Kurt Nilsen’s Musical Comeback and Family Milestones in 2023

December 2022 was a slightly chaotic month for Kurt Nilsen (44) with a Christmas tour, covid illness with subsequent cancellations, hectic songwriting and in the middle of it all, his daughter was born.

– You can safely say it was a hectic December, smiles Kurt Nilsen when VG meets him at the Town Hall Theater in Ski, where he is preparing the summer tour that starts on Saturday.

The musical result of that creative chaos, the “If Love Was A Song” EP, arrives today. The physical result in the form of a daughter, Kurt Nilsen’s fourth child, came in December.

It was at the beginning of January this year that VG could bring the news that Kurt Nilsen and Oda Rivrud had found their way back to each other after a break of around a year.

What very few knew at the time was that the couple had a daughter who was then a month old. Kurt Nilsen readily admits that he has no interest in sharing private happy news of this type in public.

– I am a private person and have no need to share such things. I want to talk about my music, that is what is important to me externally.

– But you like having a big family around you?

He smiles.

– It’s never wrong, says Kurt Nilsen, who also became a grandfather in 2019.

But then, music!

The “If Love Was A Song” EP is his first collection of songs in six years. The same amount of time has passed since he was on a “proper” tour, if we disregard the annual Christmas tours.

He should have finished these for good in 2021, but the pandemic put an end to that. And when he was finally on his farewell tour in December last year, he fell ill with corona and had to postpone his last concerts until 2023.

– It will be good to do something else. I like both formats, but they are two completely different things. Now it was time to challenge myself again. I’m looking forward to it like a young person – I have a lot of energy and I’m going to enjoy myself to death, says Kurt Nilsen and points to his new trademark, the Stetson hat.

This year marks twenty years since he won both “Idol” and subsequent “World Idol” as a 24-year-old. A bit of a journey, says Nilsen about the two decades and gives an example of the hectic activity after the “Idol” success and ditto giant success with colleagues Alejandro Fuentes, Askil Holm and Espen Lind.

– The plan was to drive up and take the ticket right after “Idol”. It was just to forget. It went from blow to blow, and I didn’t get the note until I was over 30 years old! That shows a bit of how hectic it was, he grins.

– But there have been downturns too?

– It has stopped a few times, but the ideas have always returned. It goes in waves all the time. But think how lucky I’ve been to be able to do this for twenty years, even though I’ve also been bored with my job. Not the song, but the board around the tournament. But I’m old enough now to say that being bored with your job is probably something most people have been through at some point, says Kurt Nilsen.

The summer tour of Kurt Nilsen and his band starts in Vennesla on Saturday.