(This feature was originally written for The Big Takeover #52 in June 2003.  The version here is slightly longer than what appeared in print.)

Let me tell you about Sweden
Only country where the clouds are interesting
Sense of humour's gone astray somewhere
Too much time to think to little to do
Too much time too little to do
'Cos it's all quiet on the Eastern Front

- The Stranglers, from the Black and White lp

 “Everybody knows that the Swedes, after leading a dull and yet (paradoxically) eventful life divided between free sex and rigid socialism, all end up (understandably) committing suicide.”  This tongue in cheek commentary was lifted from a web article about Swedish stereotypes by sociologist Goran Sonesson.  But in the frozen north a new Swedish stereotype is beginning to emerge, one in which the young Swedish man or woman stands on the lip of a stage, guitar strapped across shoulders, hand extended about eye level, following through on a power chord.  Brrrrang!!

 The Swedes have arguably the most exciting rock scene in the world today.  And that’s NOT tongue in cheek.  Oh, yeah, there’s a lot of hype, and as usual, the major labels are in there blundering about and signing a lot of bands – some deserving, some not so.  But look beyond the hype and there’s real substance to what’s going on.  Sweden’s positively crawling with first rate rock bands of all sorts.  Power pop, garage, punk, psych – choose your favorite sub-genre and chances are you’ll find somebody there doing it as well as it gets done anywhere.

What Lies Beneath

The runaway success of The Hives has led many people to assume that rock arrived in Scandinavia overnight.  But like all good explosions, this one has taken years of preparation to get the powder ready.  The fact is that the Swedes have been bashing away on guitars, bass and drums at least since the day after the first Beatles single came out, and quite possibly before that.  The terrific Dolores Records compilation Who Will Buy These Wonderful Evils makes a strong case for Swedish garage and psych bands of the sixties – one almost wishes that rather than pairing one disc of new bands to go with the sixties disc that they’d just gone the Nuggets route on the whole thing.   But the sixties disc provides evidence that the British invasion had beachheads in more places than the US, with the Swedes displaying a special affinity for Who/Small Faces styled freakbeat in bands like The Wizards, The Mascots, The Shakers, Fabulous Four, or Ola and the Janglers. 

 Fans of underground and indie music may be more familiar with the Swedish scene of the eighties.  Anchored by the mighty Nomads, the Swedes sprouted a garage and psych scene that was haled around the world wherever bands like The Sonics were revered.  Groups like Union Carbide Productions (whose full on Stooges-flavored attack included vocalist Ebbot Lundberg and guitar players Bjorn Olsson and Ian Person from current indie darlings The Soundtrack Of Our Lives), The Shoutless, Psychotic Youth, The Sinners, The Pushtwangers, The Watermelon Men, Sator, The Stomachmouths, The Wylde Mammoths and Wilmer X all made great records.  Many of these bands had roots in the neo-garage movement of the eighties and fans of that scene worldwide were all well aware of what was happening in the north.

Swedes Go Pop!

Sweden seems to be littered with pop and power pop bands.  The best known example of the softer side of Swedish pop is probably The Cardigans, but the form is popular enough that Labrador Records alone has amassed a roster of over fifteen bands with CDs to their names.  Their website is loaded with mp3s to give you a taste of everything.

But it’s power pop where the Swedes have really excelled.   Bands like Thirdimension, Dorian Gray or The Kooks have made fine records in the last year or two.  Two of the best power pop groups currently playing are The Drowners and Caesar’s Palace.  Formed in 1993, the Drowners are from the same far north town of Skelleftea that spawned This Perfect Day and the Wannadies.  Guitarist Leif Rehnstrom had this to say about what’s fueling the Swedish scene:  “Well, we have a long tradition of great bands and we have the usual clichés about the cold weather, darkness and depression.  There is some truth to that, but I believe it has a lot to do with the fact that Sweden’s been a pretty wealthy country the past 30 years and people can afford to buy instruments for their kids.  So basically we’re all spoiled brats.  We also have good musical education on many levels and it’s a lot easier to get a free rehearsal space in Skelleftea than in New York.”

“I believe we have a lot of great bands and artists in Sweden at the moment who are good enough to establish themselves internationally. It is important to look beyond Sweden, because it’s such a small country.  It takes an insane amount of work to sell even 2000 albums here so it’s key to find an international market.”

He continues: “I love The Hives and they deserve all the success they can get.  They have worked like maniacs over the past 3 years, playing in every little town in both Europe and America.  Their success is totally live performance based and it’s such a relief to see that happen in days when the music industry is becoming one giant live transmitted soap opera with extreme short term thinking.”

The Drowners scored a US release with their third full length, 2000’s Is There Something On Your Mind, and they made it over to tour in support of it.  Strangely, that album wasn’t released in their own country, but now they’ve returned with their new Muted To A Whisper on Morphine Lane Records.  Hopefully this new album also gets a US release, because it’s got both stronger songwriting and more distinctive production than the previous disc.   Three singles have been lifted from the album so far.  The first is a terrific song called “On The Radio” which despite being a stone brilliant cut seems an unlikely single choice due to the key line “We’re wasting time that should have been our prime / Can’t get this motherfucker on the radio”. 

 Says Leif: ““On The Radio” was written when Sony failed to get our album out in Sweden.  They had done a licensing deal with Wind-up for Scandinavia, but due to personnel changes the album got buried.  It was really frustrating for us to have this beautiful record that no one in our home country got to hear.”

Caesar’s Palace have been going nearly as long as the Drowners.  Their brand of power pop could almost equally get tagged as garage – their sound comes across as half late 70s new wave and half sixties garage in the vein of ? and the Mysterians.  Tacky organ sounds predominate, but Caesar’s Palace write such insidiously catchy tunes that they’re my pick for the next Swedish breakthrough band.  Virgin Records obviously thinks so, since they’ve got the band’s video featured on their UK website and are releasing a compilation of tracks from the first three lps by the band both in the US and the UK.   A complication is that the band are changing their name to Caesars to avoid any possibility of working lunches with the legal team from the US casino chain.

I spoke to Caesar’s Palace guitarist and primary songwriter Joakim (Jocke) Ahlund.  “We’ve been doing this for almost ten years now.  Me and (lead singer) Cesar Vidal  – we’ve known each other since kindergarten, literally.  We grew up together in the suburbs of Stockholm.  And we were both interested in music and we listened to music together all through our growing up together.  But we didn’t start this band until ten years ago.  We played a little bit together in other constellations before that, but not that much really and nothing serious.”

“So Caesar’s Palace is our first band.  We were actually called Hellicopters at first – like helicopters with two “L”s at the beginning, but then the Hellacopters came along and they’d thought of the same idea.  And we decided to change our name.  We didn’t want to fight about it, so we thought of Caesar’s Palace instead.”

“We met David the bass player and Jens the first drummer – we hooked up with them when we were going to high school.  Then we were just hanging out.  We didn’t play together – we were just good friends.  And then we decided to form the band, we didn’t actually bring in the best musicians that we knew, but rather the coolest friends – the people with the best taste in music and people that we liked to hang out with.  So that’s how we got the band together.  Nobody really knew how to play – I mean, I started playing guitar when I joined Caesar’s Palace.  I actually took up playing guitar when I joined the band.  Before that I’d just been playing the bass.  And it was basically the same kind of thing with Cesar and David.  But none of us were really experienced musicians at all.  We just liked hanging out together and started playing together.”

Asked about how much new wave figures into their sound, Jocke replies: “We listen to more 60s stuff actually.  For that keyboard sound, it’s a farfisa.  When I found that, I was so glad, because I’d been looking for one, and I knew that I wanted exactly that type of organ, because all the sixties bands that I listened to had that sound.  Like the Seeds – the kind of bands that couldn’t afford to buy a Hammond – they bought the cheesy farfisa instead.  And they sound so much cooler.  More cheesy and less macho than a Hammond.  Like a little annoying wasp in your ear almost.  It’s like a toy organ.”

“But I’m a fan of all that power pop stuff as well, like the Nerves – like “Hanging On The Telephone”.  Stuff like that.  Ramones of course, for writing songs.  I like the Cure, but I don’t know if you can hear it in our music.  And Blondie, I loved Blondie of course.”

Caesar’s Palace have gotten about as big as they can get in Sweden and the time is definitely right for them to branch out.  “We play quite a lot in Sweden”, says Jocke.  “We actually have sold gold here in Sweden and we’re starting to become quite popular and quite big here.  We were nominated for two Grammys this year, though we didn’t get any.  But we try to play more small shows because we think that’s more fun, but we can also play festivals in front of 30,000, or maybe in front of ten to fifteen thousand.  If we play a big gig, maybe it’s about a thousand or 1500 people.  We try to play smaller club gigs mostly, because that’s more fun.”

Asked what he thinks about the push Virgin are starting for the band, he answers:  “They must like what we do somehow or believe in us.  That’s great.  I hope they’re right!  We just think that it’s really cool that we can come to the UK and get a shot at playing for the UK audience and maybe give them the chance to discover our music.  You can feel like you are really away from where things are happening at times when you live in a place like Sweden.  It’s like it doesn’t really matter how good you are because you’re not going to make it anywhere else anyway.  So when we get to come to the UK and stuff like that, it’s really encouraging and uplifting.  It’s cool.” 

We talk about whether the Hives factor has made big record companies actively look for Swedish bands.  Jocke says: “Yeah, I’ve noticed that a little bit.  But it’s also like, it’s really easy when something becomes trendy, and it sounds absurd, but if it could be cool to come from Sweden, then there’s going to be a backlash sooner or later.  In fact, it’s already happening to some extent, especially in the UK, where they are really sensitive to trends and stuff.  We got a couple of reviews in the NME and Kerrang for live shows that we did on the last tour, and they were really positive.  They really liked the music and everything, but it started out with “another week and another Swedish garage rock band”.  So there’s starting to be a little bit of a backlash on that, I think.” 

Swedes With Dirty Faces (The Punk Rock Problem)

When it comes to straight ahead punk rock, Burning Heart Records have the field pretty well lapped.  Their roster of releases includes records by The Hives, International Noise Conspiracy, Division Of Laura Lee, Refused, Bombshell Rocks, Satanic Surfers, Millencolin, Randy and 59 Times the Pain.  Most of these CDs are at least very good and some are flat out spectacular.  As an added bonus, a lot of it is available on US releases through an arrangement with Epitaph Records. 

Take Bombshell Rocks, for example.  They’ve been around since 1995 and just released their fourth full length album (see the reviews section).  But it’s their third CD, Cityrats and Alleycats that’s the real eye opener – a thrilling slab of anthemic punk songs with Strummer-like vocals that’ll remind people of Leatherface or Rancid at their best.  Everything on it is good, and the tracks “Tonight I’m Burning” and “Unstoppable” are flat out terrific.  But the bad sign for the future is that their new disc From Here And On is a bit overproduced and suffers by comparison. 

On the shores of the Gulf of Bothnia in the far north lies a town of 8,000 hardy souls called Umeå.  Remarkably, this little town has birthed two exceptional bands – The Chronics (see below) and International Noise Conspiracy.  Formed from the ashes of the more full on punk rock group Refused, International Noise Conspiracy mix an intriguing blend of leftist politics with hard edged music that some have called garage-based but is really more sophisticated than you’d assume from that tag.  Their CD from last year entitled A New Morning, Changing Weather was the best thing they’ve done yet, with great and dynamic songs, distinctive vocals, and intriguing lyrics.  A new CDEP called Bigger Cages, Longer Chains should be in stores as you read this. 

In a review of their Cheater CDEP last issue I mistakenly said Randy were from Canada (it’s the label for that record that’s there).  Sorry guys.  But I wasn’t wrong when I said they played catchy and compelling punk rock with sloganeering lyrics.  Their Human Atom Bomb CD from last year is even better.  How can you argue with song titles like “Proletarian Hop” or “Karl Marx and History”?  You can’t, especially when the music is so irresistible.  Pop hooks with more vocal cues from the Clash and lots of variety in songwriting.  Superb. 

Then there’s Voice of A Generation, whose imitation Cockney accents are hysterical and make them a dead ringer for something like the Anti-Nowhere League or early Sham 69, except the songs are catchier.  Their CD Classic Stupidity doesn’t break any truth in advertising restrictions, but it’s still a satisfying listen. 

Who knew that Sweden had a west coast?  Well they do, and Division Of Laura Lee come from the biggest west coast town, Gothenberg.  But it’s not certain that DOLL should be called punks.  They certainly have far more songwriting variety than your average punk group, and any band that can simultaneously bring to mind the Buzzcocks and Australia’s pioneering late 70s band X has something going on.  Their Black City CD is loaded with rhythmic, driving, high tension rock and could well end up being regarded as one of the best lps of this year.   

The Motor City Influence (Swedish Engineering)

It’s not for nothing that the best compilation record ever to come out of Sweden, Amigo Records’ A Real Cool Time, was named for a Stooges song.  There’s always been a large contingent of Stooges influenced bands – just as one example, the Shoutless single “Song From A Ditch” in the 80s was one of the best neo-Stooges singles of all time.  Most indie music fans have at least heard of the Hellacopters, one of the hardest working and most prolific recording bands in the world today.  Since 1995 the Hellacopters have merged hard rock, punk and pop in a way that brings together fans who normally wouldn’t be caught dead associating with each other. 

The Demons, Turpentines, Psychopunch and the Peepshows all mine similar territory but don’t provide as consistent results as the Hellacopters have done.  A failing of many of these bands is that they have a tendency to lapse into typically cliched hard rock lyric topics, but when they fire on all cylinders musically they can still deliver a first rate song now and then. 

One band that I have huge hopes for is The Sewergrooves, who’ve already got a large pile of releases under their belt but are starting to stake out an impressive sound that sets them apart from the rest.  The band started with roommates Andreas Broman and Kurt Drakes making demo tapes in their apartment.  They were friends with some of the guys in the Hellacopters and when they played the tapes for them, Hellacopter’s drummer Robban Eriksson liked it enough that he volunteered to play with them as a side project.  “It’s a lot of small cities in Sweden”, says Kurt, describing the Swedish recipe for rock success.  “When you grow up in small city with nothing to do you of course start a rock band.  Boredom is the best prescription for the creative process.  The possibility to find rehearsal places and everything like that is much more easy than when you grow up in a big city with a lot of other distracting things. The band is your second family!  What do people do when they don’t have a band?” 

“Right now we’ve got a really good climate for new upcoming bands and they get to start early to tour outside Sweden.  About success – it’s great if people like what we do, sure!  But we would play and write these songs anyway, even if we didn’t have a record deal or the opportunity to tour.  We love the music we write and we get to work with the labels we like and get to do shows where we like to.” 

“We mostly play shows in Sweden during the weekends”, he says, describing the Sewergroove’s gigging regimen.   “The crowds are good in the big cities so we kind of concentrate on not doing that many shows in Sweden but good gigs at cool venues.  Stockholm is our hometown and the absolute best place for us to play, but people don’t go nuts like they do in Spain.  We have done one short tour in the US, and then we have been a couple of times out in Europe for tours and shorter trips.  Finland, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Netherlands and Spain.  Germany, Switzerland and Spain are our favorite countries!  In Spain they go nuts and every second person seems to own a Rockbar where they drag us and give us free booze after the gigs.  We’re going to fly to London for the first time next month.  It will be fun to see how that crowd is.  10 or 500 people? I don’t have a clue.” 

Asked for influences, he says: “We could name drop a lot of bands here but to mention some; the MC5, the Stooges, Radio Birdman, the Scientists, the Saints, Kiss, Alice Cooper Group, Black Sabbath and a lot of other stuff like bands you can find on the Nuggets box. We like good rock music.  There you go.”  And among Swedish bands “We sure like the Hives, the Nomads, Soundtrack of Our Lives and we knew the Hellacopters even before they started, but if we’re talking new young bands we’ve got two new favorites The Savages and The Dollhouse, young and hungry but none of them are signed yet.”  

Interesting that Kurt should bring up the Savages, because a couple listens to their smash CDEP Long Live You on the Australian label Half A Cow made it clear that a few words from them would be in order in any Swedish overview.  The Savages have a herky-jerky style with machine gun guitar and odd but inventive vocals.  They’ve already toured Sweden opening for the Hives – a very well matched bill!  “We mostly do support act gigs with bands like The Hives, Silverbullit (known as Citizen Bird in the US), Bad Cash Quartet and The Sewergrooves”, says Savages’ guitarist Fredrik Andersson.  “But we have done a bunch of really good gigs on our own too. The best places to play in Sweden are KB in Malmo and Debaser in Stockholm.  The crowds are really crazy and fucked up the way it should be I suppose.” 

“Sweden is a pretty boring country with all the ice and snow, and people have got nothing to do so they form bands.  Then they rehearse until their fingers bleed and they tour until their heads start to fall off. Then the people notice the band and give it affection.  The Swedish recipe for success!” 

What’s In The Garage (When The Saab’s In The Shop)

In the eighties it was Amigo Records that championed the Swedish garage rock sound.  Four Eyed Thomas was the unsung hero of that label, producing piles of great records and getting them heard around the world.  Today the garage torch is best carried by Low Impact Records and Copenhagen’s Bad Afro Records.  Some of the finest Swedish garage bands appear on each label.  Low Impact has releases by The Skreppers, The Sewergrooves, The Maggots, The Strollers and ex-Wylde Mammoths frontman Peter Maniette, who has turned to a brand of pub rock very reminiscent of early Doctor Feelgood.  Bad Afro on the other hand has The Royal Beat Conspiracy, The Chronics, The Turpentines, The Maggots, Union 69 and Henry Fiat’s Open Sore (not to mention a large number of similar bands from the rest of Scandinavia). 

The Royal Beat Conspiracy and The Chronics have independently managed to come up with a similar new spin on garage music by mixing a wild r&b edge into the pot.  The Chronics are from the northern Sweden town of Umeå.  They’ve got two marvelous CDs – Soulshaker and Make You Mine, both of which pump with energy and are loaded with great hooks and gritty vocals.  According to singer Magnus Rudolphson, “The band started around 1998 and played mostly covers at the beginning.  We covered songs and bands that we all liked like Dr. Feelgood, the Pretty Things, the Stones, Larry Williams.  A lot of 50s, 60s and 70s rock’n’roll.  After a short time we found our way of playing together and our own songs came up easy.  We have all played in different bands around Umeå and as we started the band we didn’t take it too seriously.  But as we started to come up with songs that we really liked we started to look upon our band as a band with a mission.” 

The Chronics play the smaller club scene in Sweden, but they’ve gotten enough exposure through their records to make tours to the rest of Europe possible, and especially to Spain where this kind of music has a rabid following.   

About similarities to the Royal Beat Conspiracy, Magnus says:  “We’ve been on same label, and I like their records but I’ve only seen them live once.  Not many touring bands come to visit Umeå so if we want to see bands live we have to catch them on festivals or when we are visiting cities in the south of Sweden.”  

This led to the question of what he thinks of the Hives and what other Swedish bands he would recommend, to which he replied:  “It’s kind of hard to believe that a garage band from Sweden is that big out in the world but I really think they deserve it.  I like their records and their shows are great.  They’ve worked hard to become what they are and I believe they’ve done it without selling out their ideals.  Soundtrack Of Our Lives is a really great band that deserve all the fame and fortune they can get.  They do great shows and albums.  The Maggots is a band that I really like.  You can feel their love to the music that they are playing. It’s honest rock and roll.”  

Would the success of these bands help to give the Chronics a better chance for broader exposure?  Magnus isn’t sure:  “I don’t know.  Maybe?  We have bands that made it so probably people will start looking for the next big thing in Sweden just because of the success of other Swedish bands.  But you know you can’t get anywhere if you’re not good.  If by success you mean big money, I don’t think we have a better opportunity than bands from other countries.  But we haven’t met any problem when we wanted to tour in the rest of Europe and that’s some kind of success for us.  Playing and having the opportunity to exist as a band is the important thing to us I think.”  

The Maggots have been going since 1999, but the members of the band have been on the scene since the mid eighties.  Guitarist and singer Måns Månsson played in groups like The Crimson Shadows and The Livingstones, a band that also included members of legends the Stomachmouths and The Backdoor Men.  His bandmates, bassist Stefan Hellstrom and drummer Jonas Lundberg, have similar pedigrees, having been in and out of many of the same bands.  So they’re all well versed in the Swedish garage scene from way back.  The Maggots have two terrific full length albums – Get Hooked and This Condition Is Incurable, both loaded with tuneful, high energy garage punk.  They’re working on a new album that should be ready by the time you read this. 

“We have a lot of influences”, says Måns.  “To put it simply I’d say that we’re influenced by all the rock’n’roll that we dig from the 50’s and onwards.  I’m crazy bout US 60’s garage from well known stuff like The Sonics down to rare garage punk 45’s by unknown teen combos.  We also dig 70’s punk rock, the Cramps, rock-a-billy, raunchy rhythm and blues, 60’s soul, US 60’s psych, pub rock, power pop, mod/freak beat, good 80’s garage like The Lyres and that whole Aussie scene from Radio Birdman and on, the Detroit rock’n’roll and garage scene – both the well known stuff and local 45’s by bands like Orange Wedge & The Glass Sun gets me going. We love the Flamin Groovies as well.  And I think The 13^th Floor Elevators were the greatest band ever, and Roky Erickson is the best white rock’n’roll voice ever!  But I can’t think of any particular band being a primary influence, it’s more rock’n’roll as a whole with 60’s garage punk having the biggest impact maybe. But we’re NOT a fucking retro/revival act!  Rock’n’roll is about NOW!” 

“I’ve been doing this for 15 years now.  I think that Sweden has always had good bands.  There was a great beat scene during the 60’s and the Swedish 70’s punk scene produced some killer records.  During the 80’s we had some of the best garage bands, and the 90’s pretty much sucked everywhere with some exceptions right?  Or did it?  I’m of course thinking of all the shitty grunge acts that followed great bands like Mudhoney and Nirvana.  But hell, we had Union Carbide Productions who no one cared about back then but who everybody claims to love now, after Soundtrack Of Our Lives are having their well deserved breakthrough.  And lots of others as well.  Bottom line is that Sweden has always had great bands, it’s just that the world is finally starting to catch up on it!  I don’t know why, but we actually understand rock’n’roll over here.  Not everybody of course, but enough.” 

“I obviously paid quite a lot of attention to the 80’s garage scene, as I was part of it. I think the early Creeps were great as were The Stomachmouths – especially live.  I also loved The Hi-Jackers (their guitarist & drummer are in The Turpentines nowadays).  The Shoutless had some magnificent moments. And of course Thee Wylde Mammoths were just killer!  Jonas would also mention The Bottle-Ups.  Stefan and Jonas both dug The Nomads, but it took me a long time to start appreciating them of some reason, even though I saw them as early as in ’82.  But I love that first 45!”  

“Big faves during the 80’s otherwise were The Lyres, Barracudas, The Cramps, The Fleshtones (still the best live band I’ve ever seen) and Aussie bands like Lime Spiders, Stems, Hoodoo Gurus, Lipstick Killers, The Scientists etc.  Still big faves of course!” 

 “We’ve toured in Norway, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Belgium, Italy and Spain. Mostly clubs but also festivals.  We played in front of 4000 at Roskilde last year and that was great!  The reception has been superb everywhere and we’re looking forward to releasing the new album so we can get out on the roads again! We dig travelling and it’s great to visit different countries and cities.  Meeting people and trying different cuisines, that’s what we do when we’re not gigging.  And developing a real bad humor…” 

“At the Roskilde Festival we played right before The Hydromatics and Scott Morgan came up to me twice after our gig and said we put on a great show and really rocked out, or something like that.  That made me feel good I tell you!  I mean the Rationals ”Guitar Army” is one of my all time fave Detroit rippers, not to mention Sonic’s Rendezvous Band.  All our gigs are usually great fun, and then it’s the usual sitting in a van telling bad jokes, listening to music and looking forward to the next gig.”  

Among current bands, Måns lists his favorites thusly: “Voladoras, Dee Rangers, Maharajas, The Soundtrack Of Our Lives, Diamond Dogs, The Turpentines, The Locomotions, Hellacopters, Hives, The Chronics and probably a bunch of others that we can’t think of right now.” 

Of the Hives success, Måns says, “I think it’s great!  They are real great guys worth all of their success, and I really hope they will be huge. Imagine a real good band taking garage punk to the arenas!  That would be cooler than the fucking U2 crap!  It would be good for the world because nothing beats real rock’n’roll!”  

 “Of course we’d love international success, too!  We’d love to have success, period.  But if it doesn’t come we’ll be happy to just keep rockin’ out anyway!  A life without rock’n’roll is just unthinkable – it would be like a life without sex or food or sleep or partying!  

Last in this article but certainly not least, the Royal Beat Conspiracy have one of the most intriguing sounds to come down the pike in quite a while.  There’s garage roots there, but a heavy dose of sixties psychedelic soul as well.  Their vocal performances are fantastic, with some of the best blue eyed soul singing you’ve heard in the last two decades, and paired with the high energy music the result is a fascinating and tasty blend.  The two founding members, L-P Andersen and Tord Komsell were in Cry prior to forming Royal Beat Conspiracy in late 1997.  (Cry had two lps and several US singles).  Keyboard player Carl Von Stintzing used to play organ with The Leather Nun.

“I like a lot of 60's music”, says L-P.  “Soul, R&B, garage, freakbeat, psychedelia, etc.  I guess some of that shines through in our music.  My first love was 50's rock’n’roll and rockabilly.  Later on I got bitten by all those Pebbles compilations, punk rock and the 80's garage disease.  Hopefully this is also audible (and visible) in our music.  Artists like the Rolling Stones, Replacements, Gene Vincent, Barracudas, Lyres, Husker Du, The Prisoners, Radio Birdman, Byrds and MC5 have all been rated very high on my scale of total rock bands.”

Because their members were already known commodities, the band had an easier time getting off the ground than most do.  “Almost from day one we had great press on our side”, says L-P.  “Before we made our first record there was a big buzz round RBC.  By the time we released Gala Galore we had already played lots of live shows (like a support tour with Garbage) and also we performed live on Swedish television.  There was plenty of interest from many of the major record companies, but in the end we decided to go with Danish indie label Bad Afro instead.”

“In the last couple of years Swedish bands have been doing very well in most musical genres.  It's good to see that it’s possible to succeed for a Swedish band.  Before Sweden was on the outside.  All bands that counted came from the US or UK.  Now it’s not rare to see a Swedish bands do well abroad.  I guess the statement “from Sweden” on posters and flyers attracts extra interest for shows.  There are many very good bands in Sweden.  The only problem is that for every good one there is, there’s also at least 100 total crap ones.”