"Just Say Blow!" by Cockroach Clan out now on digital platforms

Pilgrimage
Akke: I never finished this song in time for the recordings, so we made it an intro instead.

Crash Ka-Boom
Akke: I’ve always enjoyed writing tunes with chords and parts that don’t match, and build melody lines on top to make sense of the chaos. The story behind this song is that there is none.

Green Little Apples
Akke: Silver Sun and The Wildhearts were the songwriting inspirations. The words were just words to put on top, no sense, no plot … I hope.

Square John Radio
Akke: A homage to the disgracefully harmless radio station P4. I wanted to write a song to mock their musical profile, so I did. I still love the chorus, though.

Genocider
Akke: I had just come across a composer called Andrew Void Lebber. Just needed to figure out what he would have done if he were a mashed punk with hypervigilance and a Peavey Bandit. I still love the title, though.

1996
Akke: At the time, I should’ve grasped that my place is not behind the microphone, but I never learn. It’s a throwback to the year before 1997, which is why it’s called 1996. I wish I’d remember what actually happened in 1996, so the lyrics would make some sense in 1997.

Emiliano
Akke: Way back I borrowed a book about Emiliano Zapata from Billy. I was beyond fascinated. Before I even got through the first chapter, I sat down to write this song. I’m not a good reader though, don’t think I ever picked up the book again.

Roman Holiday
Akke: It’s all about schadenfreude. “… best fuck you ever had cries like a chainsaw in your ear the moment you jump, that’s when you realize you skipped breakfast and forgot to pay the rent”. This song was re-recorded as the far better “You Have a Bun” 22 years later.

Designer Babies
Billy: How utterly horrible you must feel when your neighbours got a new Tesla, a new garage, a new lawn mower and a new perfect little baby. Especially when your own kids didn’t turn out the way you paved their path for. Good thing there’s a clinic nearby where you can pick some of your best genes to create your future family lineage to perfection then. What a blessing!
Now, get that snotty little intruder in the bedroom upstairs to shut the fuck up, bitch! We got work to do.

Suffocate
Billy: I think you met him too. Or her. This all-consuming leech bombarding you with story after story after story like a never-ending freak train. All in order to surpass your own little anecdote. Never listening. You know his (or hers) facial expression all too fucking well. The expression of a false thinker thinking of a way to come up with a better story than you. You can see he’s not present. And you know all too well where he is.
And when he (or she) starts telling lies behind your back, making your own stories turn into his (or hers), and making you the target of a potential shit storm.
Then it’s NOT the time to say «time to forgive and forget». I’d rather suffocate...slowly!

Three Wishes
Akke: “At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet”, Plato said. Me being mediocre in the English language, not knowing shit about poetry, probably just horny, mashed, and eager to find some words to throw into the song, was no exception. 1997 was a good year for crap poetry and major key choruses.
It’s originally a 3/4 time signature tune, but Billy came up with the brilliant idea to switch to 4/4 after the a cappella intro – which saves Three Wishes from turning out the daffy ballroom dance it was written to be.

My Sweet Satanic Peach
Billy: Every punk with a little self-respect has had a brief love affair with this dark and mysterious goth. Just admit it. Anyway. There’s something odd about submitting to yourself to unpleasant activities just to get your vampire girlfriend to bed. At least when you in fact do not have one single masochistic bone in your very self.
In that case, take my advice and stop pushing alien objects where they don’t belong. If it doesn’t turn you on, that is. Pervert!
Akke: We actually did a video for this one. We had no script, no ideas, but we had an abandoned factory and a nice news reporter with a decent camera.
One of us suddenly came up with the idea to take the piss out of all the hair metal bands around at the time, although none of us but the drummer, Erik Lund, had the sufficient hair growth.
Yeah, we wanted the video to be sarcastic. I think at least a couple of viewers grasped the sarcasm.
Speaking of dark and mysterious goths; It was actually my dark and mysterious goth girlfriend at the time who used various cosmetic techniques to create beauty upon our human bodies for the video. 

Gasbag
Billy: Well, you know what’s going on when … wait … what? Gasbag? Sorry, my memory’s too faded.
Akke: I tend to be obsessed with the use of augmented fifth-chords in rock music. The whole song was actually built around the augmented fifth arpeggio that separates the shuffle-part from the rest of the song. That’s how obsessed I am. You will also find the augmented fifth on My Sweet Satanic Peach, it’s just the perfect chord, bla bla bla …

Mutt & Jeff
Akke: Mutt and Jeff were two mismatched comic strip characters, active in American newspapers from 1907 until 1983. In 1997, they found their way to Cockroach Clans lyric sheets, where they figure as brainless neo-nazis looking for trouble.
Speaking of brainlessness: we nicked parts of the chorus from a well-known Norwegian children’s song about tooth brushing, but didn’t realize until someone later asked us why we nicked parts of the chorus from a well-known Norwegian children’s song about tooth brushing.

Surrender
Akke: A Cheap Trick cover. This is what happens when a lousy singer like me gets to sing the absolutely sweetest rock song ever written. Close your eyes and smell the karaoke.

Kenguruvise
Akke: Back in 1996, we contributed on a compilation called Ellediller & Krokofanter. This was a tribute to the fantastic duo Knutsen & Ludvigsen, renowned for writing and performing songs mostly for children.
We went to Trondheim to record our Knutsen & Ludvigsen cover, but had not yet decided which song to choose. We met up with Jens Petter, the director of our record company at the time – Progress Records, who were very much involved in the release of the compilation. We all got blasted at 3B, decided to record Kenguruvise, and possibly went somewhere to rehearse it, I’m not sure.
I do remember learning how to cover a street with foam from a device used to extinguish small fires, in order to clean up my own puke. I remember insignificant amounts of blood, and enormous amounts people yelling in my ear. I also remember us seeing at least five versions of Åge Aleksandersen at the same time in the recording room at Tyholt. Unfortunately, I don’t remember recording the song, but it turned out pretty neat.