|
|
|
.............................. |
Simply put, for sheer entertainment value the Wonderfools debut CD is the most exciting CD I’ve heard in two years, and maybe quite a bit more. There’s nothing cerebral about it…this is gut level, rave up rock’n’roll that makes no pretensions of any sort. There will be people who call it immature, who can’t enjoy a record with songs called "Teenage Fartbomb", "Night of the Dateless Axeman", "Dogbreath Baby", or "The Story Of Mister Brainache" because they think that they are too childish. All I have to say to that is that many of these people thought songs with titles like "Beat On The Brat", "Smash It Up", "Orgasm Addict", "Do The Robot", "Down In The Sewer" and "Caught With The Meat In Your Mouth" were pretty entertaining in their day. As it was with the first Ramones lps, the challenge here is simple: can you admit that you like a song because of the sheer exhilaration of a huge power chord, a great drum fill, a well timed scream, and a catchy hook? Because this band brings these things to the table like few have done in the past and few will do in the future. Merge two parts Ramones, one part Dictators, one part Kiss, and you have an idea what’s going on here. These songs are about what guys are thinking about when they are less than 25 years of age (the oldest Wonderfool is 23) and haven’t yet been buried under a job, car payments and family obligations. It’s the sound of sheer, unrestrained energy and fun just fucking screaming out of the speakers. And for a decrepit old fossil like myself for whom those adolescent years are barely visible through the haze in the rear view mirror and who can only live this kind of life vicariously through others, it’s a fabulous thing to be able to hear this incredible, awesome CD. The Wonderfools mix the fiercest guitar/drum slugfest south of the Arctic Circle with every pop trick in the book to make a CD that’s so damned appealing I can’t stop listening to it. The band blasts through one instant classic after another without a pause for breath. Buzzing guitar like Ed Kuepper on "Nights In Venice" rips throughout (hell, "Dogbreath Baby" even quotes that nagging "Know Your Product" bass line). And if your jaw doesn’t hit your belt buckle on the break in the middle of "Gimme Gimme Mickey Juice", well, you’ve just forgotten that rock’n’roll is about FUN as much as anything. Tomas Dahl comes from the small town of Grua in Norway, about an hour north of Oslo in the general area where the Olympics were held a few years ago. The town has about 1,200 people all told. It hardly seems possible that such a place could spawn someone capable of forming a band like the Wonderfools. But it did. And here at the ripe old age of 21, Tomas Dahl has already played on 4 CDs in four different bands and recorded a fistful of singles as well. And the best may well be to come. "I started playing the drums very early", he says. "I think I was about 3 or 4 years old. I remember playing with knifes and forks. I destroyed most of the kitchen so my parents bought me my first drum kit when I was 7. But it was made of plastic so I destroyed it a couple of days later. Then they bought me a real one which I still have in my basement." Like many kids, the first rock bands he was interested in were heavy metal bands like Kiss, Motley Crue, W.A.S.P., and also a Swedish band called Europe. But soon he fell into Grua’s small clique of punk rock fans, a group of some 15 or 20 kids who would share their records and make trips to Oslo together to buy music. An early fave was the Dead Kennedies. And on one occasion, Tomas happened across the great mid-1980’s single "Girl In The Sweater" by the Hard-Ons, an Australian band who played warp speed poppy punk songs, often with lyrics calculated to offend anyone with a sensitive side. The Hard-Ons quickly became Dahl’s favorite band, and he set about trying to find all their records. "Which is very hard", he says, "Cos many of their releases are deleted. But Ray (bass-player in the Hard-Ons) has helped me a lot and he has given me lotsa cool stuff. So if he reads this, "thank you mate!"." Meanwhile, at around 14 years of age Dahl’s formal band career began in earnest with a three piece instrumental group called the Shitheads, who played a 60’s Shadows style of music. Dahl’s pal Zito, who subsequently joined Tomas in the Wonderfools, was on bass, and another friend played guitar. The Shitheads recorded a fair amount of music but never released any of it. They got as far as playing a gig in Oslo in support of Turbonegro, but they struggled with deciding what direction to take, and in the end Zito wasn’t into the band so they fell apart. But it was still a good beginning. Speaking of Grua, he says: "It has been a great place to grow up in. But when you get older it’s really boring. I guess I’m the only one that’s left who hasn’t moved to Oslo. But since the place is so small everybody knows everyone which is a good thing, but at the same time it can be pretty bad. It’s very much like a soap opera. But I guess it’s a usual thing when you live in a place like that. But there’s nothing special about it. It has a lot of snow in the winter, can be hot as hell in the summer and has a lot of woods. A lot of people think that there’s ice-bears walking in the streets in Norway. But I haven’t seen one yet. I’m still waiting for the day though." Because little was going on in Grua, Tomas and his pals had to make things happen for themselves if they wanted entertainment. No great band was going to come play in their town. So they formed bands, split them up, formed other ones, changed directions, shuffled ideas and kept on going. After the Shitheads there was a band called Spinach that played what Tomas calls "in your face rock’n’roll". Then a surf/pop/rock band called the Surfaholics. Both these bands never played live but just rehearsed and recorded a lot. After these there was Powervomit, Los Pistoleros, and then the strangest of all, a tribute to the Mummies that went so far as to use the same name. Says Tomas: "We played their songs and wore the same outfits. We got really big where we live and played a lot. The local newspaper wrote about us all the time. And no one knew that it was all fake. It was cool." When that band’s life was over, Tomas started playing in the Abusers, a heavy punk rock band that was sort of a cross between the Angry Samoans and the Dwarves, playing mid-tempo songs that were none the less really aggressive. Most of the other members of the Abusers came from another town about ten minutes from where Tomas lived. The Abusers left behind three recordings. The first was a 7" single released on the Oslo label Smut Records and featuring four songs: originals "I Hate Your Girlfriend", "Cash To Pay My Hash" and "Lip Service", and a GG Allin cover "You Hate Me And I Hate You". Tomas says that this single was great (I haven’t heard it). Sometime later there was also a full length CD on Arne Thelin’s That’s Entertainment label, which has some good moments and a great sound, but suffers from some sub-par songwriting in places. It has one ace track called "Education" that features some powerful guitar and hard hitting drumming, but the singing lets the thing down too often. "Education" and two others were released as a single. "I like the 7" called "She`s Easy" released on Demolition Derby in Belgium", says Tomas. "The B-sides are "Education" and "Stupid Jerk" by the Angry Samoans. The bad thing about it is that it’s too slow. The label fucked up the pressing and destroyed the songs. But I like it a lot." The Abusers played in Oslo on a number of occasions, and as a result, Tomas got to know Morten Henriksen of the Yum Yums. When the Abusers split up, Tomas went in multiple directions, forming the initial version of the Wonderfools with his pal Zugly, playing with the Yum Yums, and also playing on Arne Thelin’s studio project, the Bittersweets. "I guess everything just slipped away", says Tomas, speaking of the demise of the Abusers. "Me and Zugly didn’t get along with the singer so we formed Wonderfools. The singer became a biker! The other guitarist moved to another city. I have no contact with them. The lead guitarist is now the drummer in Euroboys (you can hear their surf/spy instrumentals on a CD released in the US on the Sympathy label - ed). That’s also a reason why we broke up. Euroboys got really big here in Norway and sold a lot of records and played a lot so he wanted to concentrate on that which was cool by me." "In the beginning things looked great. But after a while things started to slip. There’s always people that want to achieve more than others. Always a lot of talk, no action! So I felt stuck and I wanted to get out of it and do my own thing." It’s interesting to hear Tomas talk about the various projects he’s been involved in. From an outsider’s perspective, the Yum Yums and the Bittersweets recordings both seem like things to feel really proud of. Both are terrific, energetic slabs of power pop…the Yum Yums’ Sweet As Candy perhaps a little more classic pop with a huge and powerful radio friendly sound, and the Bittersweets Lesson One being a little more punkish and with some keyboards driving the sound. Both CDs on which Tomas played are in my humble opinion among the best ever released in Norway. Yet Tomas enjoyed playing in the Yum Yums and regards the Bittersweets experience with complete disgust. "Do I have to mention the Bittersweets? Pain in the ass!! The Bittersweets album was a fucking disaster", he moans. "I feel embarrassed to talk about it. It took ages to record it ‘cos the singer (ex-Cosmic Dropouts and current Kwyet King Arne Thelin) was always in Thailand for some reason (he works there - ed). And when the album was finally out nothing happened. I also played in the Yum Yums at that time. The second guitarist in the Yum Yums asked me if we should start a band with Arne just to see how things worked out. We started rehearsing and it all looked great in the beginning. I was promised a lot of touring, recording bla bla bla...But it was just talk. It was the same in The Yum Yums so I didn’t want to play in two bands that didn’t achieve anything. So I got really tired of all the bullshit and started my own thing." "The Yum Yums recordings are great", he continues. "I really like them. It’s a shame we never got more attention about them. I still think The Yum Yums are a great band. They have great songs. They were also great guys to work with. The guys in The Abusers didn’t care about it so it was a bit harder to work with them." Around the same time, New Yorker Steve Baise from the Devil Dogs came to Norway and formed a band called the Vikings along with Morten Henriksen and some other Norwegian musicians (see the Morten Henriksen article for more on this). They released a CD called Go Berserk! that’s out in the US on Sympathy and also on Japan’s 1+2 Records. While Tomas doesn’t appear on that CD, he did do some gigs in one incarnation of the band and plays on a single of theirs. "The Vikings were great. Steve Baise from The Devil Dogs is a great guy. I also enjoyed working with Happy, Tom and Euroboy. They were professional guys. When I record something I like to make it sound great and do the best out of it. Otherwise there’s no use in recording and releasing stuff. You have to be into it. Say what’s good or bad and what could be done different, etc." The frustrations Tomas endured playing in the Abusers, Bittersweets and Yum Yums combined with the sense of purpose he got from playing the Vikings to convince him that if he was going to have things go the way he wanted them to, then he was going to have to lead the band he was in. So he turned to the Wonderfools with a new urgency. The Wonderfools had started in April of 1996 with Tomas on drums and vocals, Zugly on bass and Zito on guitar. "When you are in a band you have to like it and you have to get along with the people you are playing with", he says. "And most important is that you have to have a good time. And when you don’t have any of these things while you’re in it there’s no reason to keep on doing it. You’ll only waste a lot of time. I think a band needs to have goals and achievement. You need to know what you want to do and where you’re going. I’m sure there’s a lot of great bands out there that could come up with something good. So instead of talking about it, just do it instead. You don’t have to be afraid to try out new things. Sooner or later you will notice the progress." After some time, Tomas decided to quit playing drums and move to guitar. A great drummer, he had decided that it was worth a try singing from the back of the stage since his idols the Hard-Ons had used the same arrangement for years, and because at the start they were nearly a Hard-Ons tribute band, playing loads of covers by their heroes. But then they started doing more and more of their own material, and they added a second guitarist. They all agreed that it looked silly for him to be the lead singer behind three other guys on stage, so Tomas swapped places with Zito and took up the guitar. "I have played guitar for about 3 years I think", says Tomas. "I still enjoy playing drums but I think if you want to be a good musician you also need to know how other instruments are working. In that way it’s much easier to come up with good ideas for a song." For a guy with only three years on guitar, Dahl plays a murderous rhythm…the Wonderfools CD burns with guitar fury. Dahl also played all the drums on the CD, and his drumming is one of the things that makes the record so exciting…their ace trick is to drop the guitars out for a split second while Dahl cuts loose with a concise fill that sucks the air out of your lungs just in time for the guitars to drop back in and bury you. But he’s no longer playing any drums at all…they have a new drummer from Sweden whose name is Alex. Says Tomas: "He is the best drummer I’ve ever heard. He hits the drums very hard and he has a lot of ideas how to play drums on a song. He’s very easy to work with. He’s 20 years old. I guess Zugly met him at some pub in Oslo. I’m not sure about that one. Anyway, he moved to Oslo to form a band ‘cos he couldn’t find anyone to play with in Sweden. So he has lived here for about 2 years. I think he played in a band called the Westside Sheriffs back home in Sweden. But I don’t think they released anything. Alex likes a lot of glam rock bands such as Guns`n` Roses and Motley Crue. He also likes stuff like Foo Fighters, Hellacopters, and the Backyard Babies." "Joakim is playing the guitar. He’s 18 years old. He grew up in a town near where me and Zugly grew up so we knew him. He used to play in a pop-punk band called The Sofisticates. They never released anything but they were good. We asked him if he wanted to join us and he did. He’s into things like Foo Fighters and Monster Magnet." "Zugly plays bass. He’s the oldest one in the band at 23 years of age. I grew up with him so I’ve known him for all my life. Me and him were always in the same bands. He and Alex also played in a band called Hellride which recently broke up. They released some cool stuff. He’s pretty much into the same kinda music as the rest of us. I really don’t know what our influences are. You know, we listen to a lot of music and to a lot of different music. So I think it’s just a mix of a whole bunch of bands." I asked Tomas to list off all the Wonderfools releases, since I wasn’t sure if I had them all (I don’t). "Our first release was a 7" called "Get Real" on a small label in Norway called Sneakers Records. It has 3 songs and was recorded and released in 1996. This 7" is very poppy compared to the stuff we do now. The songs were written very fast and we recorded the songs some days after we wrote them ‘cos we just wanted to do it and see if we could find someone that wanted to release it. And we did. But I was never sure if I liked the songs or not. I still don’t know." "Then we recorded a 7" for Safety Pin records in Spain called "Teenage Fartbomb". "Teenage Fartbomb" is the first song out on our album and is also on a German compilation called Weird, Waxed & Wired. The B-side of the single has a great version of the Hard-Ons "Suck’n’Swallow". I like this record a lot. Then we released an EP called The Story of Mr. Brainache. It was mainly released only in Australia as a radio EP but the bastards at Triple J in Australia rejected us and called it horrible. The EP has 2 songs from our album, "The Story of Mr. Brainache" and "Wimp City". And it has 2 songs from our first 7" as well. We also made a video of "Brainache" which has been shown a lot on various music channels in Australia. I think this EP is great. Then we released our first full-length album this year on Radio Blast Recordings in Germany (on vinyl) and on One Way Street in Australia (cd). I think that the album (Kids In Satanic Service) is a strong debut album and has a lot of good songs. The only bad thing about it is the cover (a picture of a moose blowing smoke out of its nostrils that was drawn by a German fellow named Fritte - ed). It was a total disaster! Luckily the repressing will feature a much better looking cover. Also on the US version that will be out on Man’s Ruin sometime in the year 2000. The cool thing about the album is that we recorded it in a old slaughter house which they had built into a small studio. The studio was very cheap and the equipment was very old but we got a great sound out of it. It has a lot of guts and power. You don’t have to book a big, expensive studio to get a good sound. You just need to be patient and use some time to find the sound you like." It may seem strange to find that a band from Norway should have to go all the way to Australia to get an album released. It makes a little more sense when you realize the connection through the Hard-Ons. Since he was such a big fan, Tomas had been trying to find out how to correspond with the Hard-Ons for some time. He had no success getting a contact for some time until one day someone gave him Tim Pittman’s e-mail address. Tim provided Ray Ahn’s contact information, Tomas told Tim about his band, and Tim asked for a tape. Soon after, Pittman and John Needham started One Way Street, and the Wonderfools were one of the first bands released on the label. Along with them were their heroes the Hard-Ons, who had been dormant for most of the last six years or so, but were just starting to rev back up for a comeback, with their first release on returning also on One Way Street. Ray Ahn, who did designed all the Hard-Ons record and CD sleeve art, did the art for the CD face of Kids In Satanic Service. Coming in the next year will be a mini-lp on One Way Street which is currently titled "Sick Of Love" after one of the songs on the Kids In Satanic Service CD. It’s going to have batch of previously unreleased songs and many covers, including songs from bands such as AC/DC, the Saints, Celibate Rifles, and Kiss. The format (CD vs vinyl) is still being debated. And after that, there are hazier plans to start on a new full length album. One of Dahl’s big gripes about his other bands was that they were unable to make anything happen with their music…records barely sold, tours never extended far beyond Oslo, and despite great songs, the music disappeared with little notice. Determined not to have this happen to the Wonderfools, Tomas has been working hard to raise a profile outside of Norway, both with records and with tours. "We did our first tour in Xmas `98", he says. "We did 4 gigs in Germany, all of which were great. I was still playing the drums and sang and that was kinda boring. Our album wasn’t even out yet but still a lot of people knew our songs. But the German people had trouble dealing with our age. They had heard the single but they didn’t believe it was us playing on it ‘cos we were so young." "Then we did a 3 week tour of Europe in October and November which was great. We played in Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland, Spain and Belgium. The response was great. We hope to get down there again next year but it’s kinda hard to say right now ‘cos I have to serve a 14 month duty in the military and Joakim is still in school so I don’t know. You have to do the military thing over here. If you choose to go into the military you have to be there for like 12 months. But if you are against the whole military thing you have to do some civilian work which is for 14 months. It’s just crazy. You should have a chance to choose instead. I hate the whole thing, it’s such a waste of time. Running around in the woods playing Rambo!" "But we’d love to tour Europe again and hopefully the US. Australia would be cool too. We’ll try to make a small tour of Scandinavia in February playing Norway, Sweden and Denmark. We have never played in Sweden or Denmark so that would be cool. But Swedish people have never really been into Norwegian music. A Swedish band can come to Norway and play for packed houses but it’s not like that for a Norwegian band. Sweden has always been more open to other kinds of music which is a very good thing. Norway is really stuck in what’s on the top 40 list and they never give a band with loud guitars a second chance. Sweden has always had better rock bands than Norway. I guess the only thing we beat them in the music industry is black metal. Norway is the biggest exporter of this kind of music. It’s too bad that you have to spit blood and sing songs about Satan to get attention." I asked Tomas about other Norwegian bands that he liked. "I’ve always been bad at keeping myself updated on Norwegian bands", he replied. "Maybe that’s because I never go to see bands. But there are some good bands around these days. New ones are Ricochets, Cato Salsa Experience and Beezewax. And then you have of course Gluecifer and Turbonegro. I guess I like the same Scandinavian bands that everybody likes these days. Gluecifer, Turbo, ‘Copters, Backyard Babies etc. Even though I’m starting to get a bit tired of all the buzz about these bands." Since not a one of them is as good as his own band, I can certainly sympathize with him. Get yourself a copy of Kids In Satanic Service and toss that Geritol away! |
