Piledriver is not just a fun social activity, if your girlfriend is feeling acrobatic, or a machine that punches columns into the ground. Nor is it just a way to hurt your wrestling partner. It's so much more than that.
Many years ago, by mere chance, I discovered a band from Oslo named Piledriver. (Not to be confused with the rather infantile canadian metal band by the same name btw.) At the time I was 15 years, and Piledriver was some of the heaviest music I had ever heard, and in addition it had the digital edgy drum beats I so craved at the time. Piledriver managed to combine naive synthesizer melodies, dry unemotional drum beats and punk guitars in a most abbrasive way. The uniquely hard core aggression of Are Kleivans vocals completed the package. I remember all too well when they played in Arendal, in 1996. I have never since taken out so much energy in one evening, and I certainly had the black and blue marks on my body to prove it. Thinking back now, as an over the hill guy with a growing belly and gray streaks, I wonder how I survived. Absolutely one of my best musical memories.
Their name was an obvious reference to the way their drums sounded more or less like the industrial machine by the same name. Piledriver started out sometime in the first half of the nineties and released a very dark 7", before finding their unique style and releasing three full length albums and participating on several compilations. They also collaborated with Egil Hegerberg on his anti tagging song, and toured with the most superfluous hip hop act of all time. Sindre Goksøyr also played in the seminal norwegian "dønk rock" band Gluecifer for a while, before they turned into a pop group. They dubbed their way of playing "dunder disco" (thunder disco) and mixed equal doses of anger, humor and great music.
When I first started making music on my own several of the tracks contained obvious references to Piledrivers way of arranging music. I used high pitched repetitive melodies over industrial drums, but without the guitar and vocals. Unfortunately (or perhaps not) all these tracks have been lost by now. But still, Piledriver was one of the first underground acts I heard, and I still love their music.
If you like industrial metal or hardcore Piledriver is worth checking out. Probably not too easy to find though. Piledriver remains one the least known treasures of the norwegian hardcore underground, and as industrial metal goes I don't think most people in the scene have discovered them at all. Hopefully, this will be rectified at some point. Sadly however, they disbanded in 2002 and there isn't much hope for a reunion.
3 comments:
...thanks for the reminder, i did got one of their albums btw ( the name ?!)and at that time it was exiting especially since it was a norwegian band.
Rock out! For a norwegian band they were certainly different and very unompromosing. At the time there wasn't much going on, except for obscure underground techno and black metal. Piledriver was their own thing. More or less.
I discovered them via a compilation that came with the Rock Furore magazine back in 1993, I think. (Stole it like a motherfucker...) Great little thing, with SUPERskill and Mind over Midi and shit. It was a very industrial song, with lyrics that might as well have been written by Grandmaster Sotos himself. About a man playing house with his daughter, you could say.
I just listened to "A Mouthful of Venus's Soda" and was thinking - what happened to them? So I googled and it was rather difficult to find good information. Your post made a difference and I want to thank you for this well written post. So - thank you.
Have a nice evening.
Melanie
Post a Comment