BPM: How does the song process come about for you guys?
A. Spetze: Me and Andreas write the songs.
AL: Mostly, yeah.
A. Spetze: Yeah, the basics of the songs. And then we rehearse together…
AL: We arrange the songs and do different stuff. Filip might have what we call a “synth line,” and Anton’s got a cool drum fill.
A. Spetze: [laughing] A drum fill we won’t use.
A. Strandberg: I’m going to show you when we get home.
AL: Yeah, that’s basically it. It’s the easiest way of writing the songs. I think.
BPM: Does it come pretty naturally, instantaneously? You don’t have to labor too much?
A. Strandberg: Yeah, it goes pretty fast, actually.
A. Spetze: Yeah, need a lot of drugs. [laughs] I’m just kidding.
BPM: Do you enjoy creating, recording, or performing the best?
A. Spetze: It’s different. I think it’s really fun to record. Like mixing and stuff. That was a pleasure the last time.
AL: It was great. Our studio guy – he’s really nice.
A. Spetze: We’re going to use him again.
AL: Stefan Brändström. He’s an old punk guy.
A. Spetze: He’s really good.
BPM: How did you find him?
AL: He’s a friend of ours. He played in a band called Henry Flat’s Open Sore, which is a legendary punk band in Sweden. He has this studio in the medieval old town of Stockholm in the center of the city. He has lots of old vintage gear – super cool. We mixed it analog on tape… He was really good and cheap too.
A. Spetze: Yeah but you know, everything is like to perform – it’s great.
A. Strandberg: Everything about it is fun.
BPM: You get high off performing on stage?
A. Spetze: So fucking high. Yeah but…
AL: Depends.
A. Spetze: It can be hard to rehearse sometimes.
AL: Yeah, its pretty boring. We don’t really rehearse that much at all. I think – we’ve rehearsed once in four months.
A. Spetze: Yeah.
AL: Maybe we should start again.
A. Spetze: We rehearsed the last time with Axel before going on tour.
AL: Oh yeah, two times.
A. Spetze: We needed a stand-in for Filip in London. Because Filip got diabetes. [Filip looks embarrassed]
FS: Oh yeah, a week before we were supposed to go on this tour.
A. Spetze: It’s been super long process to come here, actually. Like a million problems. And the last thing that happened…
AL: I got a call: “Filip is in the hospital.” I’m like, “What? What! Oh he’s got diabetes.”
FS: I’m here though.
BPM: When I heard that you guys were having problems with your visas, I was like, “No!”
AL: Yeah, it was pretty close.
A. Strandberg: It was really hard to come to America.
BPM: Why was it so difficult to obtain the visas?
AL: I don’t know. It started out like – they wanted us to have press?
A. Spetze: They wanted us to have existed longer.
AL: Yeah, we haven’t been a band for so long.
FS: I think also the major problem was the money. It’s so expensive. We couldn’t pay for it.
AL: We had to nag on the agency and the record label to pay for the visas because we didn’t have any money at all.
A. Spetze: It’s actually really crazy that we’re here because it was so hard.
AL: Definitely. But now we have visas for one year. So we can come back.
A. Spetze: Come back and work at McDonald’s.
BPM: Do you pay much attention to the current music scene, and does that have any effect?
AL: I guess.
A. Spetze and A. Strandberg: Yeah, sure.
A. Strandberg: We listen to a lot of music.
BPM: What are some of your favorites lately?
FS: Mac DeMarco.
A Strandberg: Oh, Mac DeMarco is good.
BPM: He’s funny.
A. Strandberg: Yeah, he’s a funny guy.
AL: I really like Cult of Youth – the Swedish band. But he’s not really Swedish anymore because he lives in Denmark.
FS: Westkust (West Coast)
A. Strandberg: We had a crazy show in Raleigh, NC (Hopscotch Festival). We opened for Thee Oh Sees. We’ve never played in front of such a big crowd – probably 500 people. It was crazy.
FS: I liked Brooklyn too.
A. Strandberg: I actually liked Boston. It was fun.
[rest of the band laughs]
AL: Boston was interesting.
BPM: So you wanted to talk about football (soccer)?
A. Spetze: I was just kidding. I don’t know anything about football. [points at Strandberg] He best does.
A. Strandberg: Yeah, what do you want to know? I went to soccer high school. I wanted to be a pro.
BPM: And?
A. Strandberg: I discovered music and booze.
AL: He’s really good at soccer.
A. Strandberg: I’m an amazing soccer player. I score like – in my career – probably 1,050 goals.
[everyone bursts into laughter]
A. Strandberg: Seriously. I am so good.
BPM: Wow! How long does it take to score 1050 goals?
A. Strandberg: Not that long if you score ten goals a game like me.
[everyone laughs]
“I’m an amazing soccer player. I score like – in my career – probably 1,050 goals.”
A. Spetze: You can make it in three years.
A. Strandberg: Everyone plays soccer in Sweden.
BPM: Instead of skiing?
A. Strandberg: I don’t know. I never met anyone that skied.
AL: My roommate loves skiing. I don’t know what it’s called but you don’t go downhill.
Hoppie (tour manager): Cross-country.
AL: Cross-country. You go uphill, downhill, plain…
A. Spetze: It’s nice to ski.
A. Strandberg: Yeah, it’s fun to ski. But like in cross-country, when you stay in the middle of the forest.
A. Spetze: [leaning towards Strandberg] And make fire.
A. Strandberg: Make a fire.
AL: And you have your knife.
A. Strandberg: And you grill yourself some sausages and drink hot chocolate.
[everyone laughs]
