Maestro

Maestro is the third studio album by Kaizers Orchestra, released on August 15, 2005. Achieving more critical praise and sales in the band’s homeland than its predecessor, it nevertheless failed to become a sales success outside of Norway, eventually culminating in the band’s release from their contract with Universal Germany.

After the release of their second studio album, Evig pint, band founder and main songwriter Janove Ottesen hit a creative wall and struggled to write new material. After many songwriting sessions at Mono, a small club in Oslo, Ottesen finally found the inspiration to write “Dieter Meyers Inst. ” - the song’s lyrics, regarding someone who is committed to a mental hospital, became the new lyrical “setting” for the band’s next studio album; Ottesen and Geir Zahl begun writing new material whose lyrics mostly pertained to the mental hospital known as Dieter Meyers Institution.

A 30-track demo was recorded in January 2004. The first new song to be performed was “Medisin & psykiatri”, which was performed for the first time at Rockefeller in Oslo, Norway on February 27, as part of the longest set the band have ever performed. “Medisin & psykiatri” remained a staple at the band’s shows throughout most of the year, with another new track, “På ditt skift” being performed for the first time in April. Concurrently, another song, “Tokyo Ice til Clementine”, was performed acoustically (sometimes without all members present) for a number of radio stations.