The Exploding Boy has been Sweden’s little secret for years. With this new release they are currently writing with their latest "The Black Album" still eyeballing the music scene, there is no stopping this force field of awesome music! 1. What type of band are you?
NICK: We are the best type of band, one of those who follow no trends or no rules.
JOHAN: A very special band, who's like no other bands.
STEFAN: We just prefers to party then being pretentious.
NICK: But always with a glimpse in our eyes…
2. Tell us the brief history of your band.
JOHAN: It´s just four nice, strange and different guys who found each other and started to make music together. And we also found out that through our differences we could make something bigger.
NICK: I was DJ-ing at a club called Vampire Lounge and Johan and Lars started to show up asking me to play their demos,which I did, and then they asked me to join their band. And at the same time me and Stefan had some jamming going on,so I introduced him to the band as well.
STEFAN: But the history is not that important, it’s the unwritten future that is interesting about The Exploding
Boy.
JOHAN: Personally I always feel like we are a new band, but since we've been playing together for 6 years and are releasing our 4th album pretty soon…we are old, and actually have a history!
3. What’s the origin of the band’s name?
JOHAN: I've had the name in my head for a long long time, and finally got a chance to use it in a great way. Always thought it would work perfectly as a band name.
NICK: I think Johan had it in the back of his head since he first read it on the back cover of the “In Between Days” single by The Cure.JOHAN: Yes, I do like The Cure, but when I named the band I didn't have the
slightest thought it was a song by The Cure.
4. Who are your musical influences?
JOHAN: I like pop. And any kind of music with melodies and preferable dark feelings. Everything from The Charlatans, Lloyd Cole, The Cure, Echo & the Bunnymen to Depeche Mode, Kraftwerk, Rammstein to softer tunes.
STEFAN: For me it’s the punk rock, and 90’s pop scene.
NICK: The influences change all the time. In the beginning you could possibly hear a little bit of The Cure in our sound.But now days it’s more of Placebo, Ramones and Depeche Mode maybe. My personal references must be the new wave sound from the 80’s with Duran Duran and stuff like that…Adam & The Ants!
5. Tell me where the title "The Black Album" came from and what does it symbolize?
NICK: All the demos for the album was called something with “Black”, like “Black night”, “Black umbrella”, “Black rain”…simple as that.
STEFAN: And since no band in music history haven’t really done a great "The Black Album", so we had to.
NICK: And, if you are in a band you always dreamt of doing THE black album, and we did.
JOHAN: And also being a black ink-spot on the white surface of life…..
NICK: Oh, that’s deep…
6. What are your songs about? What specific themes do they cover?
STEFAN: Love, hate and everything in between from a northern, cold, dark part of the world point of view….
NICK: I thought they was all about sex…!?
JOHAN: It’s about life in general, about you and me. Especially about me! The next album is going to be filled with songs about me as well, hahaha!
7. Do you write your own songs? Can you discuss the songwriting process in detail.
STEFAN: All songs we've done ourselves. Often it goes like this: somebody get an idea that we record. And from that first recording we do a song out of it.
NICK When we have like 15 rough demos we all sit down together and pick out the songs that we should continue to work with in the studio.
STEFAN: We never jam our songs together.
NICK: I just get ordered down to the studio when it´s time to add some synthesizers.
JOHAN: We are very blessed with four songwriting members. And I also think it is very refreshing to have two lead singers as we do, it gives our sound a certain and unique touch, and make us more interesting than bands with only one songwriter/singer. We are a very generous band, we always give the audience twice as much. haha!
8. What's the music scene like in Stockholm, Sweden?
NICK: The music scene in general is huge, but the alternative pop-rock genre are quit small.
STEFAN: The scene is quite boring and everybody wants to be “up to date” more than really making music from their hearts.
JOHAN: Yes, it’s pretty boring. It is just us and some of our friends bands that give this city some character….
9. Can you discuss the album artwork and what it represents?
NICK: For the first album we just wanted it dark, with a slight gothic feeling. Inside the booklet there is a picture taken at our local hang out, Carmen. For the “Afterglow” album we had the word “Cities” in mind, travelling around, touring. The cover picture is of Manhattan, we have the song London on it and the video was shoot in Tokyo. For the “Black Album” I don’t know what the hell we were thinking….hahaha!
JOHAN: It is just black ink-stains. They represent black ink-stains, and all the feelings that feels like itchy black ink-stains.
STEFAN: Actually it was mostly about simplicity, we didn't want it to be that much thought into it. And probably that’s what it represents. The simplicity in life…!?
10. Why did you want to go and combine the genres of pop-goth-post-punk?
JOHAN: It’s the perfect mix of everything we like.
NICK: That’s the four genres that influenced us the most.
JOHAN: It’s a perfect mix of the members different taste.
STEFAN: It’s not about what you want. It’s about what you like. And since all the four of us comes from different music backgrounds that’s just the way it turned out.NICK: We really fill up a huge gap between the pop music and the gothic music…and that’s what we like.
11. How would you describe the overall sound of this album?
JOHAN: It’s very well produced and well-done somehow. It’s an album for the market. Not in a bad way, but not in the best of way either….
STEFAN: The Black Album is bit more slick then our previous albums, “Afterglow” was an album made more on the run of life. On The Black Album we had slowed down a bit in our running. But not to a standstill.
JOHAN: The next album is going to be more rough and more laidback and more for the lonely people out there. Like a guiding light for dark minds…
12. Did the band have any definitive goals they were shooting for before the recording process began?
STEFAN: Can’t remember actually. Did we?
JOHAN: Not really.
NICK: We have a very high lowest level….
JOHAN: Yes, our goal is to make the best songs. We would never release a bad or unfinished song. Our fans are much more important than that. A lot of band release crappy songs on their albums…
NICK: All our songs could be released as a single… Our main goal in the end is quality
rather than quantity.
13. Are you using any new instrumentation you've never used in the recording process before?
STEFAN: Don’t think so…
NICK: No, not really. The only new stuff we use are updated versions of the computer software we use during each recording session.
JOHAN: I believe there was some more laughter in the studio this time.
NICK: Yes, that’s new!
JOHAN: All of us had ideas for the last 1-2 years.
STEFAN: After the summer 2012 we started recording. But i guess all of us had our own new song ideas since a while back. I guess we are talking about the album we are working on right now?
NICK: You mean our new upcoming album for 2013?
15. Can you go into one or two tracks on this release? If so, can you give us the track title and brief description of how the track sounds and how it came about?
STEFAN: I can just talk about the songs i have written. There is a lot of lyrics about catching the moment and giving it up. A sort of a life crises perspective. The working title of one of the songs, "Street Cliché" describes the way I've been going down….
JOHAN: "You're going to hell" is a new demo-track I made maybe a year ago, and it is about bad people,
including myself of course. I might look and feel perfect, but I also have some bad sides haha.
16. What are your expectations for this release?
STEFAN: Don’t know really. What are they?
JOHAN: The biggest expectation is that people will like it of course.
NICK: Hopefully this release will make some buzz in North America.
JOHAN: Another expectation is that it will get bigger than the previous ones with some help from our new booking agency and European record company. Until now we have managed and done everything ourselves.
17. Your plans for 2013 are what?
NICK: We have a new single coming out pretty soon and a new album, and
a European tour is planned for late spring.
STEFAN: Play more shows so we can party even more! JOHAN: Meet a lot of people and play the new songs, and maybe give them a hug afterwards. I really think it is going to be a great and fun year for The Exploding Boy. We want to continue to spread our music and happiness, in a dark way!
18. Anything else you want to say or add?
STEFAN: Sing Hallelujah! JOHAN: See you out there! Let's have a ball!
NICK: By the way, where is Lars?
JOHAN: At the bar, as usual…
Cheers!!!!
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