Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - Is It A Party In Here?

Episode Date: March 30, 2023

Conan speaks with Jarle from Bergen, Norway about his musical duo and the wide range of regional dialects in Norway. 

Conan O'Brien needs a fan. Want to talk to Conan? Visit teamcoco.com slash call Conan. Okay, let's get started. Oh, hey. Welcome. I was told to not say anything for a few first few seconds. We were just trying to get your name right.

Welcome to Conan O'Brien needs a fan. Tell us your name and pronunciation. So I often just like I often introduce myself as Charlie, but it's two people not from Norway because it's, I guess, yeah, let me say this correctly. And first of all, nice to meet you. Yeah, that's pretty good. Let's go with your real name.

I mean, I don't think we should Americanize it. This is a global, this is a global venture. And we are now in your country. Yeah. So we will say your name correctly. My name is Conan. No. Okay.

With six umlauts on it. On one letter? Right there. What? Six umlauts on one letter? There's two on the O. And there's two on the A. That's four.

And then there's like two that just float around. Oh, I thought you added extra letters and you're just putting umlauts on top. No, I'm Conan. You actually know it in Norwegian, that would be like the O with the dash through, which is then, so Conan. Yes. That's how I'd like to be known for this episode.

Conan. It's perfect. So your name one last time. Try it. Yarla. Yeah, you're right. You got it. Yarla.

No, Yarla, where are you coming to us from? Whoa, whoa, whoa. Sona by far the best pronunciation right there. Yeah, I wonder why. I think she, I think that was gas. To be honest with you, Yarla. I think she burped. Cause when she burps, it's always been a lot.

Yarla. There's like a huh, right? Or Yarla. Yeah, Yarla. It's like a guttural R. Okay, we have five seconds left of time to talk to you. Cause we fucking wasted so much time on one pronunciation. And we're out of time.

And you're god damn name. I started giving compliments. That's the one thing you shouldn't do in this podcast. Hey, so Charlie. Hey Chuck. Where are you from? Where are you talking to us from? I'm from Bergen, Norway.

So far western parts of the country. Western parts. So it's. Yeah. I have been like it was like a coastal city. Okay. I have been to Oslo because I performed several years ago at the peace prize concert.

I was the emcee, the master of ceremonies. You probably read all about that because I bet it was a big deal. Oh. One. Yes, Conan. Be honest. 100%.

Did you have any idea? It was in the streets. Like people would shut up. I couldn't go to the store with like posters. Conan, I couldn't get you out of my life for like a week. I came to Oslo and gave a major performance. And I would think that even in Bergen, which I know is the west. Are you pretty snotty about Oslo?

Like we're in the west. We don't care if Conan goes to Oslo. He didn't come to Bergen. Yeah. We're just, we're just like pissing that you didn't go to Bergen. Instead went to like Oslo. Like, ooh, the biggest city in Norway. Okay.

All right. Well, like I tried to get out your way, but I couldn't find a reindeer to rent. So you'll have to excuse me. Now. Next time. Yeah. Next time.

Tell us a little bit about yourself. You seem like a nice cool chap. What, what are you up to? What tell us about your life? Who are you? So I'm a, I'm a developer. So I work for, I just finished my master thesis and like software engineering. And then now I work as a developer, but I also make a ton of music on the

side, which you can maybe tell from like the 50,000 instruments. Yes. Around in my room. I see that. Yeah. So you're a musician. Yeah. I make Norwegian pop, like funk music with my cousin.

Yeah. Do you prefer, do you have a group? Yeah. I have a group called the Edda, which is kind of a joke is like, we make good music, but like the essence of the music is kind of almost like, like lowly island vibes. If you know what I mean. Right.

You're, it's kind of satirical, silly. Yeah. Kind of. And what's the group called again? We do have bangers though. Yeah. Check us out. Okay.

Get your name out there. What's it called? Edda. Edda. Yeah. Eda. What does that mean? So that actually, it actually originated as a joke because that in our dialect, if

I like were to talk Norwegian and I would say Edda, that would mean that would be translated to is it. So our joke was like, if that's the name, every song title is a question. Oh, I see. Is it, is it really party in here? Right. Well, that's a good question. We came up with that joke before we started making music.

To be honest with you, Arla, most parties I attend, that's one of my first questions is, is it a party in here? Oh. Is it? So, yeah. I see. So I have a question for you, which is tell us about your group. You have this group, it's two of you.

What kind of music do you do? Is it, is it high energy or you guys kind of like quietly like software developers just playing your MOOCs synthesizers? What tell us about your performances? I will be honest though, I would love to make that type of music too, but no, that's more like way more upbeat party music. We play a lot of like our dialects being from like Bergen and stuff, because we do sound like a bunch of like, if you have the Norwegian stereotype of how we sound like the hard door

yaw yaw, that's how we talk regularly. So like we plan a lot of that. I'm like the energetic one, well, he's the pretty one, I guess. What? Well, you're pretty good looking. Yeah, I mean, you must be a real stunner. Yeah, I want to say, you guys, Yarla, I was, I've got a thing for you already. You're, you're, I think you're a dreamy fella.

I can't imagine how good looking. What's the other guy's name? Christian. Way easier to pronounce. Yeah, yeah, I see why he gets all the attention because you can say his name. That's why I'm trying to go for Charlie Conan. You see the goddamn problem here? All right, let's watch the language.

This is a children's podcast. Oh, crap. Sorry. Are you a Norwegian rap duo? Is that fair to say? Yeah. That's perfect. Can you give me a sampling of Norwegian rap just so I can hear it?

Can you rap in Norwegian for me? Just anything. It doesn't have to make sense because we won't understand it. Okay, check it. Check it. Don't try to warm it. Hey, I heard mother fucker in there. I heard talking.

Oh, shit. I forgot. Yeah. David, it's a children's podcast. I forgot. No, no, no. That's okay. Wait.

The children left hours ago. Wow. I like that. Do you want me to try it and I'll give you a beat? Want me to give you a beat? No. Oh, no, no, no. You should try it.

You got to sing it. No, I can't sing that. Why? I can. You can do it. Yes. Oh, my God. Is that it?

That's like Dr. Frankenstein's assistant got stuck in the, like, voltage meter. Also, I went into Falco. Yeah. Remember Falco? Yeah. I'm already telling you, we're sampling that and playing it out for somebody trying Norwegian and like putting it in our next. Let's go.

I would, I would be honored to, I want to be a hit on the Norwegian pop charts. Is that a possibility? That is an above 0% possibility. I cannot say that it's over 1%, but it's like, definitely. Well, come on. Mid zeros. Listen. Okay.

Mid zeros. You. You heard him beatboxing too. Right. It's tragic when he tries to do anything cool. Like, I think summa some kind of like safety feature, because it all got muted out on the way over here. Luckily.

So I was spared. Yeah. Zoom does have a function in there. Yeah. Special program that. Yeah. Protect my ears. Total idiot.

Extreme white boy filter. Yeah. So you're half up. What are you dressed like? Okay. I'm trying to visual. I've got a sense of what you sound like. How are you dressed when you're performing in Eta?

Well, so we kind of have like a color scheme going brown, like yellow, just, I guess it's an energetic color and he's purple. So I often have like either like completely like one of those colors or like, you know, wear something of that color. But I like a lot of like, like loose jackets, like a lot of loose clothes. Yeah. Yeah. He's more like straight.

Yeah. Baggy. Exactly. Right. And then you get the like hasmat suits from Breaking Bad. I basically just wear that for a performing life. Sure. Yeah.

And while you're at it, you might as well make some meth. Yeah. While you're up there. Yeah. I mean, why waste the time? Okay. It's not a profitable business Conan. So, you know, we've got to make, we've got to make some money.

Well, I think you said meth wasn't a profitable business. And I was about to correct you. It's 20. Because Sona and Gorley have done quite well with their Pasadena operation. Love making meth. So, I see you consuming a lot of liquids. Yeah. There's like an energy drink and then some Pepsi clear.

What's going on there? Yeah. What are you doing? Different bottles. I'm a thirsty boy. What can I say guys? Like I like my water. Speaking of which, there is a.

Which is why I have it in the entire bubble. I've spent some time, as I said, in Oslo. And I know the word didn't leak out west to Bergen. But man was I a hit. Toast of the town. They gave me my own peace prize. Oh, okay. Yeah, they did.

For what? I thought it was a peace prize and then it turned out it was a mint on my pillow. The minute I did do it and it was delicious. But there's this maybe a stereotype that people in your area of the world drink a lot. Because the days are short and it's cold. And you can only take a sauna so many times. Is that true? Is drinking a big part of the culture?

100%. Like even when we. So for example, like a good example, when I started studying, I started to, you know, I studied like computers coding. I thought it would just be like, because I'm pretty social. So I thought it would be just me and like a bunch of nerds and I would have to be like, you do the drinking, like always spare time. If you know what I mean.

Yeah. But then like I started there, people were amazing. Additionally, because like developers is quite like a sought after profession in Norway. A ton of businesses would like pay like our faculty to come and essentially party with us. So they would literally pay to come and present themselves. You guys should work for us also. Here's like free beer for the rest of the night. So we had that's incredible.

So as an enticement to get young people to work for you, companies there offer you free liquor and you go and you party the night away. Yeah. Free liquor, free sushi or pizza or whatever. It was great coding. Oh, can I come? Yeah. 100%.

Like, do they check? What if I just, can I just lie and say that I code stuff? What do they ask? Yeah. Questions. Oh, okay. They don't ask a lot of questions, I bet. And also you seem Norwegian.

So. You heard her. Yeah. When I first met Selma, I said, I swear to God, I met the most wonderful Norwegian woman today. And I should have done my homework. Yeah. What do you drink there?

I was in Finland once years ago and they kept offering me Korskinkova. I know I'm pronouncing it incorrectly, but what do you want? And that was like jet fuel. I mean jet fuel. What do you guys drink? So Norway, I think a lot of people, well, I myself, I drink a lot of gin and I drink a lot of beer. And that's mostly what I do.

Right. How do you drink the gin straight or how do you take it? No, I mostly, I found out like gin and tonic. Oh, I love a good gin and tonic. Yeah. We do have a lot of like Norwegian, like, I think, I think the world, like the world competition or whatever for gin, like a Norwegian one one. Oh.

Called Haga Hogan. Haga Hogan. Haga Hogan. Haga Hogan. Haga Hogan. Haga Hogan. Not Hogan, Hogan, right? Haga Hogan.

Yeah. Haga Hogan. Yeah. Haga Hogan. Haga Hogan. Haga Hogan. Haga Hogan. That's actually pretty good.

Haga Hogan. Haga Hogan. Haga Hogan. Haga Hogan. Haga Hogan. I mean, the one thing I will give props to Oslo is like their dialect is actually kind of easy to pronounce. Like I'm from Bergen, so all they are is like, like, like, down here.

Yeah. I think your Chewbacca was from Bergen in Norway. Dude, that's a little known fact. You almost called him Chewbutka. I did not. That's the porn version. I know. I've seen it three times.

Here comes Chewbutka. How nice would it be if we did this podcast and we just had a little picture of gin and tonics that we could just take from while we're. Yeah. Or we watched porn. Well, yeah. Yeah. Wookie porn.

Yeah. Well, it's called Star Horse. Yeah. But my question. Well, first of all, we did that. We did a camp out and you served a very potent drink. I showed great moderation. You showed less moderation and Sona said, screw it, I can get an Uber home and went

to town and you're a babbling. Yeah. Because she knows how to live life like our friend, Yacola. Say it one more time for me, please. This sounds like a spelling bee. It's just like to say your own name. Yacola. Yacola.

Yacola. Yacola. Yacola. It's got a little bit of a sadness to it. Yacola. Yacola. Yacola. Yeah.

Yacola. Because you guys don't know how to gurgle. It's a part of an Armenian. No, it's not. It's a gargle. It's a gargle. That's a gargle. That's a gargle.

I can't do that. I can't do that. Like I'm not sure if it's called cat calling, but I can't do that sound like properly. That's okay. That's okay. You don't need to learn how to do that. This is how your name is really supposed to be pronounced. Yarrlar.

Ooh. That's how it's supposed to really be. Oh, Colin. There's a whole spectrum of Chewbacca. To predator. Oh, wow. You can go like from one end to the other. Incredible.

You know what I love? What? I talk to people from all over the world to try and make a real meaningful connection. And Gorley says, fuck that. We're talking about what I want to talk about. James Bond or spiders. Or predators. You brought up Chewbacca.

Yeah, you did. You know that. Yeah. No, I didn't. You brought him up and I said, I repeated his name. And technically you just brought up James Bond. So let's talk about it. Okay.

He's never been to Norway. Never. In any of the films. That's not true. He's there briefly. He was there in no time to die. Oh. Who's the biggest star in Norway?

From Norway. Ooh. Oh, actually the first thing, the first guy I thought of is the, you know, the, you guys have seen Game of Thrones. Yeah. Oh, Nicholas Costa Wildo. Costa Wildo? No, he's from Denmark.

That's a light guy. That's a light Gorley. That's Tormund. Tormund? Big ass. Who does he play? Who does he play? Who does he play?

He's that redhead. The redhead. Oh, I love that guy. The redheaded one. The one who was in love with Bri... Ygritte. No, Brienne. Brienne.

Yeah. You just, you've immediately, here's your thing. You're the guy. First of all. You just immediately shout out wrong information. It's fun. It's like a game. Yeah.

But it's, you know, what island are you from? Edison. Thomas Edison. What? Caramel. What? Short charts. Ygritte.

Ygritte. Yeah. He's your biggest, he's your biggest star as, what are you drinking now? This is your fifth. Oh my God. What? What kind of crystals do you have? You have had, you have had an energy drink.

You're drinking from a large clear bottle and you just took what looks like some kind of coffee drink and they're all in different glasses. How many? I would get like a taco tray over here with like just rotating drinks like, ooh, what am I trying now? Mm-hmm. Espresso. Ooh.

I don't. But I just like have a lot of stuff on my desk. Let me ask you a question. Yarl. Yes. How would I fit in in Norway if I came out to Bergen? How would I be, first of all, what would you and I do together? So, first of all, you would fit in perfectly, Conan.

Your complexion is 100%, like, you know, would fit in here and you wouldn't even need like a, like a, like a safety vest on the roads where, because it's pretty dark here, right? But you could just like flash your arm and like blind the driver. You know, I love a Norwegian giving me shit for how pale I am. That's pretty good. That's how pale I am. That's pretty good. Yeah.

So, Norway is having a laugh at my lack of melanin, but what would we do? Okay. I'm there with you. We're hanging out. What would we do? Sell it. So, we are in Bergen here. I should mention, like, we're not at Oslo.

Right. Right. Screw Oslo. We have a lot of, so first of all, we have a ton of like great musicians from at in Bergen. So I would definitely want to bring you to a live show, and it would also be perfect because number one, I have like the body build of a cricket so I could like sit on your shoulders and actually be able to see anything. Oh, you're a, you're a, you're a small gentleman is what you're saying.

I am a small gentleman. Okay. So, you basically, the main advantage you see of me coming and visiting you in Norway is that you could sit on my shoulders at a concert. You're a platform. I'm a ladder. I'm a goddamn ladder. I love this.

That's my value to you. You're, you're a famous person and he just wants to use you for hiding. You don't even get to face the stage. I don't even get right. You won't be facing the other way, which would be his lap. Yeah. Which means that my face is in your crotch and his thighs are covering your ears. You can't see or hear anything.

Right. Right. That's what you want. And by the way, I'm not saying no because I'm realizing, you know, whatever. Yeah, sure. I'm down with that. Sorry. He's not even asking if you could swing like VIP tickets.

He just wants to use you for height. You want to use my height and sit on me like an inert object. Yeah. And also do the wrong way to know, but it's seriously though, Conan, we have a lot of tons of great beer over here, which is like native to Norway because she's like native resources and shit. So goddamn it. Children's podcast.

Anyways, we'll go grab a goddamn beer, but we would, I guess, hit the, hit the local attractions. Right. So I'm a good platform and there's beer to drink. Yeah. And that's like order. And would I get to come check out one of your shows? Dude, 100% Yeah.

You could also be like, it would also be that there, your height would also work as like, you know, come over here. You know, the guy. Okay, listen. I'm not, I'm not one of those balloons in front of a used car store that whips around. I mean, human being. So stop saying, oh, it's good because people would see you. Oh, you got all blurry.

I thought I'd been, maybe I've been drinking. I think my camera started crying because it was, it felt upset by me making fun of you. I'm so sorry. Conan. No one's sorry. You're not sorry. I put my conscious into a camera. How do you think my fake Norwegian rap would go over in Norway?

I think people would absolutely, absolutely just because we're already, I'm not sure if you guys could pick that up, I'm already pretty inaudible and I'm even worse when I'm speaking Norwegian. So I think like your like intelligibility would probably match mine when performing live. Oh, people wouldn't understand what neither of us are saying. They wouldn't get offended. They wouldn't get offended. I don't know.

Dude, people. I don't know. Hey, thanks for the reassurance. No, I said no. Okay. Like people like in Norway don't love like, I love people making fun of Norwegians. Every time I see that, I'm like, that's fucking perfect. Right.

So if anybody were to come on stage and like with like gusto and moxie just perform in Norwegian by with their soul, yeah, people will just like flip out. Okay. So you think they'd be okay with it? They wouldn't get mad because when I make fun of Norwegians in Minneapolis, they get angry, but I've been struck several times. I don't know. Okay.

I don't know. We love it over here at least. Okay. I can't speak for the Minneapolisians. Oh, please. No. Minneapolis. Minneapolis.

I'm not going to answer anymore because I'm afraid I'm going to get it wrong. Oh, I don't think you're afraid you're going to get it wrong at all. Okay. Then the answer is Minneapolis. Is that true? No, Minneapolisians. Is it? I have no idea.

Minneapolisians. Eagret. Eagret. Eagret. John Snow. New Patrick Harris. Hey, that was a good random one. Yeah.

Okay. Well, listen, I, I'm very excited to hear some of the music of Eta. How do I find it? Can I find it online? No. It's on Spotify, it's on YouTube, although I will warn you that like we're, because our name is just three letters, and we're like a relatively small group from Norway. You're 100% going to get Ed Sheeran popping up.

We still have a problem with that. Oh, wait. God damn Ed. E-D-A. E-D-A. Right. No. Yeah.

So they're like, oh, you didn't mean to write A. You meant to write a space and then Ed Sheeran, right? Like, no, God damn it. I think Ed Sheeran calls himself Ed Sheeran just to fuck with you guys. Yeah. I honestly did. He's in Game of Thrones, true story. Yeah.

Yeah. People weren't happy. Dude. Full circle. Yeah. Got the percent. Great podcast. Yarlah, thank you so much for reaching out to us.

Have you, do you listen to the podcast? Is that how you, you know of us? Yeah. 100%. And also also to be honest, I completely forgot that I like submitted a thing and then I wrote what I, like I read what I wrote and I was like, gee, how did you guys say yes to this? Well, we.

Thank you. We actually, yeah. This has been awesome. We, we didn't, we basically said yes to the band. Yeah. Yeah. We're big Norwegian rap fans. We put in Ed Sheeran and you came in.

Yeah, exactly. He's your nemesis. Right up. I got him. One day I'll hunt him down. Well, you don't have to. He's so easy to spot. He also takes away in the Game of Thrones, it takes the redhead attention away from the

Norwegian guy there too. Yeah. He is just like out there to steal like the Norwegian's attention. Yeah. Yeah. So around the Norwegians, angry at Ed Sheeran, is it just you? I think like 95 give or take. 95% are angry at Ed Sheeran.

Yeah. Well, I got a, I'm going to see if I can fix that problem as well. It's my job to bring people together. You know? I see that. Wait, is that my job? No. No, no.

Your job. I'm not sure what your job is. No. Just sort of spout stuff and hope something lands. Yeah. I think that's it. Well, YARLA. Yeah.

I nailed it. No, you didn't. Well, you, let's hear you do it. YARLA. Right? That is still the best, guys. I have to say. YARLA.

YARLA. YARLA. YARLA. YARLA. YARLA. YARLA. You know what you have to do? It helps to imagine swallowing a clam.

YARLA. YARLA. YARLA. YARLA. YARLA. I also like the Chewbacca idea. That was also a good one, though. Yeah.

YARLA. I'm going to let you go before I completely lose it on the people in the studio. Who's he talking about? Oh, we're so scared. Yeah. Oh, my God. Oh, what do you see? These meat hooks.

Oh, my God. It was nice. It was really nice talking to you and please give my best to everyone in Bergen, Norway. And tell those snobs in Oslo they can suck it. Okay? Chewbacca. We do that every day. Yeah.

You take care, old friend. Let me know if you guys are over here and I'll grab a beer with you. You'll find out. The word will get out. And you see us on the platform. Bye, YARLA. Bye, YARLA. Take care, guys.

Conan O'Brien needs a fan with Conan O'Brien, Sonam of Sessian and Matt Gorley, produced by me, Matt Gorley, executive produced by Adam Sacks, Joanna Salateroff and Jeff Ross at Team Coco and Colin Anderson at Earwolf, music by Jimmy Vivino, supervising producer Aaron Blair, associate talent producer Jennifer Samples, associate producers Sean Doherty and Lisa Berm, engineering by Eduardo Perez. Please rate, review and subscribe to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever fine podcasts are downloaded. This has been a Team Coco production in association with Stitcher.