There's plenty of mainstream melodies in the snap and crackle of Serena-Maneeseh's white noise. You just need to open your ears  - and your mind, Emil Nikolaisen tells Jim Caroll.

EMIL Nikolaisen is someone who is still head over heels in love with pop music. Of course, you might listen to his band, Norwegian white-noise maestros Seren-Maneesh, and just hear a wall of sonic buzz, twitchy interference and high frequencies. But Nikolaisen wants you to come closer and admire the pop structures and melodies below the surface. Don't be afraid, the frontman says, it won't hurt.

Nikolaisen calls it a "brilliant contradiction," this battle between exuberant guitars and bittersweet grooves at the heart of his band's sound.

"When I was growing up, I was fascinated by bands who were engaging in that battle," he recalls. "I remember the first time I heard the Velvet Underground and I was fascinated at how subtle they were, that they were both a noise band and a pop band.

"Any time you have pop songs which are draped in noise and don't sound as pop songs are supposed to sound, it's like coming across a wolf in sheep's clothing. It's so unexpected and thrilling."

Serena-Maneesh belong squarely in that quarter. Their self-titled debut album is intoxicating, bold and boisterous, yet there are all these lush, compulsive melodies beating away in the midst of the distortion.

Originally released on a small Norwegian imprint, Serena-Maneesh spurted legs first when the Playlouder label (now owned by mega-indie Beggars Banquet) took an interest. Then people clocked the band live. Once you've experienced Serena-Maneesh's intensity and sonic boom, there's no going back.

Growing up in the small village of Moi, music was all around Nikolaisen. "The whole family sang and played a lot of folk music together. My father did a lot of church and classical music so I was exposed to some great old Norwegian traditional music, which I came to really like.

"At the same time, I was falling in love with AC/DC. I was in a twilight zone between the two. I suppose I'm still stuck in that zone between evil and good."

Emil's first bands were family affairs. "We started forming bands together because the village was so small that we couldn't find any other like-minded crazies who wanted to make music."

The Nikolaisens have become something of a Norwegian musical dynasty. Sister Hilma is also in Serena-Maneesh, while Emil drummed in noted Norwegian act Silver ("we tried to blend The Dead Kennedys with The Stooges") alongside his brother Ivar. Then there's Elvira, Emil's other sister. "She is a massive star in Noway - she's like our Norah Jones." he says proudly. "She has a huge major label deal. She's in a complete different world and I'm so happy for her."

Elvira's success has even helped Serena-Maneesh. "She has just bought a house here in Oslo and my brother and sister have moved in with her because they're so broke. I borrowed from her advance to pay for merchandise for the band. I tell her she's funding the underground!"

Back in the early days, Nikolaisen was very much taken by the balance between the light and the dark in the bands he liked. "The sonic qualities of punk bands and the noisy side of pop bands always intrigued me. I'm still amazed by how a band like The Stooges pulled it off. Within the sonic aspects of the band, there's more than a primal, guttural sound. There are also all these wonderfully noisy symphonies."

He wasn't the only youngster working out such contradictions. In Ireland, Kevin Shields experimented with sound; his name usually crops up in any discussion of Serena-Maneesh.

"Kevin Shields is an incredible pop songwriter," Nikolaisen says. "Years before he started doing Loveless he was doing all these great pop songs, and they're as important as the soundscapes."

But don't take this to imply that the Norwegian simply wants to copy the Irishman. "Of course I love My Bloody Valentine, but I have a story that goes on before and after that. I don't understand the desire some musicians have to be the new Kevin Shields. Why should anyone impersonate someone else and their characteristics?

"The really exciting thing is to go back to the roots of the sound to develop your own outlook. Back at the start, rock'n'roll was still young and immature and dangerous. People hadn't really worked out what was going on and there was this great friction to the sound."

Nikolaisen feels that many modern musicians have forgotten about the magic at their disposal.

"I would say that 95 per cent of all music should never have been recorded. Music is very human, and the impulse to create it is beautiful and should never be quelled. But, back in the '70s, making a record and putting it out was this huge event. Something about the disposability of music has altered that and there's so much awful music around as a result. What you have to do is to jump up and down and shout about the five per cent that matters."

Serena-Maneesh's Irish show this month marks the closing pages in a long and eventful chapter for the band. They've spent most of 2006 on the road; Nikolaisen, for one, can't wait to turn off the engines.

"We have to stop or we'll go insane. We've been playing way too much. It's wonderful because people have reacted so well to the record, but I want to write. I want every show to be special and we have been trying to ensure that all the nights are not the same by changing the songs and the arrangements.

"But I haven't really written anything new in ages so I need some serious peace and focus. Some people can just sit around and do it, but I need to lock myself out of the world. That's how it works for me and I'm really looking forward to doing it."

Serena-Maneesh play Crawdaddy, Dublin next Thursday