https://jaktogfiske.njff.no/fiske
THE BEST ON PROTEST
Artist, singer-songwriter and fly-fisher Roy Einar Dreng is convinced
that we must allow music to be dark, critic and awareness-rising.
He says that now is the time for protest songs.
There is a vision behind the work with the upcoming album
„Awareness.”
„I want to open people’s eyes,” he says. Dreng’s been for years
writing songs about climate, environment, and conservation of
nature.
His lyrics are often crass, with a bit of melancholy and dystopia,
though the music can be fit in as a waltz or a lighter melody. Kind of a
different theme to the story told.
In the song „Fish Farm Night Mare,” which is a folksong style, the
bridge ends up in a sloppy reggae.
ENEMY AND ROLE MODEL
„No one criticizes Nick Cave, Patti Smith, or Bob Dylan for writing sad,
depressive, or harsh songs, so I keep on writing them, despite
criticism,” Roy Einar Dreng says.
To talk with Dreng without mentioning Dylan is almost impossible.
„Bob Dylan doesn’t know, but he is the one who has taught me the
way to phrase, text-structure, and the method of storytelling,” the
artist points out.
The first meeting with Dylan’s music ended up in frustration for the
15-years old Dreng.
The boy had just started writing songs, but when he met the world of
Dylan’s lyrics, his own words looked like nothing in comparison. So
Deng, who once was a goal-getter on the football field, lost
confidence in writing and started to sing Dylans songs instead. In
1990 he formed BoBBand together with his friend Eldar Kyrkjebø.
They played all over Norway.
DYLANJUKEBOX
„Today, Dylan songs are rarer on the setlist,” Dreng says.
„In the last 15 years, I have mostly been doing my own songs.”
After visiting a monastery around the hills of Ghemme in Nothern
Italy, I cracked the code of songwriting.
The time as a Dylan jukebox was over, and I could get into
songwriting on a whole other level.
And it has been a success, especially in Poland.
„It seemed to me that my kind of music was quite unknown there,”
the musician explained.
Americana and folk music with a Nordic twist.
Roy plays as a solo artist, but he often is accomplished by the Fidler
and mandolin player, Ronnie Gerrard.
„Sometimes we also go as a five-piece band, Roy Einar Dreng &
Friends,” Roy says.
PATIENCE AS BAIT
As for concerts are concerned, Dreng mostly plays at culture houses,
but to find the inspiration, he often uses nature and the river.
„I can tell you I used to fish around 350 days a year,” he says. „Used
to skip homework, yes, almost everything, except football, to get out
in nature to catch fish.”
„Now, I fish more rarely, but my fishing trips are more quality time.”
I go every year to the salmon rivers of Orkla and Stjørdalselva with a
few friends, but in river Aurland, I prefer being alone fishing at night.
„I always bring with me my coffee kettle, Hardy fishing rods, and a
guitar,” he says.
„The first time I went on one of these trips, I had this idea of fishing
at night, sleep, and write throughout the day, but it never worked
out that way. I didn’t write a single line. It doesn’t work that way for
me. For me, the writing process takes time. I need time to absorb my
impressions and feelings.”
„Pasion needed in fishing and songwriting.”
Freedom as a fish
He inherited an interest in fishing from his grandparents.
One grandad brought him out on the sea fishing as a tiny boy, but his
other grandparents camped by the river Numedalsågen were they
fish on the association waters of Sandefjord JFF.
He got his own salmon rod at the age of 6, and his days were
doomed.
Back then, he used all the fish for food, but the times they are a-
changing, and now I return most of the fish back to the river to
spawn.
But I gladly bring with me home a fish for dinner, but it has to be on
the river’s premises.
TIMES MOST CHANGE
Dreng is worried about the future of the wild salmon.
That is something that clearly appears on his new album.
The fish farming industry and the government get slammed for how
they treat the environment and the wild salmon.
The development is like a black wind. It’s an ecological catastrophe.
The artist sings about the government with blindfolded eyes that see
only the profit of the farmed salmon instead of the importance of
fresh and clean nature.
Norway has the responsibility to take care of the most important
stock of wild Atlantic salmon in the world
I must say that things ain’t going well.
We need to take action, and my contribution is my songs, says Roy
Einar Dreng