The small town of Verdal in Norway is not an obvious place to search for music’s next big thing. Truthfully, it’s not somewhere to go looking for much at all. “It’s a very small place,” shrugs 23-year-old Anders Aakerhus – otherwise known to you, me, and, soon enough, the world as plxntkid. “It’s a town of maybe 15,000 people. There’s a cinema, a couple of grocery stores. Trondheim, the nearest big city, is two and a half hours drive away. Oslo, where I now live, is eight hours away. You are very cut off in Verdal.” Asked what there is for young people to do in a town so isolated, Anders replies simply, “Hang out with your friends and play X-Box.” As for anything approaching a music scene? Well, there’s a local community centre “where you can go and learn to play instruments”, Anders explains, or there’s the annual local festival sees revellers dress up in “early 1900s farm clothes and drive tractors through the streets” to the sound of country music. How, then, plxntkid has built a loyal following of fans, amassed some 5 million global streams and recently signed with legendary label Epitaph Records – all from his bedroom – is a story of both this most ordinary of places and Anders’ extraordinary talents.