Is it a band? An orchestra? A collective? MEER are not easy to categorize. Started as a duo, there are now eight musicians in the ranks of the troupe hailing from Hamar, Norway. "We used to play together as 'Ted Glen Extended'. Apart from the fact that the name is completely nonsensical, no one could remember it either", Eivind Strømstad tells. The guitarist and his wife Johanne (vocals) are the founders, later Johannes' brother Knut (vocals), his piano teacher Ole (keyboards), school friends Mats (drums) and Åsa (violin) as well as Ingvild (viola) and Morten (bass) joined the band.
But back to the name of the band: The obvious question whether they knew the German word "Meer" when they found it, Eivind answers in the affirmative and adds: "It also means 'lake' in Dutch, and the French word 'mer' also exists. However, 'mer' also means 'more' in Norwegian, and we joked about that. After all, our sound is anything but minimalist. And that's not all: phonetically, MEER sounds a bit like 'mir', the Russian word for 'peace' ..."
