Malin Pettersen on Her Side Career and Touring Without a Driver’s License

Tell us about your tour vehicle. Any notable breakdown stories?

I don’t have a driver’s license, so ever since I started touring I’ve been dependent on someone else driving. That means a ton of different vehicles. I’ve been in everything from tiny two-seat cars to sprinters. And motorcycles.

Once I rode with a dear friend of mine in his new car, great car, new built-in GPS and everything. We were going on a seven-hour drive, which is long enough, but the GPS sent us on a wrong turn and we ended up getting lost, and when we called the venue after six hours of driving we realized we were four hours away from where we were supposed to be. I think my friend at the end of that day had been driving for twelve hours. When we did arrive we received homemade wine and got to meet llamas that were named after us though, so all in all a magical day.

I’ve also been in a large van where the horn was broken and went off every time the driver made a turn. That was fun in roundabouts.

I am working on my driver’s license at the moment, and we do have a Volvo V70 that I guess will be my “tour van” from the day I am allowed to drive. Let it be said — public transportation is reeeally good in Norway. So it’s pretty easy to get around.

How do you eat cheaply and/or healthy while on tour?

I don’t really know if I do. I feel like I eat a lot more randomly when touring. Since I don’t know of good places to grab fast bites, I often go long stretches without food and end up eating either a lot when I first find food, or just eat nothing until we get food at the venue. But some friends in Nashville gave me a great tip I’ll be trying out this fall: When in cities you don’t know it’s actually easier to go for healthy food because you can just put into google, or even google maps, that you’re looking for some place healthy. Like vegetarian places or the like. I also try to always choose fish or vegetarian if I get the choice at venues or buy outs.

Sometimes you’ll find me at my hotel room after the gig just eating all the chips in the room because googling and finding actual food sometime during the day was just too much for me mental capacity-wise. I’m trying to do better.

How many strings do you break in a typical year? How much does it cost to replace them?

This year has been my first year of string breaking. I still remember being really proud the first time. The strings weren’t even old! So far this year I’ve broken 6 strings I think. After I started playing with Amund Maarud I’ve gotten a lot better at playing rhythm, and I also do use more force – hence the breaking of the strings.

Where do you rehearse?

We’ve had a few. All with their own little story, but nothing crazy. The one we had with Lucky Lips just got sold so now we don’t really have one. Now that we’ve been playing and not creating new stuff, what’s been cheaper for me has been to rent rooms when needed at a place called the Øvingshotellet (“the rehearsal hotel”) in Oslo. You can rent a room, they have different sizes, for as many hours as you need on any given day. It’s quite sterile and impersonal, but it is very, very handy, at least now that I’m on the road and don’t really need a space to go regularly. But soon I’ll be going into new creative periods with both the solo project and Lucky Lips, so we might have to look for a new more permanent space. Fingers crossed, we’ll find a good one – these days everything is being bought and turned into something else.

What was the title and a sample lyric from the first song that you wrote?

The first song I wrote, I wrote with my best friend for a children’s music and art competition (Ungdommens Kulturmønstring):

We were 11ish, and English was not our first language as you can tell – but the melody is actually quite catchy and I’ve been thinking about re-writing it into something that can work. Also, this is just from memory, I’m kind of hoping I remember our English worse than it actually was.

Describe your first gig.

I’ve been performing ever since I was a child, so it’s difficult to know what to define as my first gig. I do remember the first time my dad took me to play a festival, though. I was 17 and I was doing some songs with his band. I played before that too, I had done this TV-thing, but this was my first festival gig and it felt so real. I remember getting ready to go on stage, hearing the song I had been told would be the one they would play before I got on. I remember my dad introducing me. And I remember singing Dixie Chicks. The feeling of actually getting to sing the songs I loved, with a real band – it felt like magic to me. I had only just begun to write my own songs at the time, but it would take another year or so until I started performing those.

What was your last day job? What was your favorite day job?

I do voice-overs for cartoons and commercials, and that is definitely, without a doubt, one of the most important reasons I can still go out and do this music thing after having kids and needing to have some sort of stable income. It’s something I’ve been doing since I was a kid myself and I am extremely thankful for still having the opportunity to do it. I also have been very fortunate to get my own radio show on NRK (national public broadcasting) here in Norway, about Americana music and all it entails, which is such a bonus and one of my favorite things to do.

How has your music-related income changed over the past 5-10 years? What do you expect it to look like 5-10 years from now?

10 years ago I was playing with Lucky Lips and we were building a fan base and getting better and better gigs, then we had a couple of years where we didn’t tour that much and when we started up again we had to re-build economically as well. That took some getting used to, but was well worth it and also natural after being away for a while. We used to put everything back into the band not really paying ourselves, but that was a lot easier when we were without “grown-up” responsibilities.

While getting my solo project up and running, It has been very important for me to pay my band properly. So I would say this is the first year where I am actually seeing some money that’s not directly going back out again – but most of it is being reinvested in the project in some way: It’s being used to take photos, mix, master, record, tour, make merch, make videos, etc. And I kind of like it that way. The project keeps the project going and this year I am not far into the red, which is more than I can say for last year. So I am very happy and thankful and I hope we’re on a good course.

What one thing do you know now that you had wished you knew when you started your career in music?

I wish I knew that the hard work would pay off. Because truly, that’s not a sure thing in this business. And it could stop at any time.

I can’t count the hours I’ve cried, hurt, and felt like nothing was happening. Like no-one answers emails, wants to book, likes the music, wants to collaborate, etc. To hear people say “you just got to keep following your dream” but at the same time being so broke, tired and outside the system you want to be a part of, that that voice of reason saying «wanting it isn’t enough, working for it isn’t enough, that’s just the fairytales you see in movies “the world isn’t fair, maybe you’ll be one of those who give up” starts creeping up on you. And let me tell you, it’s not “giving up” if your priorities change – you go through different stages and you should not be in this just because you’re afraid of being one of the people who gave up. Music should be something you enjoy.

Personally, there is nothing else I really can do – I’ve tried and it didn’t work. Music is the only thing I could go through all of that for, and still love. These days I am putting everything I can into it, making it my job for real, and I am so thankful for every new listener I get, every new person I get to meet, and for my fantastic team and family. My kids. If I had known back when I was 17, or hell – even last year when I was about to give up – that all the choices I’ve made through my whole life would come together and move this project in the right direction, maybe it could have saved me some tears. Then again, maybe I wouldn’t have worked so hard if I knew.