In the decade or so since they started, they’ve shown that refusing to follow a well-trodden path can be not only creatively fulfilling, but also commercially lucrative. It’s an unlikely situation, but then KAIZERS ORCHESTRA specialise in the implausible, and in making the implausible work. Come back next year!’ So I said, ‘If you’re available, we can come back every other Friday!’ And he shouted, ‘Bring the crowbars with you next time, and we’ll provide the people!’” “And then, near the end, someone shouted, ‘Don’t stop. “We have our show and our energy, and they liked it, and by the end they were singing,” Ottesen concludes. But it worked out eventually.” Because this is KAIZERS ORCHESTRA, a band that have proven that – however unusual the circumstances, and however unexpected their next step may be – there’s almost nothing that can stop them from winning people over, and certainly not mere prison bars. And they were all serious, just standing there, watching. “If I threw something out there, I didn’t know if I was going to get any response. “It was really hard to plan any communication with the prisoners through the bars,” Ottesen continues. The six piece were about to launch their own Kaizer’s Vodka – as you do if you’re one of the country’s biggest bands – and one of the band, a former employee of the prison, had persuaded authorities to allow inmates to make wooden presentation boxes for their shot glasses in return for an exclusive live performance. Janove Ottesen, vocalist, guitarist and oil barrel pummeller for Norway’s KAIZERS ORCHESTRA, is talking about the time they played a Norwegian prison. And every prisoner had a guard, so if there were 100 prisoners there were 200 people!” But when we did it, it was actually pretty much exactly the same as in the movies! It was Jailhouse Rock: four or five levels of prisoners going up, and we were on the floor downstairs, with bars everywhere between them and us. “They told us beforehand that it wasn’t going to be anything like you’ve seen on TV.