I started playing music when I was about ten. I was the first in my family to play an instrument and I bought my first guitar with my own money. It was a point of pride to me.

A couple of years later my family moved to the other side of the country. Playing the guitar was an important part of the identity I brought with me and met my new surroundings with. And at fourteen I joined my first band.

In my final year of intermediate school, the school announced a competition. We were to compose a song and then present it. I enjoyed both writing and playing music so I was excited about entering. On the day of the competition, we performed in the classroom for the class and the teacher. After we’d finished the teacher said to me: “Pål, you write well, but you’ll never become a musician.”

I became so distraught after that. The fact that my teacher, an authority figure and an adult that I trusted and believed in had said that, made me really doubt if I should continue with music. After a couple of months of doubt, I said to myself “fuck it, he’s not going to decide what I do with my life” and I applied for the music programme at college. It was there that I saw the difference between those who’d been born into musician families and those like me, who hadn’t. I had to work harder, and I did, because I had something to prove. 

What he told me that day has followed me my whole entire life. I became a musician against the odds. I always feel like I have to be really good to deliver, it’s that lingering doubt that he installed that is still there inside me. Nowadays I play the bass which feels like lower pressure than playing the guitar, it somehow seems safer. 

I am now a music producer, I have my own record company and studio. I’m touring with two bands that are doing fairly well, yet I’m still riddled with imposter syndrome. Like I’m not really a musician, I just get to hang out with musicians. When I record music for others in the studio, it feels escapist, because the pressure’s not on me. That little self doubt always comes creeping in when I play myself and it will probably follow me for the rest of my life.