Sondre Lerche Readying Album

11/14/08 2:54pm

by Scott Bryson (CHARTattack)

If Sondre Lerche can be used as an indicator, there's some hope that child stars can turn out well-adjusted. Lerche wasn't on any doomed '80s sitcoms, but, in his home country of Norway, he was a veritable pop sensation by the time he'd finished high school.

Lerche's fast-track to success started with guitar lessons at age eight. He was playing open-mic nights by 14. He wrote his Faces Down debut album when he was 16, promptly signed with Virgin Records, and released that disc when he was 18.

The four albums that followed — including his latest, the soundtrack to the movie Dan In Real Life — thrust Lerche headfirst into the public sphere. It was suddenly in vogue in Norway to snap pictures of him at restaurants and gossip about who he was dating.

Lerche is now based in New York — a world away from Norway, in more than just distance. In North America, Lerche is still a virtual unknown. He's popular in indie rock circles, but doesn't have to worry about running from paparazzi. From his perspective, both of these lives are part of what he signed on for, and he doesn't regret any of it.

"I guess it was what I'd always wanted and I didn't dare dream that it could actually happen," he says. "But I'm very proud of all of the records I put out, and I play songs from all of the records when I do shows.

"And so long as I'm happy with what I put out there, I guess it was just necessary for me to go out playing and putting out records and spreading the word about myself from an early age. I've been fortunate that I've worked with great, nice people with good intentions. I haven't had a lot of people screw me over. In that sense, I've been very fortunate."

Much of Lerche's time in recent months has been spent running back and forth between his homes in New York and Bergen, Norway, recording and arranging a new album. He's not expecting it to see the light of day until well into 2009, but he already has a firm grasp on what it'll sound like.

"I wanted to explore the studio some more and not necessarily rely on a backing band... There's a lot of band stuff on it, but I'm working a lot with string and brass arrangements and it's definitely more of a studio album. In that sense, it's more of an album like Two Way Monologue, only with some of the physical force that you hear in an album like Phantom Punch."

Whether he's working in a studio with a band or alone, hunched over a computer, Lerche has always maintained that the best way to complete a song is to see how it goes over in front of a crowd. He's embarking on a mini-tour this week that's aimed at testing his new material.

"The most helpful thing to me when I'm working on new songs is actually playing the songs in front of an audience," he says. "It helps me shape the songs. It gives me either the confidence that I need or tells me that something is not quite right.

"I'm blessed with a very excited and adventurous audience, who are always up to hearing new songs. I don't have the kind of audience who go for a beer when I play a new song. They're excited to hear it, and that's a great thing. I know a lot of artists have a hard time trying out new material."

You can catch Lerche — solo with guitar — at Toronto's Mod Club on Friday night, or on Saturday at Montreal's Studio Juste Pour Rire.