Crustcake Interviews Graveyard

by crustcake gerf (NYC)

When Sweden's Graveyard hit town following SXSW in March, I was there with a beer in one hand and my tape recorder in the other. After a badass set of bluesy, swaggering proto-metal, I headed backstage to speak with the four bell-bottom-clad Swedes. Unfortunately, the cards were stacked against us that night-- the room we were in was a boomy echo chamber and this, in conjunction with the dudes' accents, made it all but impossible to transcribe the tape. Not to mention the fact that I made a total n00b mistake and didn't have a backup battery on hand. The battery died in the middle of the interview, of course.

So, weeks went by and loose plans were made to reschedule. It's difficult to hook up on the phone with a touring band though, especially when they're across an ocean. Finally, I managed to catch up with drummer Axel Sjöberg after the conclusion of their European tour with Witch.

Crustcake: I wanna talk to you about-- when most people in the United States thing of Sweden they tend to think of the "Gothenburg Sound"...

Axel Sjöberg: Yeah I know. We've gotten a lot of that in the reviews-- people start off with 'when I saw this cover and I saw that they were from Gothenburg, I expected some death-sound.'

My question is-- it's obvious that stuff is not really an influence for you guys, you guys are going back a little farther. Is there a scene for what you guys are doing in Sweden? Are there other bands doing similar stuff?

Yeah, I think there's probably always a scene for all types of music, it's just that media attention shifts, and sometimes a scene grows stronger with more prominent bands. We've been playing this kind of music or a long time and Witchcraft got their shit together long before us so they're one of the most known bands from here. Two members of Graveyard used to play with Magnus from Witchcraft in another band, eight years ago now.

What band was that?

They were called Norrsken-- that's 'Northern Lights' in Swedish, Aurora Borealis. They put out one seven-inch and they contributed to two tribute albums and there are some demos out there too. I saw their seven-inch go for like sixty bucks on eBay. So, getting back to [your original question], yeah there's lots of bands now, but I think there's always people playing all types of music. Maybe if one band gets attention that helps the rest of the scene too and I guess you have to-- if you're good enough, it'll break through anyhow. If you check out our MySpace profile-- our top friends list, you'll find some other bands there from Sweden that are into the same decade I guess.

Any bands in particular?

Oh, Dead Man are really excellent. They're from Örebro, our home town. Well, Joakim is not from Örebro, he's from another town. But three of us are from Örebro originally, where Witchcraft lives and Dead Man lives too. And there's another band from Gothenburg, they're called Horisont, and that's 'horizon' in Swedish. They have lyrics both in Swedish and English and they're excellent too. Younger than us... Yeah, loads of bands.

Going back to the 60s and 70s stuff, what bands or what records in particular are you guys influenced by?

That's always hard. A lot of like Fleetwood Mac and Black Sabbath and Blue Cheer. There's like, I dunno, a thousand or, like, so many records that you can name drop from that decade. But then like, Swedish folk music, and most of us are really into West African Blues too, like Alifarka Toure and Toumani Diabate. Yeah, there's like a big blues scene in Mali, and other countries in West Africa. We usually go to the Roskilde Festival in Denmark and they have a stage dedicated to all different types of world music, and almost always that's where I see the best concerts. I've seen a lot of West African Blues at that stage. It's excellent.

What about new stuff? What new records or bands do you guys dig?

I like Jose Gonzales. I really like Earthless too, they're on Tee Pee Records-- they did an amazing set at Roadburn Festival that we just played. Like 90 minutes on the main stage, going on and on with really cool visuals in the background.

You guys played Roadburn too?

Yeah yeah, we played on Sunday, the afterburner. That was cool. It was a bit smaller, but really nice. The guy who organizes the thing is really nice. He's a really cool guy, he knows all types of music. You expect a guy who arranges that type of festival, you know, a lot of brutal and rock and roll music, to be like a big muscle package with a big beard, but he's such a gentle sweet guy. If it wasn't for his t-shirts, you'd never expect him to be into that type of music. And I like that you don't always get what you expect.

Yeah, I saw the lineup for that festival and I was just, you know, jealous that nothing like that ever happens in the US.

(laughs) Oh yeah, the Groundhogs were amazing man! They played and we hung out, so that was cool. It meant a lot to us. So, new bands, uh, I can't think of anyone more right now. But there are more.

I wanted to ask you about your writing process--

How we do our songs?

Yeah, how the songs come together.

It's different from time to time. Sometimes [one of the other guys] comes with an almost ready-made song and then someone else writes the lyrics-- we all write the lyrics. And we jam a lot, so sometimes a song just emanates from jamming. It's a very varied process.

Very democratic?

Yeah yeah, and everyone contributes and has a say, like, what we should put in and then when we record Don Ahlsterberg the producer-- he always has viewpoints on what we do and changes a bit-- changes stuff sometimes.

How did working with Don come about?

It's kind of a long story, but where we rehearsed first-- our neighbors in the room next door, they were a Division of Laura Lee, a rock band too, and they were very good friends with Don and they heard us in the rehearsing room and thought we sounded great and they knew we had a gig here in Gothenburg so they told [Don] to go check it out and he did. And he came up to us afterwards and he was like, "hey man that was excellent, I like you so much I'll record two songs with you for free." But we ended up getting a record contract [with Tee Pee] so we ended up doing the whole album with him because we instantly hit it off.

Yeah, to me it sounds-- as Graveyard it's the debut album, right?

Yeah.

But it definitely sounds like a more mature product, you know, both from the songwriting and the performance, but also from a production standpoint. A lot of bands, their first album isn't quite mature yet...

Yeah, I see what you mean. I think we owe a lot of that to Don. If we would have recorded with someone else it wouldn't at all have sounded the same. He's a good a good engineer. You know, our vinyl will be 100% analog. I don't know if [Don] has microphones or gadgets or anything [made] after 70-- you know what I'm saying, it's analog. Warm sounds.

That was actually my next question-- [the album] definitely sounds very warm, very analog, which I love.

Yeah, it's the tape. The right microphones and good engineering from [Don]. Oh yeah, and just so you understand, he didn't record the album for free.

What are some of your favorite rock drummers?

Well, of course Bill Ward. That goes without saying almost.

He actually started as a jazz drummer, didn't he?

Yeah yeah, and I discussed this with Mario from Earthless when we were in Austin. He was like all you Swedish-- well not all of us, but a lot of us Swedish drummers are real jazzy as opposed to US drummers that are more stompy, distinct, straight-forward 'boom pah boom.' I don't know why that is, but many of the early Swedish bands from that decade-- the 60s and 70s-- they came from the jazz. They started playing jazz and then they went on to explore new types of music. I really love jazz drummers to, to watch them-- I wish I could be a good jazz drummer, but now I'm just like a sloppy rock drummer.

I can definitely hear that in your playing though, the more jazzy--

I like that. I mean, it sort of brings more groove and head-nodding into it. And I think the drummer that I-- he hasn't done that many records-- there's a band who were originally from Chicago but they moved to San Francisco I think. They're called HP Lovecraft, like the writer.

Uh-huh.

And they recorded a live album. It's called just 'HP Lovecraft Live, May 11 1968' I think. And that's the best drumming I've ever heard. It's so heavy, but still so jazzy. It's the perfect combination. [Michael Tegza, the drummer,] takes the best out of those two without making it into musical school jazz-rock.

Are there other jazz drummers that you're a fan of?

Tony Williams. But I'm not very-- like a friend of mine said, Jazz is the final frontier. I don't know too much about jazz. It's all kind of new to me, but I love watching jazz drummers play. But I also like watching extreme metal drummers play-- grindcore, fast punk, or death metal-- because they're so precise and distinct. They're machines. I don't play that myself, but it's fun to watch them for the technique. And it's also funny-- this is a total sidetrack, but-- how many of those musical genres that are supposedly rebellious, they're trying to revolt against society's norms and structures and laws, but all of their music is so well-organized, you know, almost fascistic-like. It's kind of a contradiction.

That's interesting...

Beside the point, but...

(laughter)

So we talked about some of your influences in music, but what about outside of music? Are there films, literature-- other things you're influenced by personally, or the band, or--

We're kind of different, I mean we all love the Coen Brothers' movies and Rikard-- the bass player-- he's really into old horror movies, like B movies. And author-wise, I like Douglas Coupland. I don't know if you've heard about 'Microserfs' and 'Girlfriend in a Coma'... 'Hey Nostradamus!'... He's Canadian I think. Excellent guy. Oh, and HP Lovecraft is excellent too. I dunno, I guess life just influences you.

Just in general.

Yeah yeah.

What's Örebro like?

I think a hell of a lot more boring than most people think. I mean, there's a reason that we moved.

Is that where you grew up?

Yeah, three of us. Jonatan, the guitar player, he grew up in Vänersborg, it's called. It's by one of the big lakes in Sweden. It's not too far, one hour from Gothenburg.

Örebro-- is it like an industrial town? Are there factories there?

No, it used to be. There used to be shoe factories and cracker factories, but they're long gone. Now it's just a regular mid-sized town in Sweden. Nothing special about it. An old castle-- 700 years old-- in the middle of it, but, I dunno. You know, it's not a small town, but it's not a big town either. If I moved there not having lived there before, I'd probably like it. There's a few good bars and a lot of good bands but there-- hold on, I have to put the charger in my cellphone, otherwise it will die. Yeah, but I guess a lot of the music comes out of the boringness, there's nothing else to do besides drink, do drugs, and play music. And, at least for this 70's type of music, there are two bands that are mainly responsible for it. There was one garage band called The Strollers-- excellent band too-- and then I think it was the other band I talked about, Norrsken. They were real early, and then came a lot of other bands after that.

Meaning when?

I think The Strollers started out sometime in the early 90's, like maybe '94 or '93. I dunno. And I think Norrsken started I dunno like, well, they weren't that good in the beginning, but I think they started in maybe '95 or something like that. But then there's also the record companies-- Burning Heart Records. They put out The Hives at first, and then Millencolin. There was a big punk and hardcore wave in Sweden in the early-mid 90's. There's a lot of music there-- rock music, not electronica or that type or indie-pop or anything-- but a lot of rock and punk, and I guess that helps. I mean, if there's a lot of music, there's a lot of good musicians. I mean, it spirals-- if there is one band, then there are two bands, then if one band quits, another band quits Then it dies.

Wanted to ask you about the cover art for the record too. It looks like a thick oil painting.

Yeah, it is. It is a thick oil painting. It's like, I don't know in feet, but it's like four meters wide, so it's kind of big. It's a friend of mine-- the others know him a little bit too, but a good friend of mine who-- that was his last painting. He suffered from a kind of weird schizophrenia that made him see hallucinations.

Oh wow.

And he could be gone for a week but still functioning normally outwards. People wouldn't know that he was fucked. And it was getting worse and he was taking strong medicine for it and he decided it wasn't worth it, so. He's done loads of excellent paintings, but we really liked that one and it was his last one and it was like, good cover and it fitted nice one the fold-out for the vinyl too. And it's sort of a way to celebrate him as well.

That's cool.

Because he was really into music too and would have loved to do record covers and stuff.

Yeah yeah. Ah man that's a bummer.

Yeah.

I saw it, and immediately though it was like if Hieronymus Bosch had painted The Last Supper instead of Da Vinci, you know? Are you familiar with Hieronymus Bosch?

I think I know. I'm not sure, but I think I know who you mean.

He painted some weird stuff man. It's very cool, I like it. But you can see [on the album cover] the depth, the thickness of the paint.

Yeah, and if you look real closely in the middle, you can see there's a city far beyond, in the background. And the ground in the city is made of paper clippings. Letters he cut from newspapers. If you see the painting full size, there's so much detail in it. Maybe you can see it when the vinyl comes out, but there's small letters that have secret meanings that only we know about.

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Graveyard hits the road in September with like-minded Swedish rockers Witchcraft and hipster-approved LES blues dudes TK Webb and the Visions.

Witchcraft, Graveyard, TK Webb and the Visions - 2008 Fall Tour:

September 4 Seattle, WA @ El Corazon All ages
September 5 Portland, OR @ Ash Street Saloon (MusicfestNW) 12+
September 6 San Francisco, CA @ Slim's All ages
September 7 Los Angeles, CA @ Echoplex 18+
September 9 Tempe, AZ @ The Clubhouse All ages
September 10 Austin, TX @ Red 7 All ages
September 11 Houston, TX @ Rudyard's British Pub 21+
September 12 New Orleans, LA @ One Eyed Jack's 18+
September 13 Atlanta, GA @ Drunken Unicorn All ages
September 14 Chapel Hill, NC @ Local 506 18+
September 15 Washington, DC @ The Rock and Roll Hotel All ages
September 16 Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda's 21+
September 17 New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom 18+