EMQs With NOTÖRIOUS
EMQs With Andy Sweet of NOTÖRIOUS
What is your name, what do you play and can you tell us a little bit about the history of the band?
My name is Andy Sweet and I play bass and background vocals.
Me and Nikki met back in 2015, in another band. Or to say it was a band wouldn’t be right. We where jamming, and it wasn’t exactly what we wanted to do, so we split and started what became NOTÖRIOUS. Then we found Chris early in 2016. In 2018 the stars aligned and we found Freddy, and the lineup was complete.
How did you come up with your band name?
It was Nikki who suggested it and we liked the name. I believe he was reading The Dirt (Mötley Crüe biography) when it came out, and they where featured as the world’s most notorious band. And that stuck with him.
What Country / Region are you from and what is the Metal / Rock scene like there?
We are from Bergen, Norway. The black Metal capital of the world, so you can imagine there’s a lot of active bands. Not only Black Metal. There is some Hard Rock and Heavy Metal too.
What is your latest release? (Album, EP, Single, Video)
We released an EP, self-titled, last year.
Who have been your greatest influences?
There are so many, but to mention some: Van Halen, Mötley, Scorpions, Deep Purple and many more.
What first got you into music?
I’ve always liked playing, but early it was at a very low level. Then I started to play more goal-oriented around 2010.
If you could collaborate with a current band or musician who would it be?
I would love to support Scorpions on a tour.
If you could play at any festival in the world, which would you choose and why?
It’s hard to choose only one. There are so many great festivals, but I like a bit smaller festival that are more genre specific, over the bigger festivals that must have a wide spectrum of genres to sell a ton of tickets.
What’s the weirdest gift you have ever received from a fan?
Well, it’s not exactly a gift, but weird for sure. One time a guy got a hand job right in front of the stage when we were playing!
If you had one message for your fans, what would it be?
Thank you for supporting us! We play music we want to hear ourselves, but if you guys didn’t agree with us, we know we would just be playing alone in a basement somewhere.
If you could bring one rock star back from the dead, who would it be?
Van Halen!
What do you enjoy the most about being a musician? And what do you hate?
I enjoy most of all when I see that we are impacting the audience, putting on a show and selling smiles. I hate doing the taxes….
If you could change one thing about the music industry, what would it be?
That promotors would look at he quality of a bands music, instead only looking at the numbers on Spotify.
Name one of your all-time favourite albums?
Van Halen I.
What’s best? Vinyl, Cassettes, CDs or Downloads?
It all has its time and place. Nothing beats putting on a vinyl, but again that can be a bit difficult while riding my motorcycle.
What’s the best gig that you have played to date?
When we supported Wig Wam in Oslo, it was over 1000 in the audience.
If you weren’t a musician, what else would you be doing?
My day job is electrical engineering.
Which five people would you invite to a dinner party?
Lemmy and we would eat (drink) for 5, haha!
What’s next for the band?
We are playing many shows this summer and are planning to bring a party to every one of them. To give the audience a solid dose of True Norwegian Glam Metal. And we are always working on new material, but our first focus is to get out there and connect with our community.
What Social Media / Website links do you use to get your music out to people? https://linktr.ee/NOTORIOUSofficial
There’s a long-standing food-based debate here in the UK. And we’d like your help. So… A Jaffa cake – is it a cake or a biscuit? Discuss!
HA HA, I guess its inn the name, Jaffa CAKE.
Thank you for your time. Is there anything else that you would like to add?
Yes! Hope to see some of you out on the road.
You can catch us in `26 here:
9 May Rock Am Knick, Entrup
20 June Winses Open Stage, Bremen-Obervieland
23 June Meisenfrei Blues Club, Bremen
26 June Clubhaus 06, Hannover
27 June Rock On Isens, Butjadingen
10 July Rock Area A7, Ehndorf
11 Sept. Rock N Revel, Marienmünster
12 Sept. Sinner Rock, Sinntal
26 Sept. Madam Felle, Bergen, Norway
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