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 have trouble listening to old music. Maybe it's a backlash against my childhood, when Oldies 103 ruled my life, or my teens, when my boyfriend introduced me to the Doors and I decided that Led Zeppelin I was the most impressive debut album EVER. Now, vintage music feels slightly stale and embarrassing. That's where The Soundtrack of Our Lives comes in. Styled after archetypal '70s rock, their music evokes all the guitar greatness of the era, but at the same time it's gloriously new. And, thankfully, it's not in heavy rotation on K-Rock.The five-member Swedish band formed in 1994 from the remains of Union Carbide Productions, a crazy-in-all-the-ways-a-group-can-be-crazy outfit that was destined to defeat itself, according to TSOOL frontman Ebbot Lundberg. While TSOOL can still drink, they've mellowed enough to get the job done. The band just released their fourth album, Origin Vol. 1, and have embarked on a North American tour. One of the album's most impressive tracks is the psychedelic "Transcendental Suicide": "No you can't change it / Love is in the air for a transcendental suicide / we're gonna last forever / we're on our way to paradise . . . " It feels made for the lawn in front of a bandshell. But for now TSOOL is playing smaller, indoor venues; we spoke to Lundberg after a soundcheck in New York City. — Sarah Harrison What's the ratio of work to partying when you're on tour like this? We're Swedes. We drink a lot. It's part of the culture. How much truth is there to the groupie thing? I don't really like the thing of, "Oh I've been on stage, I've been a star, now you want me and I want you." It's not interesting. The only groupie I had that was—we're going Chicago next, and I know Cynthia will be there. She's been after me for a while. We'll see what happens. What's your opinion of American pop music? Well, I grew up with all American pop music, and it's kind of harder to find good bands nowadays, you know, bands that I like. It seems like it used to be more interesting twenty years ago. I don't really pay attention to other people's music, as I used to, because this band takes one hundred percent of my time. So I'm kind of not that interested anymore, except for some exceptions, like Secret Machines and one band called the High Dials, but I think they're from Canada. What would you say is the difference between American and Swedish attitudes toward sex? It's kind of free in Sweden, actually. You can see people making love outdoors in the summer. At some festival, it's nothing. You don't get busted. Here you can't be naked outside. Yeah, we have something called, it's like spring break, it's called Varvorg. I had a guy from Minnesota living at my place when I was seventeen and he wanted to know about Varvorg. So, we went into town and just looked over and there was like a couple lying on a sandbox having sex, and everywhere people were drinking in the streets, throwing bottles. It's totally berserk. But on other days, is it like that? Not all the time, I think we're kind of a very reservated people, actually. So what do you … Reserved people. I knew what you meant. Reservated…[Laughs] Idiot. So what do you like about America that's different from Sweden? It's a more open attitude. People say what they like. There's more direct communication. I think Swedes tend to be very shy. Five days a week they tend to be very strained, very calm, and then with weekends they get totally pissed, totally drunk, behave like pigs letting off steam. I've heard the Swedish government will pay you to be in a band. Well, in the '80s it was like that. You could say, "We're starting a church, we need some money. We're going to have to rehearse because we've got this gospel choir." And then you'd get money from the government. But now it's harder. Are you oppressed by the Swedish winter? It gets dark quickly. But it's kind of a big country, it's like a sausage actually, so when you live in the south, it's not that dark, but in the north, in summer it's light all day, midnight sun, but now it's really depressing, maybe you have like four hours of sun. I imagine people would do a lot of drugs in the winter. It's part of the "Vodka Belt," so they just drink. Or now they might take Ecstasy, GHB or whatever it's called, all those new liquid substances. Weed is actually the hardest thing to get in Sweden, but you can get heroin, hashish, no problem. So your band is all male. How do you think having a girl in the band would change the dynamic? I wouldn't mind, you know. I think it would've worked. But you know some guys are a little more masculine, some guys are more feminine. We try to stay sort of balanced when it comes to being masculine and feminine. You know, we don't want to be a macho band. I think I'm probably on the feminine side. So are you guys married, or do you have boyfriends or girlfriends? We got girlfriends and some of us are married — I'm married and I think half the band is married, two have kids. Last time we toured we had to bring in the drummer from International Noise Conspiracy because our drummer had a baby during the tour. Actually, the bass player got married at a gig. Union Carbide Productions was famous for being wild. What's the craziest thing you ever did on stage? You don't want to know. Sure we do. Okay. The worst thing I did on stage, I actually shit on somebody's face. Really? Yeah. It came with the music. In Germany, they love stuff like that. I think we were really popular in Berlin at the time. But that was probably the worst thing I've done on stage — shit in somebody's face. Somebody was passed out on the stage, and I just . . . It wasn't like I was concentrating on doing it. It just kind of happened. I had a bad stomach. So people are crazier in Germany? I think they're more perverted. German people are not really impressed by anything, you know. They analyze everything: "What do you mean with this?" We loved the whole thing about being decadent, and we wanted to explore it. So we did. It was self-destructive from the beginning. I'm surprised we survived. So when we actually decided to form this new band, we just said, Okay, let's just do great music and, you know, don't screw up. n°
© 2005 hooksexup.com. |
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