INTERVIEW: SJÖBLOM

I don’t know why people make happy songs.

Im Gespräch mit Johan Sjöblom und Robert Eklind

Vor ein paar Wochen waren SJÖBLOM zusammen mit The Cassandra Complex auf Tour und haben da erfreulicherweise auch Station in München gemacht. Nach unserem Interview mit Johan Sjöblom Eliots Hauptband The Exploding Boy im November 2018 (LINK) freuen wir uns, ihn wiederzusehen, dieses Mal zusammen mit Bandpartner Robert Eklind. Bevor die beiden im Backstage Club auf die Bühne gehen, ist Zeit für ein Interview. Nachdem wir uns versichert haben, dass sie essenstechnisch gut im Backstage versorgt wurden, reden wir noch ein wenig darüber, wie sie früher Stress und Nervosität um einen Auftritt herum bekämpft haben und wie gut es ist, immer beschäftigt zu sein. Konzerte ohne Alkohol sind tendenziell sehr viel besser, aber nachdem man sich ja in Deutschland befindet, darf man sich später auch ein deutsches Bier gönnen, sind wir uns alle einig. Nach diesem leichten Vorgeplänkel geht’s dann richtig los mit unseren Fragen, für die bessere Lesbarkeit hier leicht gekürzt und sprachlich geglätttet.

SB: So, you have a new album out, one of our favourites from last year. Are you happy with the response you got and when you play live?
JSE: Yeah, I think so.

SB: Did you get much response to the album like reviews or something?
RE/JSE: The reviews are hard to find actually but we’ve read some good ones, in the Sonic Seducer – for the album. Or do you mean live?
SB: Both.
RE: We had good interviews from Sonic Seducer and Orkus and other magazines.
JSE: We haven’t really seen some of the road. That would be really really good and make us happy.
RE: But on this tour we play for The Cassandra Complex and most of the audience never have heard us. There are some fans that have heard us, but most of the people never had. But when they come after the show and say, „Okay, you were really good, we want to buy everything you have“, that’s good enough for me.
((all laugh)).

SB: So do you have enough merch with you?
JSE: We thought so, but now we’re starting to come to the last things. Tomorrow we fly to Greece for a show, to Athens, so we have to go early in the morning to Frankfurt, from where we fly, then we come back to Frankfurt a couple of days later and then we play in Hamburg, Hannover and Leipzig.
SB: But not the Moritzbastei?
JSE: Neein, Hellraiser. I don’t know if I’ve ever been there.
SB: It’s a bit outside of the city centre, but I already spoke to some people – Gudrun for example – who will be there.
RE: She was there two days ago in Weinheim.

SB: How is it being on stage and knowing there are some friends and acquaintances in the audience?
JSE: I think it’s hard. Today my cousin is coming with his daughter.
RE: For me it’s fun probably.
SB: Are you nervous?
JSE: That’s the problem playing in Stockholm, you know. It’s easier playing for people you don’t know, somehow.
SB: But friends are being friends, so if something happens on stage, they don’t mind.
JSE: No, no, I don’t know, if I see it that way. ((laughs))

SB: How is touring with The Cassandra Complex?
RE/JSE: It’s really good. They’re great. We really get along. We played these five gigs in November with them. And then they said, they don’t want you on the next trip, they just don’t want the same support band. And then we played with them, and after that they said: „They want you on the next trip as well.“ ((JSE laughs))
SB: That’s great.
JSE: So we were happy. We got along and we talked music and Hifi and gear and stuff like that.

SB: How did it happen? Being a support for Cassandra Complex? Did you know each other before?
JSE/RE: The booker set us up together.
JSE: I forgot my Cassandra Complex record I listended to like thirty years ago at home. I can’t get it signed. Shit!

SB: Let’s talk about „Weirdo“. It’s becoming my favorite song on the album, because it’s so unusual in a way. So who had the idea for this?
JSE: It was a pretty early song. We were supposed to make an album …
RE: And we had a tight deadline and we didn’t have any songs. Johan had some rough ideas. No, we had like one song, one of the first recordings in the studio.
JSE: I was sitting at home and thought, I should get the guitar, try to make a song, but I’m too tired. And then my little daughter begged „play a song, play a song“, so I took the guitar and played a bit and then I was like „Oh, is this something? This is something. Sorry, I have to record it.“ So I wrote this one in five minutes and then I was going to record it better to send it to Robert and played it with another chorus and then I thought „this is also good“. This became „Fly away with me“. So I made „Fly away with me“ and „Weirdo“ in like fifteen minutes. Then we recorded it in the studio. So … Quick songs are always the best.
RE: And therefore we said for the single, okay, this is now a quite old song, the album has been out for a long time. Let’s do something fresh for that song. So we did a total remake. Normally maybe you send it to someone to do a remix. But I think it’s fun to do your own remix. It’s like the old 80ies bands, they all made remixes, standard versions and other remixes. And that’s quite an interesting thing to do actually.

SB: Did you start SJÖBLOM as a real solo project? Or was it always you two?
JSE: No. I made a song about my son and sent it to The Exploding Boy guys, „listen to this, this is really good“ and no one answered. And then I met Nicklas, the keyboard guy, at his pub, and he said „that was the worst song I ever heard!“ And I said, „Fuck you.“ ((laughs)) Then I decided to do it myself. We wanted to record with The Exploding Boy, but no one had any songs. So I recorded this song and two more or something. „Oh my heart“ I played for The Exploding Boy two or three times, and every time they didn’t like it. So I made this SJÖBLOM. And then I didn’t know what to do, because I don’t want to be by myself. So I asked some other guys, if they wanted to play with me. But they were just live musicians. Then a couple of years ago, Robert was jumping in the band, started playing, and then I was like, ah, let’s join. It‘s better making the new album with two people. Because I realized that I’m starting to do the same song all over again. So I need some … help. ((laughs)) And we have different strengths in the band.

SB: Do you have different parts in developing the songs? Like lyrics or music or do you do everything together?
RE: Yeah, we start a little bit on our both sides. We did one song actually together. Or I had some idea and I went to Johan, and we started to jam a little bit, and then it turned out to be one of the tracks. And then I had some old material that I also brought to the studio. And Johan made some new lyrics. I had some recordings with my own vocals, but they weren’t really good. Johan made some new vocals and lyrics. So it’s been a little bit of a mix.
JSE: And once I came down to the studio and said, „Listen to this one.“ The chorus is from this song and the verse is from that other song. And I thought „Hm“. But then I really liked the lyrics. So I sat there in the corner and was a bit angry and then he started to do the piano thing. So we started to record the piano thing, and I said „oh, that sounds pretty good“. So I took my text and put it in the piano thing. And it turned out to be a totally new song.

SB: So you want to do that in the future too, like patchworking your ideas together.
JSE: Yeah, like that.
RE: We rushed it a little bit, because we said that we were going to have a record but we didn’t have any songs. ((laughs)) So I think we have to have maybe some songs and then say „now we can make a record“. That’s probably the best way now. We haven’t really figured it out yet.
JSE: And now we have this tour and have to take one step at a time.

SB: But the album doesn’t sound rushed.
JSE: No, we are really happy with it.
SB: It’s really on point.
JSE: Yeah, but you said it was too good. ((to Mrs. Hyde)) [Link zur Review]  I think that as well, a little bit. I’m thinking the next album and songs are going to be a little bit more punk.
SB: Punk, yeah.
RE: Not punk punk, but punk like in an idea.
JSE: You know, like … How to do things. A little bit rough, the sound a little bit rougher, not that produced. Not punk songs, but punk feeling.
SB: I like punk very much, and I also like that rough sound of punk. But on the other side I also love the melancholy. So it’s just perfectly produced melancholy and … I missed a little bit of punk … ((JSE laughs)) A little bit of edge …
RE: That is something we have to work with.
SB: It‘s difficult to find this way, not being punk but still being melancholic, somewhere in the middle, I don’t know.
JSE: I think, we can have both. We don’t have to sound punk, just more rough.
SB: But on the other hand I just love the album … ((JSE laughs))

SB: You want to stick with the melancholy?
JSE/RE: Yeah.
SB: I don’t think you can make happy songs.
RE: I think the melancholy is happy.
JSE: Yeah, I don’t know why people make happy songs. ((laughs))
RE: You don’t have to be sad to like melancholy. You can feel happiness when listening to melancholic songs.
SB: It makes me happy to listen to this melancholic music.
RE: Exactly, it doesn’t make me sad. That’s the point because some people listen to melancholic songs and say „okay, this is really depressing and I don’t want this.“ But I’m not, I’m totally opposite.
SB: No, because we don’t go to a concert to have a shitty time.
JSE: The best thing I heard is that from the first Exploding Boy album, the last song, „Go away“. It’s a sad song.
SB: A sad sad song?
JSE: Yeah. I got a review where someone said „this song makes me killing myself – in a good way“.

SB: Robert, we don’t know much about you as a musician. Do you want to talk more about what you did before SJÖBLOM? We know about Malaise.
RE: Yes, I had a couple of bands. I started a little bit with Pop, Electronic, but then I turned to Goth music. I had a Goth band with friends for like ten years. They made a lot of songs, but we recorded only one song on a sampler.
SB: Which timeline?
RE: In the 90s, we were called The Nocturnal Notion. We had a studio and rehearsed also in the shared studio with Malaise. The guitarist from Nocturnal Notion joined Malaise and then I joined too. Malaise has been playing for like seven years when I started, so they were quite successful by then. My first concert was with Apoptygma Berzerk, Project Pitchfork, Zeromancer and Malaise at a show in Oslo. Thousand people in the audience. Big start for me. And we played a lot, in England and Netherlands, in Sweden. And then there was a breakup with the band. So I played a little bit with Johan, as a live keyboard player with his band Fake Moss.
JSE: I played bass in a band called Fake Moss.

SB: So you’ve known each other for quite some time?
JSE: Yes, we studied computer science in 2000-something. The computer nerds and us.
RE: That was actually my last live gig, I had a big gap. And then Johan asked me again.

SB: Did it feel strange being on stage again?
RE: A little bit at first, but yeah, we had a couple of good shows.
JSE: Supporting Alphaville was probably the biggest. And WGT 2022, that was nice. Detmold also.
RE: When we played with Cassandra last time, it felt really good. Playing nights in a row, you feel confident. So now it’s all good.

SB: So you’ve both been part of the Swedish Goth and Post Punk scene for a very long time. Did it change? It did change, I assume. But how did it change over the years?
JSE: The scene?
SB: Yes, the scene.
RE: Well in the 80s and 90s there was old traditional Goth. In Stockholm the people who went out to clubs were both goth and EBM, and synth, a mix, also post punk and some punk rock. It was a typical night out. But then the Goth scene has disappeared a little bit, and the electronic music and Synth and Electro Pop were a little more dominant in the beginning of the 2000s. Bands like Covenant and Apoptygma and those, Future Pop and so. But now there is a strong scene with Dark Wave, Minimal Dark Wave …
JSE: Which sounds the same all the time.
RE: But that’s really strong now, in Stockholm at least. There are a lot of bands, almost every night someone is playing, you can go see a good band live.

SB: So there has been some change, but also good change.
RE: Yes.
JSE: It’s good that Robert is telling you this stuff, because I don’t really care. ((laughs)) I don’t know what happened. I don’t know. But there are really many bands right now as he says.
RE: I’ve been a promoter also. I worked with the clubs and the bands, and I also had a webzine, I was chief editor for a webzine with Neofolk and Goth, Electronic, Noise and the whole scene.
SB: What was it called?
RE: Moving Hands.
SB: And does it still exist?
RE: No.
SB: So you know what happened over the years?
RE: Yes.
JSE: ((laughs)) I don’t know and I don’t care. I can’t remember things anyway. I just remember stuff that I’m a bit interested in. ((laughs)) I try to learn about wine, I don’t know anything about wine. Maybe the brain is full. It might be like that.

SB: You have a lot of synthies within your sound. Do you have a special instrument you like to use to make this special SJÖBLOM sound?
RE: Not in live recordings, not really. We use what is best for the song, I’m trying to find something good. Then I have my old set up and live that makes the sound a little bit different. So hopefully we bring live a little bit of the other side of ourselves than on cd.
JSE: I have my guitar here, so it’s harder.
RE: I mean, we are only two on stage and don’t have a big band. We have our backing tracks of course. But still we really want to do something extra so you can feel that it’s live.
SB: Absolutely. And I could imagine it’s more fun changing the songs a little bit, with new sounds or other synth instruments or something like that.
JSE: Yes. We haven’t changed the ground much. But in the future maybe, you know, we put some more effort in it. But we didn’t have time to fix that before.

SB: So, a while ago you made this great cover of Alphaville’s „A victory of love“. Did you get any response from Marian Gold?
JSE: This was before Robert. I worked on that one, and then I met with Thomas Thyssen (this record label guy, he is everywhere you know). I spoke with him before I was going to record „A victory of love“ in the studio. So, I told him, and he was like „no, why did you say this to me? Now you are going to play it for me, and I don’t know If I could really say that if it’s bad.“ And I said, „Oh, I don’t know. We will see.“ So then I recorded and sent it to him, he was like, „Oh, it was good. Oh, thanks. Thank you so much.“ ((all laugh)) And two days later he was going to have a meeting with Marian Gold, where he played it for him. And he said, „It was really good.“ And there wasn’t that many bands that had covered just that song. But then we supported Alphaville in Gothenburg. So we met him.
RE: And we didn’t play that song. ((all laugh))
SB: Why not?
RE: I don’t think that would have been appreciated to play a cover song before Alphaville.
SB: More of an honour!
JSE: In the beginning, we met him and said hello and we’ve come to give him a cd. First he stood there and then he said „oh yeah, you are the guys who did the cover a long time ago“. By then it was two, three years ago. He was happy and signed one for me. And it was a good show. We have played it live only once, at a strange little festival in Sweden.
SB: Subkult?
JSE: No, it really was in a balcony on a house somewhere.
RE: Like a private party …
JSE: Jonfest, from a guy called Jon. (LINK)
((All laugh))
RE: There has been some good names, Pouppée Fabrikk played there for example.

SB: But you could have made the cover in any case, you didn’t have to wait for Marian’s Okay to do it?
JSE: No, you don’t have to do that. You can’t change the lyrics and you can’t change the overall style.
SB: But all the better that he liked it. So, do you plan to do more covers from other bands?
JSE: My plan when I made it was like maybe I should cover all the great albums I had when I was small. Like the erste Lied from every cool album and I thought „Nobody’s diary“ by Yazoo and Erasure „A little respect“ and some Pet Shop Boys song … The first song on my greatest albums. But that was just an idea I had, so I haven’t really followed it up, and now it’s in the band. We have to see what we want to do with that.
RE: I mean it’s a fine idea, but then you are stuck with that. I remember when I played in Malaise, we did a cover of „Assimilate“ by Skinny Puppy. And we played that every night, I was so sick and tired of that. ((all laugh)) It’s really really boring to play also, the crowd loved it but … the singer of the band always wanted to play that last.
SB: So you have to choose wisely.
RE: Better to have your own song than a cover. But I can imagine doing a cover for a B-side on a single or something, you know.
JSE: We haven’t talked about it, really. We have to make a new song instead, that’s more fun.
SB: But maybe someday a song … just feels right to cover.
JSE: I saw Juliette Lewis and the Licks once, in Sweden. As the last song she played „Lust for life“ or something. No, another Iggy Pop song, a really really good one of course. I thought that’s a good song. And just forgot about all of her songs, because you noticed that they’re crap because this song is just so good.

SB: Okay. Choose wisely. Any other other inspirations for songs? Your own songwriting I mean.
RE: It’s hard to put a finger on exactly what the inspiration is. We had that question also in the interview whether we had some influence like a lyric or book or author or statues. ((all laugh)) I can imagine that some bands say, okay, we want to be like a goth band or like vampires, we are like vampires and do vampire stuff. That could be like one thing being inspired by. But we don’t have anything special. No.
SB: Because, everything what is happening now around the world is so depressing and could be a lot of inspiration for melancholic music.
RE: Yeah, yeah. But we’re not really political.
JSE: „It’s a lie“, that song is a bit political.
RE: But we are not really. We think a lot about that stuff and talk about it. So we’re always conscious about it.

SB: We‘re living in quite depressing and difficult times. What is a good “drink to feel a little less blue”?
JSE: I don’t know. A whisky. That’s a good thing. It was my wife who came up with that sentence. And I said „That’s a good sentence. Good work, thank you!“
SB: So first you daughter, then your wife. Did your son also …
JSE: Inspiration! My family!
RE: Yes, that’s your big inspiration. I mean, of course my family is around, but since you’re writing the lyrics, your family is in a lot of your lyrics.

SB: So it’s not a drink, it’s family to feel a little less blue.
JSE: It’s a lot of fiction in the lyrics as well.
RE: Actually you wrote a song about me once.
JSE: „The man.“ When he had a problem with his old wife I wrote a song.

SB: [Robert,] you don’t come up with text ideas?
RE: Not this far. I had some texts from the few songs that we made but we just threw those when Johan wrote new ones. I don’t know. Let’s see.

SB: So, what kind of Whisky? Any favourites? Recommendations?
JSE: Scottish.
RE: We had actually a really good one from Japan. I just forgot the name. You know „Lost in translation“, the movie? He makes a whisky commercial, that’s why he’s going to Tokyo. I think it’s the same brand. It’s a very good whisky.
SB: Suntory?
JSE: Yeah, Suntory!
RE: Exactly.

SB: How much time do we have left?
JSE: We’re on in an hour.
SB: So maybe one last question: What’s the future for The Exploding Boy? Is there a new album coming or something? We’re already looking forward to the gig at the WGT.
JSE: When we are getting back now we start rehearsing with the guys. And we have a couple of songs. Lars made a ground and I put some lyrics on it, so we have to record that properly. We try to release a single before the WGT, we will see.

Das sind doch hervorragende Aussichten! Vielen Dank, Robert und Johan, für das schöne Gespräch und natürlich auch das tolle Konzert danach (LINK). Tack så mycket och vi ses!

(Bilder von torshammare)