“Don’t wait for someone else to give you permission.” Anders L. Rasmussen, singer and guitarist of Tromsø heavy rock trio Ohmwork, reflects on a life spent making loud, uncompromising music
Anders L. Rasmussen, singer and guitarist of Tromsø heavy rock trio Ohmwork, talks about their seventh album Ex Nihilo, making music outside the mainstream, the reality of keeping a band going alongside a full-time career, and why the music still matters after more than a decade.
PLEASE TELL US A BIT ABOUT YOURSELF...
I'm Anders L. Rasmussen, singer and guitarist in Ohmwork, a heavy rock trio from Tromsø in Northern Norway. I've been making music with Ohmwork since 2012, and over the years we've developed a sound that moves between heavy rock, doom, stoner and classic metal.
We're a three-piece, which means there's nowhere to hide. What you hear is basically the three of us playing together, and that's a big part of what I like about the band. Outside music, I work in school leadership, so music isn't my full-time job. It's something I've chosen to keep doing because I genuinely need it in my life.
TELL US ABOUT YOUR NEW ALBUM OR SINGLE
Our new album is called Ex Nihilo, and it's our seventh album. It comes out on September 18th, 2026.
It's probably the heaviest and most direct Ohmwork record we've made. We wanted to capture more of the raw energy we have when we play live, so we deliberately kept the arrangements relatively stripped down and avoided piling on too many overdubs.
The album has seven songs, including the almost ten-minute instrumental title track, and it takes you through some pretty dark territory. There's resistance, power, escape, decay and eventually something that feels almost like dissolution. At the same time, there's still that groove and sense of movement that I think is very much Ohmwork.
We recorded it at LP Studio in Tromsø with Yngvar Mehus, who also mixed and mastered the album. It was important to us that the record sounded like a band playing together rather than something assembled piece by piece.
WHICH SONG WOULD YOU SAY SUMS UP YOUR SOUND THE BEST?
I'd probably say "Resistance". It has the heaviness, the groove, the rawness and the melodic side of Ohmwork all in one song. It's direct, but there's still enough going on underneath to make it interesting after repeated listens.
If you want to understand what we're about, that's probably a good place to start.
HOW DID YOU GET INTO MUSIC?
I've been obsessed with music for as long as I can remember. I started playing guitar when I was a teenager, and like a lot of people, I was completely hooked once I discovered that you could actually create the sounds yourself.
Heavy music was always a big part of it. Dio, Black Sabbath and classic metal were important early influences, but over the years I've listened to a pretty ridiculous range of music. I think that probably explains why Ohmwork doesn't fit neatly into one particular box.
Eventually playing music stopped being something I just did and became something I couldn't really imagine not doing.
WHAT DOES TYPICAL WRITING AND RECORDING DAY LOOK LIKE?
There isn't really a typical writing day. A riff, a rhythm or a lyric can show up at pretty much any time, and I'll record or write down the idea before it disappears.
Once there's a basic idea, I usually work on it quite a lot by myself before bringing it into the band. Then the real process starts. The three of us play it, change things, remove things and see what survives.
For recording, I prefer things to be fairly simple. Get in the room, turn the amps up and play. On Ex Nihilo we wanted to capture that live feeling, so there was a lot of focus on getting the basic performances right rather than fixing everything afterwards.
HOW DID YOU GET YOUR BAND NAME / STAGE NAME?
Ohmwork is actually the title of a solo album by Geezer Butler, released in the 1990s. Our bassist, Helge, brought it up, and we all immediately thought it would make a great band name, especially compared to some of the other terrible suggestions we had at the time.
WHAT HAS BEEN THAT HARDEST THING ABOUT YOUR MUSIC JOURNEY SO FAR?
Probably finding the time and energy to keep doing it while having a normal job and life around it.
We're not a band that sits around waiting for someone else to make things happen. We write, record, release, book shows, promote ourselves and handle a lot of the practical stuff. That can be exhausting, especially when you're doing it alongside full-time work.
But at the same time, that's also what makes every album and every show feel like an achievement.
WHAT'S BEEN THE EASIEST?
Writing and playing music.
The administrative side of being in a band? Not so much!
But once the amps are on and the three of us are playing, everything else disappears. That's still the easiest and most natural part of it.
WHAT WOULD YOU BE DOING IF YOU WEREN'T MAKING MUSIC?
I'd probably still be working in education. I work in school leadership, and I actually enjoy that part of my life too.
But I'm not sure I'd be particularly happy if music disappeared completely. Even if Ohmwork didn't exist, I'd probably find some way of making noise.
WHAT IS THE BEST ADVICE YOU'VE BEEN GIVEN?
Don't wait for someone else to give you permission.
If you want to make a record, make a record. If you want to play a show, find a way to play a show. You don't need to have everything figured out before you start.
And perhaps more importantly: make something you're genuinely proud of rather than trying to guess what other people want to hear.
WHAT'S NEXT?
First and foremost, we're going to get Ex Nihilo out into the world and play it live.
We've already released several singles from the album throughout 2026, including "Yeti", "Resistance", "Ketamine", "Reich, "Rust" and "Taman Shud (the End)", and now the full album is finally here.
We'll be playing shows around the release, and then we'll see where the record takes us. There are already ideas for new material floating around, so I doubt we'll sit still for very long.
PLEASE ADD ANY SOCIALS SO WE CAN SHARE
facebook.com/ohmworktromso Instagram.com/ohmworktromso www.ohmworkband.com
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