Bokassa: What It Feels Like to Be Metallica’s Opening Band

The musicians also talked about what they learned on the tour.

During a conversation with FaceCulture, Bokassa’s Jorn Kaarstad and Olav Dowkes talked about getting the opportunity to open for Metallica on the current tour.

Asked on what it feels like to open for the metal giants, Jorn replied (transcribed by UG):

“It’s hard to say. It’s very surrealistic, but I think maybe people around us, like, our friends and family get the best perspective more than us because we essentially have to do our job.

“So we are always, like, we have fun, but what we do like concentrate on playing and the next day and stuff like that, so it’s not always easy.”

While you’re on tour now with Metallica, I don’t know how much interaction there is between bands, but have you learned anything from them about being in the music industry and being in a rock band?

Jorn: “Yeah, I think we learn stuff every day. When we were told, ‘You’re going to play the stadium, you need to get wireless’ – we always played with cables. ‘Okay, we got wireless,’ didn’t get the wireless to work.

“Eight shows – didn’t work. So the guitar tech from Within Temptation did us a favor and came and looked at it and said, ‘Yeah, this is wrong, this is wrong.’ So now we know that, so hopefully we’ll get the wireless working tonight.”

I believe there’s three of you on stage, so it’s quite a full sound for three people. How do you make sure you get that across to people?

Jorn: “No, we’re just fucking good. [Laughs]”

Olav: “Well, we’ve got a good sound guy as well, so when he set the knobs, it’s pretty good.”

Jorn: “He’s always angry except when he does the sound, like, it’s his Mecca, his safe place, I think it’s the only time you see him smile during the day. [Laughs]”

What is the feeling of going on stage, particularly now with those big shows, what goes through your mind a couple of seconds before leaving out?

Olav: “It’s hard to answer. Sometimes you’re just kind of blank, you go out there and people cheer, it’s fucking, like, ‘Hey, get ready to fucking rip.’ I myself was really nervous at the first Metallica show we did, but the ones after it hasn’t kind of been nerve-wracking.”

You can check out Bokassa latest album “Crimson Riders” below.

Artist: Metallica