Meer - Live Ostrów Rock Festival 2025 - Part 1
Meer - Live Ostrów Rock Festival 2025 - Part 2
Meer were playing in Germany a couple of years ago when a man came up to them after the show. “He wanted to thank us, but he started crying,” says co-vocalist Johanne Kippersund Nesdal. “And he just cried and cried. He said, ‘You are making me do this.’ Getting that kind of reaction from a grown man makes you realise that your music is impacting people’s lives.”
It’s not surprising they provoked such a reaction. The Norwegian eight-piece’s music is big in every sense: melodically, emotionally, dramatically, marrying the intricacy and grand sweep of modern prog to the accessibility of pop. Even their name is a play on ‘Mer’ – the Norwegian word for ‘more.’
“We always want more,” jokes Eivind Strømstad, Meer’s guitarist and also Johanne’s husband. The pair are speaking from a room in the theatre that Nesdal and her brother and co-vocalist Knut’s parents own in the lakeside town of Hamar, 90 minutes north of Oslo (current productions: a summery spin on Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale and a version of Alice In Wonderland). Nesdal and Strømstad both work there. “He married into the family business,” says the singer.
Appropriately then, there’s a sense of drama to Meer’s third album, Wheels Within Wheels. The uplifting rush of their music is powered by the Nesdal siblings’ distinctive voices: Johanne’s powerful and soaring, Knut’s lithe and melodic. The latter came fourth in the Norwegian heats for Eurovision in 2014. “We both love to sing, but he’s more into the glam, TV stuff than I am,” says Johanne.
Wheels Within Wheels doesn’t exactly set its sights on Eurovision, but it does come with an unashamed desire to balance complexity with catchiness. “We wanted to write songs that people would have fun singing along with,” says Johanne. “Some of the songs are a little more pop-rocky. You can dance along to them.”
The singer was weaned on her parents’ classic rock CDs – Rainbow, Queen, Deep Purple, Pink Floyd. She sang in a Rush cover band as a teenager, but remained oblivious to the modern prog scene until Meer signed to influential Norwegian label Karisma for their second album, 2021’s Playing House. By contrast, Eivind was a full-blooded prog metal fan: Opeth and Pain Of Salvation were favourites. “Then I had a period where I pretended to be into jazz,” he says wryly. “If you want to study music, you have to.”
Such is the breadth of Wheels Within Wheels that all of those influences are evident, together with everything from Ennio Morricone to acclaimed British singer- songwriter Michael Kiwanuka. “With eight people in the band, there are eight sets of different musical influences,” says Johanne. Elvind adds: “Because I was a certified prog-head in my teen years, I was actively trying not to make prog music early on in the band. But that music is part of who I am.” From: https://www.loudersound.com/features/meer-wheels-within-wheels
It’s not surprising they provoked such a reaction. The Norwegian eight-piece’s music is big in every sense: melodically, emotionally, dramatically, marrying the intricacy and grand sweep of modern prog to the accessibility of pop. Even their name is a play on ‘Mer’ – the Norwegian word for ‘more.’
“We always want more,” jokes Eivind Strømstad, Meer’s guitarist and also Johanne’s husband. The pair are speaking from a room in the theatre that Nesdal and her brother and co-vocalist Knut’s parents own in the lakeside town of Hamar, 90 minutes north of Oslo (current productions: a summery spin on Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale and a version of Alice In Wonderland). Nesdal and Strømstad both work there. “He married into the family business,” says the singer.
Appropriately then, there’s a sense of drama to Meer’s third album, Wheels Within Wheels. The uplifting rush of their music is powered by the Nesdal siblings’ distinctive voices: Johanne’s powerful and soaring, Knut’s lithe and melodic. The latter came fourth in the Norwegian heats for Eurovision in 2014. “We both love to sing, but he’s more into the glam, TV stuff than I am,” says Johanne.
Wheels Within Wheels doesn’t exactly set its sights on Eurovision, but it does come with an unashamed desire to balance complexity with catchiness. “We wanted to write songs that people would have fun singing along with,” says Johanne. “Some of the songs are a little more pop-rocky. You can dance along to them.”
The singer was weaned on her parents’ classic rock CDs – Rainbow, Queen, Deep Purple, Pink Floyd. She sang in a Rush cover band as a teenager, but remained oblivious to the modern prog scene until Meer signed to influential Norwegian label Karisma for their second album, 2021’s Playing House. By contrast, Eivind was a full-blooded prog metal fan: Opeth and Pain Of Salvation were favourites. “Then I had a period where I pretended to be into jazz,” he says wryly. “If you want to study music, you have to.”
Such is the breadth of Wheels Within Wheels that all of those influences are evident, together with everything from Ennio Morricone to acclaimed British singer- songwriter Michael Kiwanuka. “With eight people in the band, there are eight sets of different musical influences,” says Johanne. Elvind adds: “Because I was a certified prog-head in my teen years, I was actively trying not to make prog music early on in the band. But that music is part of who I am.” From: https://www.loudersound.com/features/meer-wheels-within-wheels
