TIM HUGHES catches up with Norwegian band Katzenjammer who are at Cornbury.

THEIR name means ‘cat’s wail’ and, to be fair, there is something of the banshee about this all-girl band, who hail from the fjords.

But Katzenjammer are more than just a bunch of noisy Norwegians.

In fact to understand what this folk-rock-gypsy-punk four-piece are all about, it might help to know the other meaning for their German language name – hangover.

“We are flamboyant, outgoing and entertaining,” says the band’s Solveig Heilo. “And if you come to see us, you’ll probably have a katzenjammer the day after.”

Solveig, Anne Marit Bergheim, Marianne Sveen and Turid Jørgensen are far from your usual girl group.

For a start, they crackle with energy and play an explosive live show. But Katzenjammer (pronounced ‘yammer’) are a talented bunch – swapping instruments and adding new ones to their repertoire all the time.

They are currently up to 25 – embracing such rock & roll oddities as banjo, trumpet, contrabass balalaika, glockenspiel, kazoo, zither, ukelele, melodica and accordion.

And while they don’t wheel them all out every night, their shows are still a visual spectacle.

“We are four girls rotating, usually on 15 instruments,” says Solveig. “We change instruments every song, but do have our favourites. Turid plays mostly bass and I play mostly drums. We all have strengths and have a basic core that we work from and play around.”

And their music? “It’s a mixture of everything that inspires us,” she adds. “There are no bounds and no rules – and that’s the beauty. We are four very different characters and listen to a lot of different music. We travel around the world so are influenced by places we have visited and films we have watched.

“I’m into dub-step and electronica and my songs have elements of that. But everything is Katzenjammer, and when we play we create a sound together. It’s not pure pop or rock or electronica - it’s katzenjammer!”

Solveig is talking to me from a windy Belgian beach, on the continental leg of a tour which on Saturday sees them playing the Cornbury Festival.

So how’s it going, I ask her? “It’s fun. But then we’ve been on a European tour for four years – going back and forth. We do it for a reason – but it is exhausting.

“Picture four girls on a bus, living on top of each other and with our crew as well. We are together for 24 hours a day; we’re like family. We fight as a family would but have a lot of fun as well.” So does it ever come to blows? “Oh it does!” she laughs. “We are four very different girls. We have the same views on the world around us but our characters are all very different. We are all crazy in our idiosyncrasies. But we do give each other space.”

Solveig claims to be the flower child of the band. “I’m the most ‘hippy’ of them all,” she says. “I’ll run naked all around, and am more free-spirited than the rest – and go out for drinks more than the others.”

But, despite their name, hangovers are out of the question.

“We are four girls and four lead singers,” she goes on. “Everyone has to keep their voice. It’s hard work and if your voice isn’t good, you can’t do a show. So we can’t go out drinking, smoking and damaging our voices. “We have to do it in moderation,” she adds. “And, anyway, we are pious, decent nice girls,” before torpedoing her reputation for sobriety by adding: “But we do brew our own Viking mead!”

The girls are proud of their Viking roots, and are determined to prove there’s more to Norway than A-ha and Røyksopp. “We are ambassadors for Norwegian music,” says Solveig.

“But Norwegian people haven’t realised that until recently as we haven’t been in the Norwegian media as we have been working abroad so much.”

That has included going down a storm in Glastonbury, Bestival and the Cambridge Folk Festival.

“Now people there are saying ‘congratulations on your success’. But we are saying ‘we’ve had that for five years but you didn’t notice’.

“But there is a lot of Norway in our music. Our vocal harmonies are based on traditional sounds – the music we imagine the Vikings singing, with their legs apart, loud, unclear and out of tune! Now, that’s real Norwegian music!”

* Katzenjammer play Cornbury Festival on Sunday night, headlining the Songbird Stage. They follow up their debut with new album Kiss Before You Go and single Rock-Paper-Scissors. Both are out now.