Strengeplukk

Strengeplukk (formerly Strengeplukk & Felegnukk) is a bluegrass band consisting mainly of members with background in the music scene in Stavanger. The band started when Jakob Folke Ossum (guitar), Nikolai Storevik (fiddle) and Andreas B. Onarheim (mandolin) got together to explore the wonders of bluegrass music in the autumn of 2015. Andreas soon asked his friend and former bandmate Thorbjørn André Bilstad Olsen (banjo) to join and shortly after Lasse Gjestrud (bass) also joined the band. Gjestrud decided to part with the group the autumn of 2016 as he was moving to the capital. Shortly after, the gap was filled by Vidar Starheimsæter. The band plays their own songs with lyrics in Norwegian as well as an extensive selection of traditional American bluegrass songs and fiddle tunes.

Since starting up in 2015, the band has toured around Norway many times. In 2018 they released their debut album “Fjellvegen”. In the spring of 2020 came the single “Spiker eller fjøl” followed by two digital EP-releases that later was combined on the november 2020 LP-release “Nyslått Blågras”.

During the corona pandemic the band had only played a few shows until, finally, the band could go on tour again the summer of 2021. The following fall they backed no other than folk legend Judy Collins and Norwegian local hero Jonas Fjeld for their September 2021 “Winter Stories” tour in Norway.

In the spring of 2022 the single “Du likar det” (You’ll like it) was released following a new tour. The following fall they released more singles before releasing their album, “Nålauget” (“the Needle Eye), in March 2023. The albumet received great reviews both in Norway and abroad. “Bluegrass Today” wrote amongst other things that “It’s obvious that Strengeplukk has a keen understanding of bluegrass music. By the same coin they’re capable of crafting uniquely original material in that idiom”.

In the fall of 2023 founding member and banjo player Thorbjørn André Bilstad Olsen announced that he was leaving the band. Him and the band parted as friends and keeps playing together in jams and other constellations. The same fall the band announced that Mikael Jonassen would be taking over the banjo reins as a new full member of the band.