Maestro

Biography

Maestro is the third studio album by Kaizers Orchestra, released on August 15, 2005. Achieving more critical praise and sales in the band's homeland than its predecessor, it nevertheless failed to become a sales success outside of Norway, eventually culminating in the band's release from their contract with Universal Germany. After the release of their second studio album, Evig pint, band founder and main songwriter Janove Ottesen hit a creative wall and struggled to write new material. After m...

Maestro is the third studio album by Kaizers Orchestra, released on August 15, 2005. Achieving more critical praise and sales in the band's homeland than its predecessor, it nevertheless failed to become a sales success outside of Norway, eventually culminating in the band's release from their contract with Universal Germany. After the release of their second studio album, Evig pint, band founder and main songwriter Janove Ottesen hit a creative wall and struggled to write new material. After many songwriting sessions at Mono, a small club in Oslo, Ottesen finally found the inspiration to write "Dieter Meyers Inst." - the song's lyrics, regarding someone who is committed to a mental hospital, became the new lyrical "setting" for the band's next studio album; Ottesen and Geir Zahl begun writing new material whose lyrics mostly pertained to the mental hospital known as Dieter Meyers Institution. A 30-track demo was recorded in January 2004. The first new song to be performed was "Medisin & psykiatri", which was performed for the first time at Rockefeller in Oslo, Norway on February 27, as part of the longest set the band have ever performed. "Medisin & psykiatri" remained a staple at the band's shows throughout most of the year, with another new track, "På ditt skift" being performed for the first time in April. Concurrently, another song, "Tokyo Ice til Clementine", was performed acoustically (sometimes without all members present) for a number of radio stations. On February 12, 2005, the band performed on top of Prekestolen (Pulpit Rock), a famous rocky plateau in the mountains near Lysefjorden in the county of Rogaland. This unexpected stunt became a huge international media success story. During this concert, three new songs - "Blitzregn Baby", Delikatessen" and "Maestro" - were performed for the first time. The latter two songs were performed and broadcasted on German Radio as part of the Norwegischer Abend in Bochum, Germany in May. The songs also became part of the live repertoire during the small series of concerts that continued through the summer. The Maestro EP, containing studio recordings of "Maestro" and "På ditt skift", the B-sides "D-dagen" and "Sorti" as well as the music video for "Maestro", was released in Norway on July 4. On July 18, Kaizers Orchestra held a show on the roof of the Universal offices in Berlin, Germany. A week later, the Maestro EP was released in Germany. Maestro was released in Norway on August 15, and a release party (where, ironically, no songs from the new album were played) was held at the small venue Internasjonalen in Oslo. The album received high praise from critics and became an instant sales success, instantly becoming the #1 album on the Norwegian Top 40 album charts and staying on the charts for 20 weeks. The second single, "Knekker deg til sist", which also had a video shot for it, was put into radio circulation a month after the album's release. A planned third single, "Christiania" was recalled, but promo copies were still printed. The first leg of the subsequent "Maestro Tour" began with a "dress rehearsal" show at Folken in Stavanger, Norway on August 30. After four additional shows in Norway as well as a performance on Norwegian radio, Kaizers Orchestra performed shows in Denmark, Sweden, Germany, The Netherlands, Switzerland and Spain. The concert at Vega on October 18 was recorded and would eventually become their first live album, Live at Vega. In preparation for the Norway-exclusive second leg of the tour, they released a Limited Edition Tour edition of Maestro, bundled with a bonus CD featuring a studio recording of "Tokyo Ice til Clementine", the Geir Zahl composition "Kalifornia" and a cover of "Action", originally written by Joachim Nielsen, better known as Jokke. Despite the success of the album in Scandinavia, album sales in Germany were disappointing, eventually leading to Kaizers Orchestra being dropped from the label in 2006. The band cited lack of support and promotion on the part of Universal Germany as part of the reason for the disappointing sales. In Norway, the album was certified as a platinum seller in 2006. In 2009, Kaizers Orchestra released their fifth studio album, Våre demoner, featuring re-recordings of songs that were not included on previous albums due to various reasons. The album's title track, "Våre demoner" was recorded as part of the 30-track demo for Maestro, but had unlike the majority of the demo found its way onto the Internet. "Fanden hakk i hel" was written for Maestro and was rehearsed in 2005, but the band had grown tired of the song prior to the recording sessions. Finally, it featured "Medisin & psykiatri"; the album was released almost six years after the first performance of the first song written for the third album. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.