Psychopunch

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Psychopunch

© Linda Akerberg

Question: Hey JM, how are you? How was your tour through Germany in september?

I'm doing fine..just a little bit tired but I guess that's the way it has to be after a good and fun tour.
We had so much fun on the tour and it was great to meet some old and new friends and fans.
We always have a lot of fun on the road...so I can't complain!

Question: Do you always prepare for your tours? And how could I imagine this preparations?

To be honest we don't prepare ourselves as much as we should..just the usual things like rehearse a lot and check so that we got everything we need to bring on tour..

Question: Your new album "Death by Misadventure" is out now since a while. What can you say about the feedback?

Well,what can I say..we got real great feedback on the new album and that feels really great since we are damn proud of the album.First one with the new rhythmsection!
Some say that it is the best album we have done so far and some say that it's one of the best and we got some real good reviews on the album so we just can't complain about that feedback!

Question: You always had at least one song on your last albums, that was different than the other ones, in my opinion. For example "The Black River Song" or "If You Say So". This time it's "Before This World Goes Down", I think. Would you agree with that? And if so, do you do that with purpose? Or does it always just come this way, by random?

Yeah.. well.. we have a few songs that are a bit different than the others..think we have atleast 1-2 on each album.
Sometimes we do it on purpose and othertimes not..it just happens that we write them..but we always make sure that we like the songs and we think that we can do them justice otherwise they wouldn't end up on the albums.
But think that if we only made those kind of songs it wouldn't be the same..think that our mixture on the albums makes all the albums so great!

Question: You always try new things. In "The Wall Falls Down" you are singing as you weren't drinking whisky and smoking. Very clean, very unusual. But I like it.

Hey,thanks! That's an old song I wrote years ago and I just wanted to see what we could make of it and also in the choruses the vocals are a bit different than we usually sing. A little touch of Country music in the song. But I think that we managed to make it both cool and good!

Question: As already on your last albums, you are more rock n roll, than punk on the old albums, I think. I would even say that there are blues elements to hear. I don't mean that bad, in the opposite, I like it very much. Your songs are more deeper in some way, but I can still sing them after 2-3 times I heared them. Would you agree? Is that your purpose?

Yeah,I agree that we are more Rock'n'roll these days..but in a good way..we still have the attitude but we have added some Country/Blues/hard rock and more rock into the songs but still we are thinking of the fact that we try to write the kind of songs we want to hear if we go to a club or a party.
Great songs that gets you in to your head and gets you in a good mood and makes you want to party and/or have sex!

Question: The last times you also produced a video-clip for one song. Why didn't you this time? Was is always more a goodie for the fans? Or was it played in Sweden or somewhere else in TV?

To be honest..I don't know why we haven't made a video to any of the songs from the new album yet..maybe we will.
It's always fun to make a video even if we don't have a big budget to make one.
I have no idea where the video/videos has been broadcasted.

Question: You also released an EP with 6 cover-songs last year, that was only available on tour, as far as I know. You play songs of ABBA and the Sex Pistols, for example. How did you get the idea for that, and why did you choose this songs?

Originally it was only sold on the thour but it was also possible to buy that one from EMP but now it's only available on cdon.com and ginza.se.
Last summer after we played at WFF we just joked around and said that we should record one or two covers with some bands we like and we were discussing for example "The Wildhearts" and suddenly we talked about recording more songs so that we could release a 10" (vinyl) since we all are vinylfreaks.
Then we had to decide which songs we should cover..it wasn't easy..we had like 10-15 songs in mind and we tried some of them in the rehearsalroom.
We decided not to record any Ramones songs since we already recorded 3 Ramones songs.
Why we decided to have one ABBA song..well..they are from Sweden and are on of the world most famous bands and they do have some brilliant songs..so why not!?

Question: What was the reason the re-release your first 4 albums in the last year?

It was the decision made together with our label Silverdust Records.They wanted to have all our records released by them in the same style as we have released our records on Silverdust.
Also the fact that "The Pleasure Kill" album was out of print and was real hard to get hold of.
We also wanted to release everything we ever recorded so that was the perfect opportunity to release the 4 first albums with a lot of bonus tracks as double-cd's!

Question: On this re-releases, and on bonus discs on the last regular studio albums, were many unreleased songs and other versions of old songs. Are there still more jewels in your archive?

There's still a few songs unreleased but those ones are from the predemosessions..so you can say that there are a few different versions of some songs still not released.Think it's around 4-5 more songs then we have released everything..except one predemo session that will never be released since we are not that happy with some of the songs and sound.

Question: Do you like to hear when people tell you their own stories, that connects them to your songs? I think especially the melancholy songs like "Stranded", "Nothing Ever Dies" or "On The Stereo" are expressing exactly what many people feel.

Yeah,we heard that people seem to have some cool connections or stories to our songs and it's
always fun and great to hear stories like that! Really like to hear from people when they tell us their own stories that connects them to any of our songs! It's a cool feeling to hear that..more of that!

Question: Do you all still have your regular jobs? And which are those? You are touring for months and have released 8 albums in 10 years. I don't count all the split-eps and stuff like that. From where do you get the energy and time for all that?

Don't really know where the energy comes from..guess it's from our love to music and the fact that we have so many wonderful fans that makes us go on and on!
When we play live and get that great respons from the crowd and meet the friends and fans of the band it makes you want to play even more and we also love to write new songs to try to make the albums better and better.
We do work some when we are home with different stuff...like music stores,records shops and so on..

Question: After all that releases, that I just mentioned, I'm wondering about one thing. You released some songs as live-versions, but never did something like a whole live-album or DVD. Would that be something interesting for you in future?

Yeah.. let's see what happens in the future. We have the idea to release some form of dvd with all our videos and some live stuff we have recorded.Let's see what happens this year..we are still waiting for some more livestuff and if we can find enough cool and good stuff then maybe maybe.

Question: Is there something else special you can tell us, what you want to do with the band next time?

There are many ideas that we are talking about at the moment but nothing 100% concrete. So all I can say is "keep your eyes and ears open"! But of course make better and better albums and tours!

Question: You had 2 changes in your lineup in the last 2 years, what can you say about that? Is that something that had influences on your music?

The first line up change was when Peppe (Drummer) decided to leave the band. He felt that he wanted to move on and he also met a girl and got married and moved to Germany.
There are absolutely no hard feelings between us..we are still very good friends and keep in touch now and then.He actually moved back to Sweden with his wife so we see him much more often nowdays. But Jocke (the new drummer) is a real cool and nice guy and of course a damn good drummer so all we can say about that is that we are very lucky to have him in the band!

Then the story with Mumbles..well..he decided that he wanted to put all his effort in building up a new family with his new wife and we do wish him all the best. The sad thing is that he doesn't keep in touch with us anymore..but that's of course up to him..
Our new bassplayer (Lindell) is an old friend of Joey and me and he's one of the best bassplayers around and a real good friend so we can't complain having him in the band!

Of course having two new members in the band affects the music a little bit since they have different kinds of way handling the instruments and also it was good for Joey and me to get some new blood in the band so that we got the real fire back in writing songs!

Question: You played at the Böhse Onkelz farewell festival. Do you like your part on the followed DVD? How was the festival generally for you? Was it the biggest crowd you played for till now?

We only have one song on the dvd but that one is great. We can't remember that much from the festival..except it was really big and we had fun and we ended up drinking with Rose Tattoo and then suddenly it was it was kind of black.
It wasn't the biggest crowd we played in front of but for sure the biggest stage we ever played at.

Question: 6 years ago I asked you, where do you see Psychopunch in 5 years. Your prognosis was, that you will still give concerts and release albums. And that's what you're doing. Can I repeat that question for the next 5 years?

Yeah.. you know with the new guys in the band I'm pretty sure that it will go on and on..that's our plan!

Question: Do you want to hear a funny thing? Some months ago I took the bus, after work and their was a man laying over 3 seats, wearing a Psychopunch-Shirt, very drunken, smelling like 10 pubs together and everyone in the bus thought he wouldn't survive the bus ride. Suddenly he got up at some station and shouted through the whole bus that every woman in the bus only costs 50 cent per night. Do you have some words for him? ;-)

Sounds like the guy had some fun and it sounds like he was kind of harmless so...thanks for the promotion..you know...even bad promotion is good promotion ;-D

Question: Thank you for the interview and some last words for everyone else?

You are welcome!
Guess all I can say is listen/buy all our albums and hope to see you all on the next tour!

Eingetragen von ds am 05.11.2009.

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