Playing support for pin-up popstars Girls Aloud might get some musicians’ pulses racing. But if Norwegian emigre Kjetil Morland is excited about the task, he hides it well, Tim Hughes discovers.

IT’S a long way from the forests, fjords and long empty nights of rural Norway to the flashy, tacky world of stadium pop.

Yet Kjetil Morland is resolutely unfazed.

Straight outta Grimstad – famous as the former home of hard-edged playwright Henrik Ibsen, and not much else – Kjetil has this year found himself supporting those crown princesses of disposable chart pop Girls Aloud.

The tour saw him and his Sussex-based band Absent Elk, pictured below, playing to capacity crowds at the likes of London’s O2 Arena, the Sheffield and Manchester Evening News arenas, and Glasgow’s SECC.

It must, I suggest, have been a bizarre, if not outright terrifying, experience for a band whose previous achievements involved low-key support slots for The Script, Das Pop and, dear oh dear, The Hoosiers.

“It’s great,” he says with no discernable sense of excitement. “It was all down to a bit of luck.”

It actually followed the band’s release of a cover of a Girls Aloud song The Loving Kind - which the ‘ladiez’ liked enough to invite them to join them on tour.

“We made a tongue in cheek video to go with the song,” he adds in his impeccable English.

“It got lots of hits and the girls’ management picked up on it and asked us along.

“We are very different to Girls Aloud, but that’s probably why we were chosen.

“After all, they support Coldplay – and you can’t get more different than that.

“We were playing to up to 23,000 people, and got a good reaction.

“It was surreal though as you feel so detached from the audience.

“It’s like being on stage at a theatre and being blinded by the lights so you can’t see the audience.

“But we were very relaxed about the whole thing.

“I’ve been writing songs since I was 10 years-old. I’ve always done it and have never thought about it. I just take it as it comes.”

Kjetil actually came to England to study, and, after a series of acoustic solo gigs, fell into the band with English lads Ross Martin (guitar, keyboards), Mike Hillman (guitar), James Penhallow (bass), and Ric Wilson (drums).

Ross, Mike and Ric had been friends since school, and their band had been through a succession of singers – until Kjetil turned up in their hometown of Shoreham.

Already sporting a burgeoning reputation in the capital as a jobbing singer-songwriter in the mould of Jeff Buckley, he slotted right in - the band bringing what he calls “bigness” to his folkie compositions.

The band’s name is a reminder of his sense of dislocation and nostalgia for Scandinavia.

It is, he explains, himself who is the ‘absent elk’ – missing from the woods of his birthplace.

“It’s a nod to the Scandinavian influence,” he says. "The elk is the king of the forest in Norway.

“So many bands call themselves ’The’ something, but we wanted something different. The idea is that I’m far away from my home country.”

The band have just released their debut single Sun And Water, which will be followed in August by a long player.

“We have recorded a really dynamic album,” says Kjetil.

“It ranges from intimate acoustic moments to big rock songs, and is hard to put into any category.

“I suppose we are a guitar band who are melody driven.”

And does it bear any resemblance to the oeuvre of that other Norwegian-made-good, Morten Harket?

“There’s maybe a bit of a-ha,” he admits.

“But we are also inspired by the UK music scene so sound quite British. We’re all from seaside towns on southern coasts,” he notes.

“I feel we’re all kinda’ similar personalities, and that’s one of the reasons we clicked.”

The band are now on the road for their first headline tour, and on Monday play Oxford’s O2 Academy.

It must seem something of a step down after being on the road with Girls Aloud?

“Not at all,” he says.

“We are very excited. And this time it will be ‘our’ crowd.”

He adds: “We didn’t actually hang out with Girls Aloud – we just passed them in the corridor.

“They would take ages to prepare with makeup artists and stylists, where as we don’t have any.

“We even thought about playing naked in front of 23,000 people. Maybe next time!”

Absent Elk play the Oxford Academy on Monday.

Doors open at 7pm with support from InLight and Kings Shilling.

Tickets are £5 from the venue or box office 0844 477 2000, or www.ticketweb.co.uk.

All shows will be open to ages 14 and over (under 14s allowed if accompanied by an adult over the age of 18).