Wow! I got it! I reached Daniel via mail just after few rounds of their last � A Single Book Of..� on my cd player. Immediately it sounds as a great album, a step ahead from � The Noara Dance Ep�. I hope that most of you out there got this MV last release (for those who don�t, go out and take it!) �cause it is already a milestone of the new rock-prog sound. Being sure that it would be a nice �gift for humanity�, i put down some questions and i found a nice and interesting interlocutor in Daniel.
First of all, would you mind to resume the band�s history?
Sure. Mammoth Volume was born in the winter of 1996, called into life by the main song writing team of Nicklas and Daniel. Nicklas engaged his older brother J�rgen to take over vocal duties and with the final addition of bass player Kalle, the band was born. The band is from the town of Lysekil, Sweden where all of the members were raised and still live today.
Tell me about this mini series on early christianity of which �The so-called 4th Sect�, �Pleroma�, �What Happened in Antioch (including Myriad of sounds)� are components..
I was just reading a lot about that for a couple of weeks, and that was when I wrote the words for those songs. It was really more a matter of using the themes and framework of that historic place and time, but as always I�m just writing about myself. This was an interesting way of putting it in another perspective. By no stretch of the imagination is it some kind of epic historic tale; just about myself. Pretty boring really.
So, you have particular interest in early christianity..tell me about that: why? Did /do you make/made this kind of studies or simple curiosity?
Well, I am interested in religion and christianity, but not so much from a historic point of view; it�s more a question of me having this personal urge to busy myself with these issues. This sometimes leads me to weird places, like burying my face in books about early christianity. I did contemplate studying theology, but that was when we really started recording music with mammoth volume, so I chose to stay around for that.
I see. On your website you wrote : "Its our responsibility to put something meaningful into the music, otherwise people will think nothing of it in general. I don�t care what they think of boy bands or dance music, because that�s about something totally different, but I want people to take musicians and bands seriously who are trying to do something that�s important to them". Would you mind to get some light about it? I felt that these words were about incomprehension or something like that, is it right?
Not so much incomprehension as "the path of least resistance", and how radio and TV progressively choose the glossiest and prettiest artists, and work really hard to make them stars. Musicians who want to do anything remotely different find themselves working uphill, and they are looked upon with great suspicion, as if "why don�t you at least try to make music like that successful artist?". That has become the norm: to be like those artists who find commercial success. There are still people who sniff out all these wonderful unknown bands and artists who work for the love of music, but it is that personal effort that puts the responsibility on less successful bands (like us) to try and be a little different from everyone else; add something new to the mix. This doesn�t mean you have to strive to be weird or difficult, but just not give in to the path of least resistance. Sounds very pretentious, but I like to think of it as being ambitious.
The � A single book..� tracks are really different about atmospheres they create, feelings and moods but they all seem linked each other by a unique concept; Has it been built consciously or not?
That is a positive thing in our minds, but it�s not really something we plan for. But because we enjoy recording songs in different ways and at different times, they naturally come out sounding diverse. We have still to make a concept album, but who knows...
In �K� we heard a very, very soft voice giving numbers, who is and why the numbers? Who is this mr.K ?
The voice isn�t very soft, it�s actually Kalle counting out the number of verses thru an overdriven amplifier, creating sort of a megaphone effect. Mr K is a local guy that we all know and love in our own different ways. One episode of his adventurous life includes him being haunted by a ghost. Of course he solved this little inconvenience by chanting to it. Apparently it worked.
I didn�t see any tour dates scheduled on your website! Amazing! How is this?
We are now planning to do a two week tour of Europe early March [ these are the tourdates taken from The Music Cartel website: 3/1La Chaux du fonds, Switzerland @ Bikini test; 3/2Perpignan, France @ le crock more;
3/3Alicante, Spain @ Stereo club; 3/4TBA Italy; 3/5Ljublijana, Slovenia @ Orto bar; 3/6TBA; 3/7Jena, Germany @ Rosenkeller; 3/8Amersfoort, Holland @ de Kelder; 3/9Tilburg, Holland @ 013 batcave, NoA ] Anyway, it�s true we aren�t a big touring band. Playing live can be a lot of fun and we�ll try and do it more in the future.
Your keyboards arrangements are great! I wonder how do you think to arrange them for your live set..Will they be the same or do we have to expect some surprise in term of mood, more groovy stuff and so on?
There are no keyboards live, but if they carried the music at some part of the song I just arrange it for the guitar. Generally the songs are based around the guitar and not the keyboard so that hasn�t been a problem.
Have you ever asked why North Europe has been the cradle of death metal in the nineties, and almost all of those bands simply don�t exist anymore or their members play stoner or hard psychedelic stuff? I don�t want to sound polemic, i don�t think it�s a matter of � riding the waves� but i�d really like to know if some of you have some opinion about that..
There isn�t a hardrock/stoner "live scene" in Sweden, because we�ve played almost all of our shows in Germany, Holland and further south. The same thing goes for a lot of the swedish bands, so I really don�t know why there are so many bands in Sweden within the same style of music, seeing how it isn�t very popular nationally.
If your sound is simply stoner, i�m quite the Pope..(!!) by the way, your name is often associated with that genre..does it bother you? Do you think that all this think-thank about stoner could give you more commercial chances?
I doubt we�ll ever get much commercial success; that�s reserved for different kinds of music than ours. The "stoner bands" that have found success (QOTSA, Monster Magnet) aren�t very stoner - not to my ears anyway. And it doesn�t bother us if people think of what we do as stoner, but we�re also not trying to do stoner music, just music.
Do you have any relationship with other Swedish hard stoner bands?
No. We live way out in nowhere so we don�t meet any other bands other than when we�re on tour, and like you pointed out, that�s not very often. Some email correspondence.
Was your approach to Music Cartel simple ( i mean: got demo-send them-they said ok ) or did you lose some months to go round and round with different labels, compare the best conditions and choose ?
Yes, we pretty much just sent a demo and got signed, but we sent it to MeteorCity first. They weren�t really looking for bands at that time so they recommended us to The Music Cartel, with whom we signed a three record deal.
And now, how is your relationship with this label?
It has always been a good relationship - no problems yet.
Which are your current listenings? Can you name us some good, contemporary bands that rock?
Personally I don�t listen to much contemporary music. I did tune into some great lo-fi bands lately, like Sebadoh and Liz Phair, and I�ve been a long time fan of Yo La Tengo. Norwegian band Motorpsycho made a couple of amazing albums in the 90s that I always try to recommend. I absolutely love italian rockers Standarte; saw them live a few years back and was blown away. Swedish prog rockers Anekdoten are cool too.
You surely know that Italy is one of the few countries in which the prog rock flourished..are you jealous?? The Premiata Forneria Marconi or Banco del Mutuo Soccorso are still on the road! We have our rock dinosaurs!! Which are yours??
I am very jealous! Those are my favourite early 70s Italian bands (well, Museo Rosenbach and Osanna are up there too), though I haven�t heard their new stuff. It�s not the same thing in Sweden; there are members of old bands doing their new thing, and some of them are pretty good. Probably the only bigger prog band in the 70s was Kaipa, and their guitar player started The Flower Kings in the 90s, and of course they are hugely successful right now. Then we�ve got Samla Mammas Manna and Trettio�riga Kriget, but I doubt anyone outside Sweden has heard of those bands.
Do you find it simple or not to spread your music all around Sweden? And how the middle class Swedish guys react to your music? And how about the club managers?
The distribution of the records could have worked better, but I don�t think the people who buy them are divided down a social-class line. I hope not. As a matter of fact, I did try to get some social commentary across; add a political touch thru the titles of the songs, but that was vetoed against.
Ok, that�s all Daniel, thank you very much.
Thanks to you!
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