Harry Nordskog: The gig is legendary here in Norway, according to everybody who has been on the gig it should have been thousands in a little tiny club with a 200 persons limit so we wanted to find out who really was there and who lied. Even the national radio here made a program with people who said they were there but wasn't ;-). Plus the photographic aspect of it was very interesting,- very few photos was released in the media so we started researching for that as well.

Punk Globe: How long did it take you to get the project complete?

H.N.: We started by speaking to one of the persons who worked at Pingvin club in 2006 and gradually from there it became a book project.

Punk Globe: Did you have the blessing and support of The Sex Pistols?

H.N.: Not really, we spoke with Glen but he quit some months before so he couldn't contribute, a friend of us talks to Lydon and hes response was " Its not a religion" and Roadent,their roadie for the Scandinavian tour didn't remember anything of the tour so it was not blessed or supported but it wasn't any remarks against it either.

Punk Globe: Did you have a hard time finding people who could remember all the facts around that time?

H.N.: Sometimes it was hard, we started with the ones we knew was at the gig, they told us who they went with, we used the media to make people contact us if they were there and later we made a Facebookgroup were we put up pics of the audience and got help to identify the people on those so it quite a hard time.

Punk Globe: Did you have any trouble getting in contact with the bands that you interviewed for the book?

H.N.: We didn't interview any bands just the audience, the staff and owner of Pingvin club and the journalists who were there.

Punk Globe: I was very impressed by the photo's used in the book. How many photo's had never been published before?

H.N.: In the book there are 47 photos that are published for the first time. After the book was released we have come across 2 more photographers who has a lot of good ones. We will be using some of those for the second edition and possibly in the next years e-book.. There is also some unpublished photos we've not used from the books photographers which there's is some talk about using in the forthcoming e-book.

Punk Globe: Was it hard finding the never before published photo's ?

H.N.: Some of them but we had the names of most of the photographers already.

Punk Globe: Were all the photo's from the same photographer?

H.N.: No the book has photos from 8 different photographers- some used color film and some used black& white film.

Punk Globe: Did you get have a lot of people coming out of the woodwork to tell you their personal recollections?

H.N.: Yeah, that was one of the most interesting things to do during the process, some has become very profiled persons here in Norway after wards,- news presenters on TV, artists,

Punk Globe: Did you already have a publishing company interested in "Banned in the UK- Sex Pistols exiled to Oslo 1977" or did you have to shop it around?

H.N.: We started doing research some time before the publishing deal came, it was when one of the photographers, Jon Morten Melhus, had an exhibition and there was some photos from the Pingvin gig as well,- so me and Trygve went to see them and got connected with Melhus. Later Trygve found out he released books as well so after a while he agreed to release the book so we didn't shop around. The deal came quite early.

Punk Globe: How did you come up with the title of the book?

H.N.: They were banned from playing in UK at that time and after some attempts of other titles Trygve came up with the exiled idea which sounds like it was in those times with Rotten being razored, Cook attacked with iron bars etc with the English press as amused spectators

Punk Globe: I know that in the Punk Globe we mentioned getting the book on Amazon only to find out that you have had problems with them. Tell the readers what happened?

H.N.: Amazon does not accept Norwegian bank accounts for some stupid reason beyond our imagination so we are in the process in getting it in there but it seems to take forever to make a bank account Amazon approves on but it will come there sooner or later. Before Xmas we hope. Here in Norway we have good distribution with the shops but since it is taking such long time to get it on Amazon we have made our own website for our foreign customers to order it from plus when we had the UK release party at Rough Trade we managed to place some copies at Sister Ray, and Rough Trade off course.

Punk Globe: Can you give the readers a proper address so they can order the book?

H.N.: www.sexpistolsatpingvinclub.com is the publishers web page and there is The book BANNED IN THE UK- Sex Pistols Exiled To Oslo 1977 on the Facebook

Punk Globe: Thanks so much for the interview.. We at Punk Globe would like to wish you much luck and success with release of "Banned in the UK- Sex Pistols exiled to Oslo 1977... Any words of advice for anyone who may want to release a photo book?

H.N.: Arbeit macht Frei!!!

Punk Globe would like to thank Harry Nordskog for the interview...