With 20 years behind them Backyard Babies have not only developed into one of Sweden’s best rock bands but also reached the rest of the world during their tattooed crusade. With their sixth studio album hitting the stores on 18th August, preceded by the uncompromising first single ‘Fuck Off And Die’ the band sounds fresher and cockier than ever.
As well as being the band’s lead guitarist, Dregen’s vocal talents are also very much more in evidence on this album. I discovered, while watching footage of him on Swedish National television that music is not the only thing that occupies his life, he’s also a highly talented sculptor and artist working with some unusual materials as you are about to find out…
Congratulations on
the new album. Before we get to the specifics,
can you explain why you decided to have a self titled album after all these
years?
Thank you so much; you don't know how happy I am over this
new album. At the very beginning before
we had even written a word for it, we felt that we wanted to make the most
Backyard Babies sounding Backyard Babies album, and pretty quickly we realised
that we had done what we set out to do, so we thought why not just call it
‘Backyard Babies'. It was a little bit
like the rebirth of the band, next year in September it will be the 20th
Anniversary of the band with the same four members. Well not have a new album out next year,
because we're going to tour this one for two years. So it's a little bit of a celebration to our
old band with the name Backyard Babies, I guess.
What was it like
working with Jacob Hellner (Rammstein/ Clawfinger)?
Oh, well, I'm happy now, but half way through the production
I wanted to strangle that motherfucker.
I always thought that Backyard Babies had a really strong work ethic
when it came to writing and recording albums, and I thought that we always gave
100%, but it seemed we hadn't (laughs). He
would say okay, rehearsals tomorrow, ten o'clock sharp. We were like, "yeah, sure." We'd usually say ten o'clock as well, but
then we'd get there around ten, and drink coffee for a few hours, smoke
cigarettes and do a lot of talking, then maybe we'd start rehearsing around one
o'clock. This guy was fuckin' "ten
o'clock sharp", you know, with a whip, and this was only just the rehearsal
stage! But it meant that we were really
very well prepared for when we finally came into the studio. He worked us really hard, but it paid
off. It was really worth all the
effort.
As with all your
releases, it's got quite a live feel to it.
Did you record it as a band in the studio, or did you all do your parts
separately?
Basically, the bass and drums were done at the same time,
but then we did guitar dubs and stuff afterwards. We kept some of the guitars, but there are always
some overdubs to be done.
How long did the
process take, from when you started writing to the mixed completed product?
Actually we started to write around Christmas but when we
actually entered the studio, I would say it took about ninety days or something
.... recording, mixing - the whole thing. In
the past we've tried everything; 28 hours
including mixing to seven months to get the final product. It's great fun when an album comes out well
in the studio, but I wouldn't really say that Backyard Babies is a studio
band. We start climbing the walls if
we're in there for too long. Studio
recording is a little bit of a necessary evil to get on the road, in a way.
Who decides who does
what between you and Nicke, in terms of vocal and guitar parts?
Basically, Nicke's the lead singer and he has always been,
but then we tried to progress the band slightly, not only for the fans but for ourselves
also, and over the last two years I have started to sing a little bit. It's pretty simple what to do when we come to
choruses and stuff because I will sing everything that needs a high pitch. Nicke can't come up to the high notes, and I
can't really be down at the Johnny Cash kind of level. But it was actually Jacob who really liked
the sound of Nicke's voice with my voice when he began to mix them, so he was
the guy that wanted to experiment a bit more with our vocals, which was a
little bit more than we had planned for in the beginning.
You moved from
Century Media to Spinefarm for this album.
What prompted the label change?
The main problem we had was in Sweden where we were signed to the
major label BMG, and then BMG merged together with Sony so now it's Sony BMG
and that's where the first problem started.
The last two years have been a pretty difficult time for the band. We haven't been really happy with either
Century Media or Sony BMG, so we have just been trying to find a way to get out
of there. I don't want to kick on
anyone, but it didn't feel that Century Media were the right forum for the
Backyard Babies at all. It tended to
get a little bit too metal and lack a bit of the rock and roll feeling.
The music scene is a lot different today. I think it's pretty damned important for
bands, new bands as well, to actually own your own rights to the music. For me the greatest thing would be that if
someone knows that Backyard Babies has a new album out, they know to log in to www.backyardbabies.com and order
straight from the band, whether it's vinyl or a download version or whatever. That way we can push the prices down, and the
artist hopefully earns a little bit more money as well because there is no
middle man. Did you know that when you
buy something from ITunes or whatever, and you pay with MasterCard or Visa, the
credit card company actually gets more than the artist makes in royalties? That's so fucked up. But we've been around for such a long time
and we've made so many contacts in Europe, the States and Japan that we
can pinpoint exactly who we want to work with to help us with the promotion of
our album. Also, it's great to have your
own company because then you can release a single called ‘Fuck Off and Die'. Nobody in Sony BMG would have been so happy with
that (laughs).
Well, that brings me
nicely onto my next question. ‘Fuck Off
and Die' is a really powerful opening statement for the album. What is the story behind the song?
Well, actually it's not as negative as people might
thing. I wrote the song and I'm doing
lead vocals for the first time. The
actual lyrics are about me, and I believe that every human being has a nice
bright side of themselves, but also I think that everybody has a little bit of
a dark side too. Sometimes when my dark side tends to take over
a little bit too much, I'm kind of telling that side of me to go fuck off and
die, so it's a little bit of my own therapy there.
I love ‘Voodoo Love
Bow', especially as it's got that bar room boogie piano thing going on. What exactly is a Voodoo Love Bow?
It's actually a true story.
Nicke's girlfriend and her brother went to a little village in Africa - I can't remember the village name, but it's really
weird, because the tribe had a voodoo love bow.
There is an arrow in the bow, and if you fell in love with a girl you
actually (laughs) shot her in the ass with the arrow, and if it stuck, that was
the right girl. If the arrow was actually
sticking, and there was bleeding and stuff, then you knew you'd found the right
girl, the one you should get married to.
So we felt we needed to have a song title with Voodoo Love Bow, because
it actually exists. Her brother actually
brought one home with him to try it out for himself! By the way, the piano you
hear in that song is Dizzy Reed from Guns ‘n Roses. He's the only guest on the album.
Who exactly is Zoe
and in what way is she a weirdo?
(Laughs). There is a
girl that always comes to a Backyard Babies show and I don't know her name or
anything, but it's actually two girls and they travel around everywhere. They are young punk chicks and they just go
mental at the shows. I was thinking about
writing a song about them. I don't
really know them or anything; I just see them every night. As for the name, we got a little contribution
from our drummer's three year old daughter - her name is Zoe. So it's just a made up name about two crazy
girls that look much cooler than everybody else in the audience.
‘Where Were You' puts
me in mind of Hanoi
Rocks' ‘Oriental Beat'. I know you're
friends withMichael, and I wondered
if you were homaging Hanoi
a little on that track?
Oh, cool! Yes, I
guess it has a little bit of the Hanoi
touch. Actually when we did the song we
were thinking a little bit more like the old Clash, but I guess both Hanoi and Backyard Babies like the Clash as well, and
we're a younger generation than Hanoi, so maybe
for us it's a little bit of a mix between Hanoi
and the Clash.
Do you have any
favourite tracks yourself? My favourite
is ‘Degenerated'.
Oh, wow, I was just about to say that. It's probably my favourite right now. I'm hoping it could be the next single. Thank you very much; I'm glad you said you
like ‘Degenerated' because while it's not necessarily a new sound for the
Backyard Babies, it's a really crazy song that I think will go down well in any
rock or metal club.
Have you been trying
out some of the songs in front of a live audience?
No, the first time they will hear them is the 8th
August, so one week from now. We start
the tour off in Sweden for ten
or eleven shows, then after the last Swedish show we go by bus straight to Birmingham.
Are you looking
forward to coming back to the UK?
Wow, yes, I've been away for over two years now. It's always special to play in the UK, because the fans are some of the best in Europe. They're
very dedicated, and also the venues are good and we just have a good time. If you were to ask me where I would go for
the best food, maybe I would rather go to Italy,
but the audiences are way better in England.
What's the best thing about being on tour?
Well, I love being on tour, and I love touring America as
well, but when you're out there for such a long time it's the same food, the
same language, the same culture every day.
In Europe it's totally different because you can play in England one day, and in a few hours by bus,
you're in Italy,
for example, and it's a totally different culture - everything from the food to
the streets to the language. I would say
that it's easier to be on tour in Europe for three months than America for three months because America
just wears you out. Definitely with
regard to Europe, though, England
and Spain
are the best audiences. At the end of
the day, it's all about the audience. Not
that I want to talk shit about any country, but I can't really say that Belgium or Holland
is my favourite place to play. The
people come to the show, but they would be coming to the show anyway,
regardless of what band is playing. Also,
it's always fun to go to Japan
once a year as well. You get serious
rock and Disneyland at the same time with
everything beeping and stuff. It's just
mental! .
What's your best tour
story?
Well, it's not a party story or anything. Musically I think our highlight has still got
to be the AC/DC tour. We did 35 shows
with them around Europe and it was like a big Rock School
for us, learning how to handle the big stages every night. They were such nice guys, too; very
cool.
And the worst? For example, I believe you don't get on with
Rob Zombie?
Well, I don't know if it was him personally or the road
crew, but I think it's important to know how people are treating you. Let's just say he wouldn't be my soul mate. In terms of sad stories, though, the only
thing I can think about was the time we played in Hamburg and a guy died in the audience. He had a heart attack and he was only 26 or
something. That was really sad, and sort
of felt a bit responsible in a way because it happened at our show.
Moving onto happier
things; Slash recently said that he reckons Guitar Hero is the way forward for
getting kids involved in rock music.
You've got ‘Minus Celsius' from ‘Stockholm Syndrome' on Guitar Hero
3. What do you think of the whole Guitar
Hero phenomenon?
Well, if someone had said to me five years ago that we were going
to be on a game with a plastic guitar, I would have asked "are you fuckin'
drunk"? I think it's a great thing, though, and from a
generation point of view, when I grew up we were all miming to Kiss records
with a little tennis racquet or something.
It's an education thing as well. If
you're 4 years old and you think that Guitar Hero is really fun and you
actually show that you're a little good at it as well, it can lead to people
starting to play music for real. For us getting
our track on there was good exposure, especially in America.
Is Johan (bass) still
the Backyard Babies Guitar Hero champion?
Yes, definitely. I
suck big time, and Nicke is the king of suckiness. I play sometimes to keep myself occupied on
long bus journeys, but that's about it.
What was it that got
you started in music?
Actually it was a picture of Kiss. They did a photo session in 1976 up on the Empire State
Building in New York, and actually I think that Kiss photograph
isn't so far away from the colours and theme of the Backyard Babies album cover. That was my first introduction to rock ‘n' roll
music, and then I got 'Kiss Alive 1' and 'Never Mind the Bollocks' by the
Pistols pretty early on.
You've obviously got more
than music in your life. Tell us about
the Gingerbread design you did at the PUB Department store in Stockholm?
PUB is the biggest department store in Stockholm
- it could be compared to Harrods in London. Every year around Christmas they close down
the windows for a month or something before Christmas, then two days before
Christmas they open them up and there are all these crazy designs and hundreds
of thousands of people actually go to look at it. I don't know why they do it. Last year they had a theme about all the
human senses, so different artists got a different theme. They just called me up and asked me if I
wanted to do something related to hearing.
It had to be something that I had experienced in my life to do with the
ears. I found out that the first record
I ever got was at Christmas and that was ‘Kiss Alive 1'. I thought that as it was Christmas-time I
would recreate the whole album cover in gingerbread. A friend of mine's Dad owns a pizzeria and I
had to borrow his oven. Those figures
were all two metres tall, and I had to have a really big oven to cook them
in.
Did you go to art
school, or were you just blessed with natural talent?
Actually, I wanted to, but my grades sucked, so I wasn't
able to. I became a welder instead. I've always been interested, though, and do a
lot of painting and stuff. I think that
this is something that I will concentrate on a little more when I get
older.
Ah, I was going to
ask you a question about what you would see yourself doing in another 20 years'
time?
I guess that I will probably have a guitar in some way, but
I will also get a little more into the creative side, with painting. There will always be music around me,
though.
Staying with the
creative side of things, how did you end up designing a fishing lure? I saw a picture of it and it is
spectacular. Are you into fishing?
Yes, I have been fishing for a long time. We actually went on a tour in 2006 called
‘Where the Action Is' and it was a package of the Hellacopters, Backyard
Babies, the Hives, Millencolin and Soundtrack of our Lives. We have been friends for such a long time,
but during that tour when everybody was having a party backstage and stuff, we
discovered that there were at least one or two members from each band that like
fishing. We met up with the Swedish Sports
Fishing Association and they asked us if we wanted to do a compilation album that
would only be sold in fishing stores, with all the money raised from the
proceeds going to water charities, helping clean up the pollution and saving
the fish. We actually managed to collect
over £35,000 or something from the sales of the album, so when they offered us
the opportunity to design our own fishing lure, I was like "Fuck! Yeah!"
So it's me and Erik from Millencolin who have designed it, and it's
called Buster Jerk! You can order it
from: www.sportfiskarna.se or click on the banner on my MySpace page (www.myspace.com/dr3g3n). All the money will go to charity.
The four of you obviously
get on really well together. How would
you sum up each of your bandmates using one word for each
person?
Well, Peder our drummer is the Organiser; Johan our bass
player is the Unorganiser; Nicke is the Supervisor and in that case I will be
the Criticiser (laughs).
Thanks for taking the
time to talk to us, Dregen.
Thanks for a great interview Dawn. See you in London in September.
The new album ‘Backyard Babies' was released on 13th August
through Billion Dollar Babies/Spinefarm. Further information about the band
including merchandise is available at www.backyardbabies.com
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With 20 years behind them Backyard Babies have not only developed into one of Sweden’s best rock bands but also reached the rest of the world during their tattooed crusade. With their sixth studio album hitting the stores on 18th August, preceded by the uncompromising first single ‘Fuck Off And Die’ the band sounds fresher and cockier than ever.
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