Featured Artist

All questions answered by Troels (I'm singing and acting stupid on stage) and Niels (Guitar and backup vocals).

1. How did Mighty Midgets get started?

Troels: MIGHTY MIDGETS were formed in Aalborg by two friends that had too much time. None of them were any good at playing any instruments, but Lasse was the less worst one at playing the drums so he played drums. I played guitar and sang. We realized we were missing a bass player so we asked Mikkel to play that!! He actually knew how to play. One year later Peter joined on 2nd guitar. A year later or so we kinda split up the band, but a month later we got together again, but this time with Rasmus on drums and Niels on guitar. Lasse changed the drum kit to a bass. The original idea was to make a new band, but we just kept the same name, because we had a lot of merch laying around. A stupid reason to keep the name, but we did. Did I mention Mikkel isn't in the band anymore?? It’s actually kind of stupid because he was the only one who could play his instrument!

2. Was any of in you bands prior to Mighty Midgets?

Niels: Yeah, Rasmus and I have a jazz-core band called Harzzcore, but we are on hiatus.

Troels: Lasse and I used to play in a crappy band called Playboy Platoon and later named Musart, Drake, Mithrill & Et Eller Andet Lort among others. They got big later on when they were played on national danish television.

3. Tell Us About your band.

Troels: See question 1 or get a job!

4. Style of Music (political, EmO, satire, hardcore, rockstars, ..etc)

Troels: I would say political-pop-hardcore-punk with a twist. But that's not true after all, because we have some songs that aren't political. Our songs are about different things. Each song is different. Some poppy ones, some more punkier ones and some hardcore ones as well. But I don’t think rockstar will fit in.

Niels: Neither does EMO. We write about things other then slitting our wrists.

5. Favorite place to play and why?

It gotta be anywhere but our hometown Aalborg. It's more exciting to play places where you don't know half the crowd.

6. Funniest thing you've seen at a show?

Niels: Troels playing in the official Mighty Midgets G-string. Truly beautiful!

7. Craziest place you've played?

Niels: At a graduation party for one of our friends. We played our best show ever. Too bad the only ones there to enjoy it was a few students and his parents. And they were not into punk…

8. Are you on a label? If so, who?

Troels: We have a split cd out on AMP Records from Canada. We have our own label called 5Feet Under Records. Nothing fancy, I'm sorry to inform you. But hopefully it will change in the future!!

9. Who's your favorite bands right now?

Troels: Right now I’m listening to a lot to A Wilhelm Scream, Danish national drunk artist John Mogensen and Anti-Flag, but it changes a lot.

Niels: I would also like to add Raised Fist to the list. They’ve been one of my favourite bands for a long time.

10. Who writes your songs and how are you inspired to write them?

Niels: Mostly Troels or I writes the draft to the songs but, everyone in the band has influence. The songs often change a lot from the draft to the final version.

11. When you play at a show are you all serious or do you just fuck around??

Troels: FUCK AROUND!! Usually we fuck around alot! If you don't have fun doing your thing then you should quit! I think our shows are different every time, depending on our mood. We played nude a few times and one time we just decided to get so drunk we WOULD fuck up. All the people at the venue were drunk so they wouldn't mind anyway so we fucked up big time!! But it was fun!! I think that's the only time we fucked up. We can play tight and fuck around at the same time. We aren't losers you know??

Niels: But on the other hand that is a lie…

12. What's your favorite song that you play right now and why?

Troels: I gotta say that it’s "the Party Pooper", because everyone can relate to it and it’s fast.

Niels: I think it is "Bon Apartheid" because it has some nice hardcore elements and I like the lyrics (it’s about taking a stand against racism).

13. What does it mean to you being in The Mighty Midgets ?

Troels: It means getting drunk with our friends and making new friends…

Niels: And playing some music occasionally…

14. What do you do when your not playing?

Troels: 3 of us study and don’t have any money. Lasse works at a place dealing with deaf and retarded people. He has a lot of money. Rasmus works at a brewery so therefore he doesn’t have a lot of money either. But he can get drunk for free!!!

15. How does your families evaluate the fact that your musicians and not a banker or whatever?  

Troels: I think they are all right with it when they go to the bank, if you know what I mean??? We make so much money that we're sending money back to our families, so they aren't complaining!! Seriously we have jobs and education on the side, so we have a life besides being in a band.

16. If you check out TV on any given day often you see "punk" video clips or sound bites from bands like Something Corperate, Rise Against, AFI, Greenday, etc.. What are your thoughts on the influences of Punk Rock on the mainstream?
 

Troels: I think you shouldn't go mainstream. That's just my opionin. But I like some of the bands on the bigger labels like for example Rise Against, Green Day and Less Than Jake. Not all the emo bands. They suck!!

Niels: I don’t think it’s that bad with a couple of mainstream bands as long as there aren’t too many. I would not have been exposed to the punk scene if it weren’t for the success of Green Day’s Dookie. I would probably still be sitting at home listening to Britpop or some shitty metal now. You got to start somewhere.

17. What is your current evaluation of the current punk scene?

Troels: It’s going down. Everyone seems to be making the same old shit over and over. There’s the Ramones-core genre where bands play the same old song over and over (not to forget the crappy 1-2-3-4 yell at the start of each song). Then there’s the Blink 182-core where all the bands sound the same and copy the same old riff that have been played 1000 times before. And there’s also this Sex Pistols punk where everyone has to wear an Exploited t-shirt and never take a bath to be in. It’s not that I don’t like any of these bands I’ve just mentioned. I like 2 of them, but I ain’t gonna tell you which ones because then my Sex Pistols friend will be mad. Then there are the emo bands (I’m not gonna tell you why they keep repeating themselves: You should know already!!!! Or else please continue to slit you wrist). I could go on telling you about genres, but I don’t want to. There are some good bands out there, but they don’t really get exposed which is kind of shame. All the record labels just want the same old shit, and therefore no one knows about the good bands and they often split up!!

Niels: I think it is okay that bands play whatever kind of punk they like the most. So do we. Our music is also influenced by the bands we like and it’s not that original. I think the biggest problem in the punk scene is that all the different fractions in the fight each other trying to prove that their subgenre is the best one. I think a more friendly attitude towards each would strengthen the scene a lot.

18. Who are your musical influences?

Troels: Everything that rocks! No matter what it is.

Niels: Except EMO, but then again that doesn’t rock…

19. Any bands you really want to do a show with and why?

Troels: NOFX! One of the best bands of all time, and I've never seen them live, because they never tour where I live!

Niels: I would go for David Hasselhoff. That would be cool.

20. Who's the craziest band you've ever done a show with?

Troels: Hmmmm I would say a band called Our Fold from Bolton. They had a guitarist that looks like this guy www.string-emil.de I don’t need to say more! Don’t know if that is a crazy band, but that guy sure was pretty!

21. Descibe the stage presence of Mighty Midgets -

Troels: I would say it’s energetic. We try to be funny, but I think we fail miserably (like in this interview)!! (**Note from Jonny Taint - There a better interview than a lot of others**)

Niels: Lots of jumping around and lots of fucking up.

23. Has your style of music changed at all since the band started? If so, why?

Troels: Yeah. We got faster and tighter.

Niels: And more hardcore.

24. What's your favorite part of being in a band?

Troels: FREE BEER!

25. What are personal thoughts on the mentality of today's america?

Troels: As I don't live in America I can't say how it is to live there, but I can say a thing or two about America from afar: It's not good!! That was one thing. The other thing is: It's not good at all!!

Niels: I think there’s a huge problem with the American foreign policies. It seems the Bush administration wants to police the whole world (or maybe controlling the whole world is a better way of saying it). I would say that America is the biggest threat toward world peace at the moment.

**(Jonny Taint again: The foreigners get it, why can't the people who live here?)**

26. What are your thoughts of the whole Warped Tour traveling circus?

Troels: Never been there, but I love to go there. Some good bands and it's kinda cheap and you can walk around all day just seeing all these great bands. And some bands you never heard of or knew!!

Niels: When you live in a small country like Denmark you never get to see any of the big punk because the scene is so small, and in our town everyone is into metal so that just makes things even worse. So I also think that a thing like the Warped Tour would be cool visit.

27. When you look into the crowd, what would you say are the kind of people at the shows?

Troels: People look confused. People that don’t know what to use their money on.

Niels: There’s a lot of different people coming to our shows (which is really cool). The only thing I would say that they have in common is that they look disappointed when they leave…

28. How did you come up with the name Mighty Midgets ?

Troels: We had talked about calling the band Mighty Midgets, but decided to get drunk and when the night was over we should have a better name!! We got way too drunk and didn't come up with a better name so we just hung on to Mighty Midgets. If I would say it, it's a quite good name. Our old band was called Playboy Platoon, which is a even better name. But it was a crappy band so no one will ever know of the name.

29. What makes Might Midgets different from other bands?

Niels: I think our stage performance is pretty good and very energetic. Plus we actually manage to pull off the harmonies and back up vocals live. We also suck a lot!

30. Anyone you want to thank?

Niels: You for asking these questions and to everyone who have read about our band… Cheers!

Troels: Yeah, we want to thank you for caring about our band. When we win that EmptyV award we will thank you from the stage!! All the best & love from Mighty Midgets.