Kristopher Schau and Kyrre Johannesen are not so concerned with their appearance, despite the fact that one of them was named Norway’s sexiest man. From here, everything goes downhill anyway.
I’ve waited almost an hour for them to reach Studentersamfundet in Trondheim and finish their sound check. Finally I get picked up, and find Kristopher Schau and Kyrre Johannessen seated in a dark corner of the restaurant Lyche.
The premises are full and we have to almost scream at each other to communicate, yet they get to sit in peace. This, despite the fact that one of them is almost two meters tall and looks as if he has stepped straight out of an advertisement for rockabilly hairstyles.
– We’ve produced radio shows together for a long time, explains Johannessen. We had a break, but found each other again in 2011. That’s when we created a program on P2.
– 2011? Five years ago? Jesus, exclaims Schau.
– Then we made a podcast on Wimp, because we found out that it had a therapeutic effect to display our lives to the public in that way. We realized we had to continue with it for our own good, so last year we started to produce regular podcasts. The first time I met Kristopher was in Radio Nova, the student radio in Oslo. But then he quit, says Johannessen.
Uncomfortable
It was a little socially uncomfortable at first, says Schau.
– But not so much now, because now we’re almost half a year into it. Now everything is far more comfortable.
Johannessen recalls that in the beginning they had to do embarrassing things for each other such as dancing, as well as giving each other non-ironic compliments.
– After that, somehow nothing is as embarrassing anymore. We reached a sort of low point, or high point – depending on how you look at it – last week, when we showed each other our own butt hole. There was nothing embarrassing about that, says Johannessen.
– I’m not sure how we would have managed to surpass it, Schau points out.
Their live show at Studentersamfundet in Trondheim was the second in the series of shows that will take place once every month.
– The first time we were in Oslo, and the next one will take place in Volda, says Schau. The show at the Studentersamfundet are recorded and broadcast on TV next Saturday.
Asked why [their podcast] Crisis Meeting has become one of the most popular podcasts in Norway, Schau posits a theory.
– It helps, of course, that we know each other so well. People don’t have to listen to us getting to know each other. That must be quite all right.
– Then, I think it’s all about a good, old-fashioned voyeurism. You get an insight into many things you wouldn’t if Crisis Meeting didn’t exist, says Johannessen.
– We would have kept it to ourselves. I wouldn’t have photographed my own butt hole and shown it to a friend unless it was for Crisis Meeting. I think people find it a bit fun to hear us doing things which they don’t have to do.
A good metaphor for the show is a keyhole that allows listeners to peak a little too far into two forty-year-old men’s anuses and mental life, he believes.
– At the same time we have some ongoing projects, just like everyone else. [Kristopher] has his rabbits, I have my Buddhism. The Buddhism has been a gradual process that began in the fall, and therefore listeners have participated in it all the way through, concludes Johannessen.
Done most of everything
Schau admits he was a pranker in the past. As a member of Team Antonsen he was set up on a blind-date with Janne Formoe by colleagues Harald Eia and Bård Tufte Johansen. The stunt allegedly happened because of Schau’s practical jokery.
– I used to be a pranker before, but I feel I’ve done most of everything there is to do. Thus I stopped doing it.
In 2003, Schau was named Norway’s sexiest man by the fashion magazine Elle. It let him not go into such themselves.
– I think people think it’s fun to bully me for it, but it cools off. It is thirteen years since, ass, he says.
Both Schau and Johannesen is painfully aware that they have reached menopause.
– We know that appearance is due. So we just wonder how bad it is, how decay manifests itself and what goes first. There we will take up in the podcast is more a sign of decay, says Johannessen.
– But I still feel that we are at the beginning of the …
– … We are at the tipping point, declares Schau.
But it is the only downhill from now, says Johannesen.
– The window to be named Norway’s sexiest ahead is about to close. But it’s your turn now, says Schau and glancing across the table at Johannessen.
Radio Man and musician
Despite the fact that he has written about the Breivik trial for Morgenbladet been a member of Team Antonsen, and collaborated on the script for the immensely popular television series Presently, there are two words that are highlighted when Schau to describe themselves.
– Radio Man and musician is what I am, says Schaumann.
– I’m working on radio, and trying to get me a job as a musician. I’m not so fond of writing, so I try to avoid doing it. I find it difficult and tiring, and I write worse and worse too. It runs slower and slower, and the quality is greatly decreasing.
Today was not so hard, he seems, because it was very much dialogue.
– But it was worse and worse over time. It was supposed to become a feature film, because we did not get a season four. But then we got a season four yet, so we went there instead. It ended up being the same story, only much more. It would have been a damn fussy film, so it was lovely to get spread beyond an entire season.
Tired
When he is reminded of the Breivik trial, there is one impression that is left.
– I was damn tired, because it went over so many weeks. One heard so much shit over so many weeks, so I was really most of all tired ass. Just glad it was done, somehow.
Despite that in the aftermath of the trial were expressed a desire to interview Breivik from some journalists, is not Schau among these.
I think I know what he had said, so it is not something I had penetrated to do.
boring theater
Kristopher is the son of actor Find Schau. Growing consisted of so damn much boring theater, according to himself.
– And much bad theater. I guess I’m like that seen by those who have seen too much shit. I think I got my fix, so I’m probably not as fond of theater that many of my friends. Too much farce, damn much farce.
Yet he had a very free childhood.
– I do not think he cared a jot about what I was doing. It applies well yet. I do not think it could occur to him to go to a concert or …
He thinks about it.
– … Listen Crisis Meeting, shoot Johannessen into.
– He has never heard Crisis Meeting, turn Schau firm. It could not occur to him. It is quite comfortable, really.
– It is not really a program we want our parents to listen to, so it fits well, says Johannessen.