Two Beers with Bjørn-Eirik Roald

Behind the scenes at any concert and event at Samfunnet, a team is working constantly to make it all work. On occasion, they might work continuously for over twelve hours. Bjørn-Eirik, the cable chieftain of the Sound Committee, has been hard at it, having provided excellent live sound quality for students for years. Two beers on the table, we’re comfortably seated at Klubben for a chat.

Journalist: Benjamin Alexander Faulkner

Photographer: Pauline Hovland

The Basketball Boss

In a parallel universe, he is probably running with the national basketball team. The Kongsberg-lad Bjørn-Eirik attended sports classes at school and was very involved in basketball for a while, but he explains that it might have been due to his considerable height back in the day. As soon as the others caught up with him, he immediately stopped playing, and made a transfer to international studies. A bearded man by 9th grade, he grew up, begun getting drunk with the lads, living life as you do in Kongsberg. By the time he graduated, fate nudged him out of the door. But where to go?

The Fish Tank

It could have ended badly. He almost went to Trondheim to become a civil engineer, but a wise mother asked him to consider a few other alternatives before making his decision. Luckily, he looked in the direction of Agrarian Metropole. “I just looked around the place. It was so spot on.” Interestingly enough, he found the place first, and then found something to study. The first year, he lived in the Fish Tank – a collective at Kringla, named that way due to the fact that everyone can see inside. He had not yet discovered the joys of contributing to Samfunnet, but this would change one day, as members of the collective went off on their own way. A new passion was at his doorstep. The month is January, and the year is 2016.

Committee Nuisance

Bjørn-Eirik’s earlier buddy, Adrian Skistad, recruited him to the Sound Committee, although he had earlier on applied to the Security Committee the previous autumn. He recalls never thinking that the Sound Committee would ever be such a major part of his life. “I guess it just worked,” he says. His passion grew, and he became one of the most annoying nuisances in the committee – a bug attaching himself on anything which might grant him some knowledge. Already a year after joining, he ran his first concert – a local singer solo with an acoustic guitar. He misses the Sunday concerts in Halvors Hybel. They were a source of consolation for hungover students.

Mixmaster

Bjørn-Eirik works the mixing console on instinct. When mixing the audio for the UKE revue, the sound technician knows exactly what will happen on any moment. That’s how everything can happen so blazingly fast behind the console. He points out that mixing sound is utterly subjective. “One must pray to God that the audience likes it”. Most bands coordinate musical dynamics so that select instruments are easily heard through solo passages. However, if Bjørn-Eirik notices that the drummer is grooving like mad, he never hesitates to highlight it. The most important thing is to breathe life to the soundscape. A sound technician can make a bad concert better, but can also make a good concert worse.

Favorite concert

He points out that it is always the last concert that stays on your mind. But he specifically remembers the concert by the pop artist Sondre Justad who had just made it to the radio. Sondre was not as confident back then. He played in Festsalen at the same time that Lars Vaular played in Aud.Max., so he thought no one would come. Bjørn-Eirik remembers telling Sondre that people were queuing up to watch him, but Sondre just laughed it off. A few years later, it was Sondre performing in Aud.Max.

Blacklisted artists

Artists enjoy playing here at the Agrarian Metropole, as the audience is always on top: blind drunk, in good spirits and enjoying everything moving on stage. Bjørn-Eirik emphasizes the good people in the industry too, but there have been a few bad apples. He will not mention any names, but there were two bands supposed to roll onto the stage, one after the other. The process was a little chaotic, and a member of the band yelled madly at the sound crew to such a degree that the rest of the band had to apologize on his behalf. The band is now blacklisted, never allowed to return to Samfunnet.

The Sultan of Swing

Bjørn-Eirik does not work with sound all the time. Now and then, he has time to dance swing. In Swingklubben Snurrebass, he has met good people, not to mention his “much better half”. Swing is something you can dance, either alone, or at parties – and Ås is the place where you dance even to heavy metal. He presided over the mixing console at the Big Band Gala last Saturday, but he had promised his lady a dance. It is confirmed that he danced at least half the night while I, working the same night by chance, watched the consoles for him. If you were impressed by how the dancers never bumped into each other, Bjørn-Eirik reveals that they have had courses in how to dance in close quarters – an art in itself. A majestic mosh pit.

Professor B. Rick

Now in advanced age, he’s letting in some more space for others at the committee. However, it has become part of his identity. When leaving Ås, you have to cut off parts of yourself. Nevertheless, he has decided to take a PhD, so he has “delayed judgement”, as he so fatalistically calls it. For his PhD, he is working on remote sensing – a perplexing process of, example, hyperspectral analysis. This way, you can find chemical compositions just be observing the spectral data provided by camera. Bjørn-Eirik is working on working with bricks, an idea he conceived alongside his supervisors. If a building is to be demolished, you could in theory measure the integrity of the brickwork to gauge whether or not you can save it for future building projects.

Samfunnet – an ideal society?

“When people ask me how it’s going, I reply: ask me again in three years”, is something Bjørn-Eirik usually says. He hardly knows anyone who is a student at Ås and hasn’t gone through some form of shit, but he sees that people are supported by their fellow students and friends. To Bjørn-Eirik, the spirit of Ås is about inclusion. Social associations, academic associations, committees: they all want people, because they need people. At Ås, it isn’t hard to feel a sense of personal value and equality, whether one studies economics and administration or landscape architecture. Ås enjoys the positive effect of janteloven. In effect, no one is any better than the other. On the other hand, you will never survive socially at Ås if you are an altogether rude and unpleasant person. You could get away with it in Oslo, because you can fling shit towards people and never meet them again. At Ås, the security guard whose mother you just called a flabby fish might be the person you have to work with on a group project the next day. It is almost an ideal society, Bjørn-Eirik says, contemplating his can of bayer ale.

Beards are underestimated

Before the last sip, Bjørn-Eirik advises new students to not be afraid of saying yes. “You’ve got lots of time”, he says. New students should never feel bad about mistakes, either they’ve joined an association or committee or whatever. There will always be something which suits you, and if it takes a few mistakes to find it, that’s not wrong at all. Just enjoy the moment. And crumbs left in your moustache are good: “Beards are underestimated.”

Greetings for Bjørn-Eirik

The first time I met Bjørn-Eirik, I had a beard. He did not. It’s been the other way around, lately. Bjørn-Eirik is a bloke with a lot of energy, tall ambitions, a total lack of self-maintenance and near constant verbal diarhhea. In other words: this man must be stopped!

I think the only thing worse for Bjørn-Eirik than boredom is to be alone. One summer, he was alone in what he called an eternity, otherwise known as a week. Later on, he was so clingy that friends and acquaintances discussed a shift-based watch. There was this one time when we watched Grey’s Anatomy for seven hours. I don’t like Grey’s Anatomy! Fortunately, I like Bjørn-Eirik. He is funny, weird, smart, kind, and a good friend. He is also annoying, easily frightened and has an ego that you should never ever feed. Who can resist such balance?

Prickly hugs

Anne Gladsø Wibe

Dear, sweet, annoying, considerate, happy and bothersome Bjørnis!

No you’ve finally gotten the attention you deserve in Tuntreet. We are delighted that you, as our Bjørn-Eirik, can be a mascott for the technicians at Samfunnet, like Bjørnis is for the fire department. We extinguish fires, fix the unbeliveable, and everyone wants us on calendars. Nah, or yeah (nah). After many years as a Second-in-Command in the Sound Committee, we finally got you upgraded to Chief of Committee in 2020. You’ve done a great job, even though we shout, fight and cuddle. Your time as chief is at an end, but the technical department won’t be the same without you. And we don’t think we’ll be without you completely in the future. We look forward to see your again when you complete your PhD (together with your kids, who’ll probably start here as you go away).

Lots of stiff love from the gang you hate and adore <3
-Fredrik, Ida and Julie + the rest of the technical department at Samfunnet i Ås.

It’s hard to describe Bjørnis with few words, but you notice his presence in the room, so to speak. It’s impossible to equal his loud verbal diarrhea.

During his infancy at Ås, he had a strong liking for tequila, but luckily, he has matured. The babyface shotting low-cost tequila has developed into a bearded chap mixing his own drinks (although drinking a Smirnoff from time to time). After a few drinks, a (loud) sing-song, rapid swaying and falling into deep sleep at the nach, his festive evening is complete.

What makes him so damn annoying is what makes him amusing. We are constantly surprised by his good grades. During exam preparations, he just spends his time on YouTube or on his way to the shop or Babylon. Bjørnis is high-maintenance and has an extreme capacity to buying stupid, overpriced thingies we’ve never heard of which he doesn’t need.

But one thing is certain: we all need Bjørnis in our lives! <3

Reserved and loving regards from Bagge, Flabben and Heidi