival and European World of Bluegrass in the Netherlands, and the Nääsville and Grenna festivals in Sweden. With our very Norwegian lyrics, that’s pretty much it for abroad, but all of us have been to other festivals outside Norway as members of other bands. It’s always fun to see non-Norwegian speakers in the audience try to parse our very Norwegian lyrics, and we definitely feel ready to take on the rest of the world… as soon as we finish our translated lyrics handout book.”
“We hope to get to the States soon,” Onarheim added.
Jonassen mentions that in 2021, they went on a large theater tour with Judy Collins and Jonas Fjeld, a legendary Norwegian singer/songwriter. “They were enjoying international success with their album, Winter Stories, and the band they had played with up until that point was Chatham County Line,” he notes. “Travel restrictions during the pandemic made it easier for them to travel with a Norwegian bluegrass band, and we got the gig. We really hit it off, and had some great weeks with them on the road. Getting that chance was great for us, both as a band and as individual musicians. Since then, the band has collaborated many more times with Jonas Fjeld, and our mandolin player Andreas is now a permanent member of his band.”
Meanwhile, the group continues to reap the admiration and appreciation of audiences back home. “Once people get to hear us, they love it and want to come back,” Onarheim adds. “In our experience, very few Norwegians know about bluegrass, but they will always enjoy quality bluegrass if they go see it.”
As mentioned before, the band’s big news is that they are preparing the release of a new album — their fourth so far — early next year. On August 23, they previewed it with its first single, Før kvelden er forbi. “Our previous record, Nålauget (or Eye of the Needle) was a straight-forward bluegrass album,” Onarheim said. “The next one, which we are really excited about, has a lot more variation to it in that each member has brought more of their own personal flavor in the song writing.”
Streneplukk’s three previously albums are Fjellvegen (The Mountain Road) from 2018, Nyslått Blågras (Newly Mowed Bluegrass), a double EP released in 2020, and the aforementioned Nålauget, which appeared last year.
“In a typical Strengeplukk set, we’ll do almost exclusively original songs,” Onarheim mentioned. “The ratio has gradually skewed more towards originals as we have gotten a bigger catalog. That being said, we have been hosting and going to bluegrass jams for a cumulative 50 years, so our bluegrass standard repertoire is, of course even bigger, and we are not strangers to throwing in a few cover songs in a set.”
As before, the band offers its own explanation of why bluegrass has become such a worldwide phenomenon.
“There are a lot of factors here,” the two agreed. “But here’s a list of things we think contributes to the steady growth of the movement of fans and musicians — that is the bluegrass community. Bluegrass, at its core, is easy to get into for new listeners, the chord structure is simple, melodies are clear and repetitive and also strongly underlined by musicians when they improvise. Joining musicians in a jam has a low threshold, so all that’s needed is just to learn two or three chords. There are a lot of fiddle tunes and songs you can jam along to. Bluegrass musicians and audiences in general are really kind people!”
