“No Direction Home blew my mind completely and I never looked back.”

“Well, the name of this website is The Influences, and I’d say my main influences are Bob Dylan and Neil Young. Although I also get inspired by something completely different, that’s the core. Bob Dylan is the reason I started writing music at nineteen years old. I discovered him when I was 16, or I rediscovered him. I grew up with Paul Simon, Neil Young, and Bob Dylan. But I rediscovered him when I saw the Martin Scorsese documentary No Direction Home. That movie blew my mind completely and I never looked back. But I didn’t try to write a song until many years after. I wrote shitty songs for a couple of years and then started to find my way, I think.”

Jonas Alaska started playing guitar when he was eleven or twelve years old. “And I think Neil Young’s Harvest was the first song I learned. But I was mainly just a skateboard dude. So, my main focus was just skateboarding. I liked alternative bands like Tortoise, and the Norwegian band Jaga Jazzist, stuff like that. And then I saw the Dylan documentary and my head came off.”

“I was scared to try to write a song, because I was scared that it was just going to reveal that I’m hopeless. So I didn’t try for a year, and just learned all the Dylan songs I could. And my first attempt was horrible, and I was so disheartened by it. But then I managed to make a song by chance almost. There was a country song from a Norwegian band, and I just took the timing of it and wrote something under it. That kind of fooled me into it. But it took me a while.”

“I love Bob Dylan more than music.”

“I love Bob Dylan more than music. It’s something else for me; I’m fanatic. But I I’ve never really figured out a way to play his songs. When I hear cover songs of Dylan, I always just prefer him. My favorite song is maybe It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding), but there’s no way I could cover that without sounding like a parody. But that song, Tomorrow Is A Long Time, I felt like I could maybe do that. It’s just a complete copy of his version though, but I feel like it works with my voice. And I was really moved the first time I heard it, which was in the credits from the movie, I’m Not There, which Heath Ledger plays in.”

“I’m always going to try to create something.”

After saying he has been pretty productive ever since, Jonas Alaska responds: “It doesn’t feel like it, but I hear that sometimes. I’d like to write a song a day, and I can’t, and sometimes it just feels impossible. But when I’m inspired and when I’m creative, I tend to make a lot in that period. But there’s a long period when I’m just on the couch watching the same movie.”

Or on the floor with his kids.

“Yeah, that’s mainly what I do now. And it’s hard being a father and writing songs. I think there’s pros and cons with it, because I think the songs I write now are maybe a bit more mature. But I struggle with bringing the kids in kindergarten and then going to work. I’m tired until 6 in the evening. So, I don’t write as much. And they’re all I really care about now.”

‘The ambition is starting to come back’

“All the cliches are true when you have a kid, but just not in the way that I thought it was going to be. It’s the biggest, the most beautiful thing. But it’s also almost scary, so all the ambition from music has been lowered, because I just want safety for me and my kids. And there’s not much safety in being a singer-songwriter. But thankfully, it’s working out okay, and I’m still inspired.”

“They’re sick of my guitar playing now. They’re like: ‘Could you be lower it, please, dad, because I’m trying to watch something here’. I’ve always had that feeling that I’m always going to try to create something. Since I was a child, I’ve loved drawing and painting and writing stories and stuff like that. That’s always going to be there, I think. Having kids was probably a good thing for my development as a songwriter, and the ambition is starting to come back.”

Photos

Keep watching

Thank you for watching and enjoying this session. You’ll probably like some other sessions from The Influences’ archive too, like these earlier ones we filmed at TakeRoot festival.

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