After a festival filled Summer with slots at Træna and Pstereo, Team Me return with the sensitive and mesmerising ‘Into The Wild’, out via Propeller Recordings (Highasakite, Dagny).
Taking a stripped back approach incorporating more natural instrumentation, the track is a refreshing reminder of the 8-piece’s capacity and versatility to write indie bangers in all degrees. Frontman Marius Drogsås Hagen tells of the subject of the track “sometimes you get the urge to disappear and leave behind the ones you love in order to find peace with yourself”, and for Marius it’s about following the need to escape into the wild in order to return to society recharged, and able to appreciate and embrace his relationships.
When speaking of the band’s new chapter, Marius tells “as for the music, I really want to be more focussed on documenting this time, rather than releasing an album and touring for three years on a campaign. I want the project to just be a way to let things out of my system.”
After the vocalist, front figure and founder Marius Drogås Hagen submitted a contribution to NRK P3’s Urørt final in 2010, the story about pop success Team Me grew fast. The albums To The treetops! (2012) and Blind As Night (2014) were both hailed by the audience as well as critics both at home and abroad. Team Me also became a sought after live band. They toured across Europe both from Iceland to Portugal, on to key markets such as Germany and the UK. In Japan To The Treetops! even became the best-selling indie album in 2012, and at home they received the Norwegian Grammy for “Pop of the Year”.
But in 2015 it completely stopped. The success took over and the joy of Team Me slowed down for the founder of the band. “Suddenly some kind of love / hate relationship appeared – what you love most becomes something you resent, because you have taken it too far and you didn’t realize that you should have stopped much earlier”. Five years straight without a break was enough, and Marius finally made the sad decision to retire the whole band and focus on song-writing and studio work.
Marius spent the following years working in a music studio with a childhood friend, immersing himself in synthesizers, producing for artists such as Sløtface and Spielberg and would every now and then escape to the forest and his cabin in Norway. It was perhaps right here that he also subconsciously found the inspiration to bring life back to Team Me. Marius brushed the dust off a guitar and automatically started singing old songs, “it’s in the skeleton and in the blood – it was as if one could not leave it.” And that was exactly the moment he understood that he needed the band back in life.
One year later he gathered a bunch of no less than eight members who will convey both new songs and old pop pearls this summer. From the original crew you will find Bjarne Alexander Ryen Berg, Simen Sandbæk Skari, Uno Møller Christiansen, Simen Schikulski, Elida Inman Tjørve and of course Drogås Hagen himself. In addition, Team Me is joined by Ofelia Østrem Ossum (Einar Stray Orchestra, Moddi) and Andreas Westhagen (Carnival Kids, Eye Emma Jedi).
With two headline shows confirmed in Norway accompanied by extensive festival routing in Summer, and with album writing commencing, 2020 is set to be a busy year for the band.
