An Interview With The Norwegian Band, DONKEYBOY, On Their Newest Track ‘It’ll Be Alright’ and More!

Donkeyboy is a Norwegian quartet which formed a decade ago and have dominated the charts in their native Scandinavia on the strength of their catch anthems. They’ve earned over 200 million streams in Norway alone, which is 40x larger than the nations population of 5 million.

Formed in 2005, the band currently consists of Cato Sundberg (vocals, rhythm guitar), Kent Sundberg (synth, vocals), Peter Michelsen (guitar, backing vocals) and Thomas Drabløs (drums).

They have 32 platinum awards, 3 Norwegian Grammy Awards, 10 consecutive Top 5 singles and 4 No.1 singles in Norway.

In the first week of it’s release, their track “It’ll Be Alright” was in the Top 50 on Apple streaming in Norway. The song was written and produced by brothers Cato and Kent Sundberg and they brought in Violet Days‘ Lina Hanson to help with the lyrics.

“We came up with the melody and the idea of ‘It’ll Be Alright’. We felt that the song had a really positive energy, and was crying out for a lyric with a universal message, so we asked Lina if she could help us out,” says lead vocalist Kent Sundberg.

Donkeyboy, who have over 150 million combined streams on Spotify, are currently one of the headliners on the Vinterlyd tour in Scandinavia which is presented by NRJ and P4, two of the leading pop radio stations there. The band will be playing festival dates in Europe this summer.

Connect With Donkeyboy Here:

http://donkeyboy.no   twitter.com/Donkeyboymusic   soundcloud.com/donkeyboymusic

Learn more about Donkeyboy in the following All Access interview:

Thanks for your time! So how has 2018 been treating you all so far? What is one musical goal that you have for this year?

2018 has been good so far! We have been spending a lot of time in the studio making new songs. Hopefully we’ll be able to release something later this year!

Can you recall the moment when you all thought you could be in this band together? Was it hard to come up with a name that you all thought fit your sound and who you are? What was your runner-up band name?

In 2005 Kent and Cato wrote a song called «Broke My Eyes». That song made it to national radio, and was the beginning of the pop band Donkeyboy. We are not sure why we picked the name Donkeyboy, but it has nothing to do with the sound of the band. Actually we were a progressive rock band to start with. We came up with the name when we were about 15 years old, and the runner-up band name was «the Holy Frogs» XD

How do you think being from your hometown in Norway has influenced your sound and how you all carry yourselves in this group? 

Being from Norway has a big influence in our mood when making music. We have four really different seasons – from warm, bright summer days when the sun never sets, till dark, cold winter nights.

How have you all changed since first starting this group? How has your overall sound grown through the years?

As mentioned before, we started as a progressive rock band, but later on we started to make really melodic pop songs, with a lot of synths, guitars and high and bright vocals.

Let’s talk about your newest track “It’ll Be Alright.” What was the inspiration for this song? How do you think it compares to anything else that you have put out recently? 

No huge story really. Kent just woke up a normal day and walked over to our studio. It didn’t take long before we realized that we had a good track going. Originally it was meant to be released in 2013, but we were missing a part in the song, and the lyrics were not solved until just recently. Actually our manager said, “this got to be a positive anthem,” and from there it did itself! Happy to have finally released it!

When do you hope to put out more new music and a full collection of new songs?

We’ll hopefully release some new material later this year.

Where do you think you are all happiest- in the studio recording new music, on stage performing or elsewhere? Do you have any upcoming shows that you would like to tell our readers about? 

Both! A mix between studio and stage is optimal!

How do you think being a musician and in this band gives you all the most joy in life today?

A great thing about being a musician is that you visit a lot of cool places and  meet a lot of nice people! And you also get to make a living doing what you love!

With everything going on in the world today, how do you think your music is a reflection of it all? And if you don’t think it is at all, why is that? Do you find that the music being made today in general is reflecting these politically and culturally charged times?

We tend to write songs about the little things in life. Not the big questions and problems in the world. Most of all we just want people to connect and feel something when they listen to our music.

How important do you think social media has been to this band? Do all you help to maintain all your sites or  is one of you more into it all? Or do you rely on your PR/management team to handle it all?

Social media is very important, but to be honest we could be way better at maintaining all of our sites. It’s easy to forget about it when we are busy making music, and spending time on other projects. Our PR team constantly remind us, and we promise to get better!

Who would you love to work with in the future? Who are some of your favorite artists right now? What do you think would be a dream collaboration for this group?

It would be a dream to work with Cromeo, or even better – Daft Punk!

What do you hope is the message of your music? What do you hope people continue to take away from your songs? What do you hope they take away from one of your shows? 

We don’t overthink to much when we make a song, we just do what makes us feel something. Hopefully people that comes to one of our shows or listens to our at home feels something as well!

Would you like to share anything else about your music or this band with out readers?

If you like our music, please spread the donkey love!