Ghost hemma hos Strage

Ghost Hemma hos Strage. Fredrik Strage interviews Tobias Forge.
https://poddtoppen.se/podcast/1147279887/hemma-hos-strage/ghost-hemma-hos-strage
Translation by @queeruncanny.

This is not a word by word translation. Ive tried to keep it as close to the podcast as possible, but I’ve cut out some false starts, repetitions and so on. Hopefully I’ve haven’t missed anything important or messed up too badly. Cheers!



Tobias: Hi, this is Tobias Forge. I’m in an apartment in Kungsholmen, in the home of Fredrik Strage, whom I’m here to interview. Welcome Fredrik!

Fredrik: Thanks! When we started this podcast, the concept was for artists to interview me. Mostly to get attention. But apparently even a seemingly inexhaustible topic like Fredrik Strage has its limits. So we stopped doing that after a while. God, it’s so fun that you’re here. Finally!

Tobias: Yeah, thanks a lot.

Fredrik: Do you remember the last time we met?

Tobias: I remember the first time we met but i don’t remember if we’ve met since. I’ve seen you.

Fredrik: The first time we met, I was writing an article about Dave Lepard.

Tobias: Exactly!

Fredrik: Or David Hellman, his real name. He was the singer in Crashdiet, a sleaze rock band, in whose very first lineup you played guitar.

Tobias: Yeah.

Fredrik:  He was a very chaotic artist who, after having had some success with the second lineup, committed suicide in 2016. I wrote about him and traced down the earlier members and got their stories.

Tobias: What happened with that?

Fredrik: A magnificent failure. I wrote a long article in Dagens Nyheter, leading up to Rest in Sleaze, the annual gala celebrating Dave Lepeard and Crashdiet. I interviewed a lot of people, everyone from Erik Danielsson from Watain to you to Piss-Johan, an old punk legend.

Tobias: Yeah, yeah, that’s an old buddy.

Fredrik: I tried to write the article, but it was so raw. He wasn’t famous enough for it to feel right to out him like that.

Tobias: No.

Fredrik: … considering his family. Because he was a chaotic, interesting person but he also hurt a lot of people. Maybe I’ll return to the project one day, but it just didn’t work.

Tobias: No. Without full knowledge of what the material was like i can understand that his career was too short. Just to talk about myself, just to get a perspective, today when everyone documents their life biographically very early, I get questions about that, and I think, 15 years after Dave, I’m not done at all. I have a lot left. I think back on Dave, who was 25.

Fredrik: But he gave as much as Sid Vicious, and lived according to the same motto.

Tobias: Oh sure!

Fredrik: Live hard, die young, become a beautiful corpse.  A lot of grieving family members…

Tobias: It’s mostly anecdotes... Things were pretty messy. What people want to read is the good stuff and that might not be very nuanced.

Fredrik: You mentioned that after a few years, you said it was taxing to play in Crashdiet, that you went to a Foo Fighters concert and had the revelation that it can be fun to be in a band! It can be joyful!

Tobias: Truly. To summarise my career with Crashdiet: I think it was the end of 2001…

Fredrik: You were 19 or 20.

Tobias: I was done with school, and it was time to start this rock career. That’s what I thought I should be doing. I knew David from before, but we’d never entertained the idea of playing together. We started talking about it and I saw it as a fun opportunity, above all. Unlike my band, which was a death metal band.

Fredrik: Repugnant.

Tobias: From a professional point of view Repugnant wasn’t gonna make it big,  it was great in one way maybe, but not a full time job, even if I wanted that. Crashdiet felt like an exciting undefined future. But I misjudged David’s and my ability to work together. We were both very driven. I have a need for control and so did he. We have different ways of getting results. It turned sour pretty quickly. I felt uncomfortable. I have no problem playing in someone else’s band—it can be fun to not be in charge. But then I take the back seat, and I’m not 100% motivated. After a year or so, I was stuck on this idea that we’d be successful no matter what. It wasn’t what I’d imagined. It  wasn’t the music i wanted to play. He wanted to go in a different direction…

Fredrik: And he forced the band to wear tights.

Tobias: That part I had no problem with. I’ve always liked dressing up. You may have noticed.

Fredrik: Maybe I’m thinking of a more extreme sleaze garment. Ballet pants? Super tight!

Tobias. You mean jazz pants. Yeah, no, that’s part of the style. I didn’t mind that. There was other stuff to do with image that we had to live up to. As you know, I have no problem with image-based bands, but it was a mental image to uphold.

Fredrik: How did that manifest itself?

Tobias: In the ways [David and I] are different. It’s not about right or wrong. Even though I am, and have been, interested in decadent culture,  I don’t have that same total worship of someone like GG Allen. He’s interesting. I own the records, I’ve seen the movies. But I don’t think his lifestyle is desirable.

Fredrik: The extreme American punk musician who threw excrement at his audience, cut himself on stage and died from an overdose.

Tobias: It’s partly… I think it’s important to wash your hands! It’s not a fun way to live. Ironically, i have some colourful individuals around me who, to different degrees,  have been fascinated by this stuff and have lived by it. It’s tiresome. Doing something as intimate as being in a band with someone… For me, apart from sex, it’s exactly like being in a relationship with someone. That’s why bands break up. It’s as demanding as a relationship.

Fredrik: You’re saying that the Ghost trial could have been a family court case?

Tobias: Hehe,  you could say that. It’s the same as people arguing because they’ve misunderstood  whether they want to be together or not.
We were supposed to be together forever!
But I wasn’t intending that. We’re just fuck buddies. I have to leave. Just because you’ve imagined that we’ll be together forever, it doesn’t mean that it’s true.
That’s been the case with bands through the ages and also with this band. I pulled out, I’d seen Foo Fighters at Hovet and felt: No. If I’ve ever been close to selling out, if I ever sold out, it was in Crashdiet. I went against my feelings, against everything,  because I wanted to succeed at something. But I woke up and realised that if was to succeed it had to…the cost was too high.
But now! Speaking of something a lot more fun, I’m gonna put on a song!

Tobias: I have a theme to this dialogue. When I was a kid, when I was alone at night,  I always listened to the radio. Much of the music that’s influenced me isn’t from records I owned, but from that hour of music in bed. These songs have coloured me, my creativity and how I feel. This is Monica Törnell, ”En vintersaga”, exactly the kind of song that was on the radio at night in the 80s.

Fredrik: I heard this song in a Volvo commercial, sung by Amanda Bergman.

Tobias. Mm! That’s right!

Fredrik: There are beautiful images of wintery Sweden in the commercial.  The chorus is ”that’s when the great melancholy roles in" (det är då som det stora vemodet rullar in) but the song still has a positive ring to it.

Tobias: Oh my god, yes.

Tobias: Unbelievable! I’m not gonna go full national romanticism, it’s so easy for that to sound nationalistic, but I spend a lot of time abroad and travel with people with  no connection to Sweden, apart form popular culture. I can get this intense craving.  After I’ve been on stage I go to my room. I usually have my own room, so that I can shut up. If I’m with people I start talking, and I have to stop. I sit in my room and I like to put on Swedish music. Often radio songs from my childhood.

Fredrik: Idyllic.

Tobias. Yes, and when I hear this sad song I can see gas stations, Stockholm in winter and marabou milk chocolate, Pressbyrån. Hehe! Wonderful!

Fredrik: It's like August Strindberg in Paris during his crisis. He’s abroad. He misses Sweden. He sits down and writes ”The People of Hemsö” because he remembers the archipelago and the beautiful light, the Swedish summer light.

Fredrik: The first time we met, I also talked to Gurra, drummer in Crashdiet, and he told me he had a new project with you.

Tobias: That’s right.

Fredrik: You were making melodic 80s rock, a bit like Mercyful Fate. Then I met the both of you in a studio in Hornsberg, I think.

Tobias: yes… no ,wait… it was in Stadshagen. We were recording.

Fredrik: I got to hear one song. I wonder if it might have been some early version of ”Stand by him”.

Tobias: Yeah, it probably was. We recorded on two occasions in 2008.

Fredrik: It was the spring of 2008 and I didn’t think any more about it until three years later when someone told me who was behind Ghost. It’s Tobias Forge. And that was a shock. Long after your name was on the internet, a lot of people still wondered. I got an email from Happy-Tom from Turbonegro.

Tobias: Mhm? Hehe!

Fredrik: Around 2014-2015. He wondered, who are Ghost? I can’t figure it out. He’d heard that it was very famous musicians, like Björn and Benny or something.

Tobias: Heh! Fun! We’re buddies now, me and Tom. We were doing this project in secrecy for a pretty long time. We thought that maybe sharing it with a prominent journalist might give us a push when we needed it.

Fredrik: And I didn’t even get that it was you!

Tobias: No! IT DIDN’T WORK OUT.

Fredrik: The secret identities that you’ve used on stage—do you feel like you’ve turned into them, when they’ve fronted Ghost? Papa Emeritus and Cardinal Copia, this sect leader figure who looks like a better looking version of Jim Jones from People’s Temple. Have you felt more like an actor than other artists do?

Tobias: In a way. It’s more recognised that I’m playing a part that I can step out of when someone runs into me, in a way that maybe other artists can’t. Since they’re expected to be more like the person on stage. People very rarely expect that from me. It’s a blessing. Having an image like GG Allen must have been difficult. Wherever you go you’re expected to be naked, smacking yourself in the head.

Fredrik: Have you written backstories for characters that have sung in Ghost?

Tobias: To begin with it was pretty fuzzy. It was more of a visual… back in 2008 when Gurra and I talked about it the idea was for a ”faceless” operation, unlike 99%... Only Residents are completely faceless. But it was to be an identity free band. When that  concept surfaced it was  scrutinised. I've to explain what I meant by ”anonymous” and what i meant was to give the experience I’ve had with a lot of underground acts. Maybe their names were known but there was no real sense of who they were or what they looked like. For like ten years I didn’t know what Attila, who sings in Mayhem, looked like. I liked the Mayhem record, I loved his band Tormentor, but i had no clue what he looked like. All the photos of Tormentor you can find today, they weren’t available in 94. There was nothing.

Fredrik: That was true for everything. The mythology was secret and it took a long time to kill rumours. A lot of my friends thought that Gene Simmons had had a cow tongue surgically attached, because someone at school had said so. There was no way of checking. And people thought he was a demon who wasn’t born but hatched.

Tobias: Yeah hehe! That’s exactly what i wanted our new band to be, a seedbed for your imagination.
But the law of gravitation has made that impossible. It’s not possible to do it like that these days.
Life is, and having a career is, dodging a lot of damned bullets. Not all are negative. One bullet from outside was ”there has to be a story! there has to be something to tell”. At first I didn’t want to do interviews at all, but that doesn’t correspond with becoming a bigger band.

Fredrik: You did interviews as A Nameless Ghoul. You did all of the interviews yourself.

Tobias: In essence. The important ones. To begin with there was supposed to be zero tolerance. No interviews.

Fredrik: Like Residents or something.

Tobias: Yeah exactly, But that doesn’t correspond with the idea of getting bigger. The more interviews I did the more I realised that it’s difficult to dictate… interviews can’t be scripted. There can be a narrative but one can’t be 100% in character. It becomes gimmicky. Steel Panther do that well. But it’s still a dead-end.

Fredrik: But you were never interviewed as Papa Emeritus.

Tobias: I did it once.

Fredrik: You were more like a co-worker commenting on him. It was more believable. There was this  mad man that you didn’t know that well. I t was unclear who was talking, some underling in the band. The nutter on stage singing could be anyone.

Tobias. That’s still true in a way.

Fredrik: Ok!

Tobias: No one interviews the guy on stage. He wouldn’t step down and talk to people, someone who wants to talk smack, no, no.
It’s good to be able to step out of this band. Unlike almost all other bands where you’re stuck in your role as a performer. Where as i can talk about our front man as a third person.

Fredrik: But it’s not only positive? Someone in Ghost said that the only problem with the masks are that one can’t hook up with someone after the show because  no one knew what they looked like.

Tobias: That’s been a problem through the years for some people who’ve had a less important role. I, as well as most people who’ve been in the band, or in any band, am also an exhibitionist. I want to be seen too. I didn’t do ghost this way because I’m shy or because I don’t want to be famous. of course I do! But I chose to do this project in a different way and it happened to be the thing that made me famous. My claim to fame. But for others, especially people who came in at a later stage, they don’t get that push. it’s not as if you’re the new guitarist in Helicopters or something, which immediately elevates you.

Fredrik: And you’re masked. But are there fans who, like some KISS groupies, demand to sleep with members of the band in full get up?

Tobias: Demand? Hehe.

Fredrik: Demand… wish…

Tobias: Wish… there probably are.

Tobias: Yes. No. I don’t know! Anyway. While they stand outside our dressing rooms and wonder, I like to sit in my room and listen to Swedish music. Another song that I find comforting and cosy is ”Ängeln i rummet” by Eva Dahlgren.

Fredrik: This is one of my guilty pleasures. When it was released  was  a 16 old goth rocker in all black in Linköping where we both grew up. This song was not kosher to listen to. But it still gives me goosebumps.

Tobias:  It’s one of the most beautiful love songs ever written. I was 8 when it came out, in ’89. I listened to a lot of music.  My relations with Eva Dahlgren has never been that she was cool or uncool, I’ve thought that she was really good as far back as I can remember. This song was a massive hit, and I loved it immediately. I’ve listened to a lot of her music since then. There is something so calming about her entire being, her voice. She’s seductive AND maternal in some weird way. It’s such a pretty song.

Fredrik: You’ve mentioned that you might consider not singing in Ghost, but just writing songs and having a more withdrawn role.

Tobias: Mm, yeah, absolutely.

Fredrik:  Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley from KISS talk about KISS continuing with different band members. Is it burdensome being the front man?

Tobias: Sometimes. To be on stage as often as I am and be healthy can be stressful sometime. Our tour cycle is dominated by this thought that I mustn’t fall ill. I can’t catch a cold, lose my voice, get the flu. It’s not some anxiety that I carry around with me 24/7. But as soon as there’s a twinge somewhere, it’s stressful. If i can’t do it we have to cancel. It’s bothersome. Especially now there are so many of us and people have been working all day. I can’t cancel.

Fredrik: Do you get germphobia? Do you not want to shake hands?

Tobias: I do that anyway. I have to be fussy and use hand sanitiser. Another aspect is, that up to the moment I became the singer without an instrument to play… I saw myself as a guitarist. I should have a guitar on the … crotch. I was supposed to play ball, not be the referee, or goalie. I want to score!

Fredrik: The guitarist is the scorer the band, not the singer, the guitarist is the forward. A very hard rock opinion. The guitarist is most important.

Tobias: A bit like that. I’ve idolised lots of singers, and I’m influenced by singers, of both genders. But not all of them only sing, it’s been everyone from James Hetfield to Tori Amos.

Fredrik: To Lena Philipsson. You want to play a song by her. Which one?

Tobias: ”Dansa i neon”, of course!

Tobias: The same night time illuminated European route E4 as in ”En vintersaga”. Can you hear it? it’s the same world. Forget the artist. Forget the context.

Fredrik: This is another so called guilty pleasure. When you’re older there are no guilty pleasures but when i was 15 it was impossible to listen to Lena Philipsson. You’d be stoned! ”Dansa i neon” was written by Tim Norell and Ola Håkansson from Secret Service, a band that I love, and Peo Thyrén from Noice, a band that i love. It’s no surprise  that I think this song is wonderful. It only placed 5th in Melodifestivalen.

Tobias: Yeah, that’s  a bit strange. It has winner written all over it.

Fredrik: A classic. While the winner that year, ”Fyra bugg och en coca-cola” by Lotta Engberg doesn’t have this…

Tobias: it’s not quite the same…

Fredrik: But European Route E4 at night, a nice simile.

Tobias: It’s the same backdrop, just like with a lot of Swedish songs. They have the same soundscape, the same longing all the time.

Fredrik: It made me happy when I heard your Sommarprogram [a one-off summer program on Swedish Radio] and you talked about renting films in the rental shop in Tannerfors in Linköping, where i rented a lot of movies, but more than anything i went to Vinhandlarn.

Tobias: Vinhandlarn! Oh! It makes me warm.

Fredrik: Your mother rented movies for you when you were sick and home alone. She rented IT or something completely inappropriate for a 9 or 10 year old .

Tobias. My mom is unbelievably chill. She was always kind and liberal.

Fredrik. She rented IT for you when you were little and you became frightened of monsters in white makeup. Ironically that’s what you’ve spent your life doing.
Speaking of the forces of darkness, in your Sommarprogram you said: the devil became my companion and we talked together hand in hand unconditionally, through the early years of puberty. We are still good friends.

Tobias: But we are!

Fredrik: I’ve always thought that the ghost occultism isn’t serious, but more for entertainment, compared to Watain or some band claiming to be religious. Watain may fill the same need for that audience.

Tobias: On one hand there is a pop culture devil in horror movies and rock music. Intellectually, as a consumer of culture, I handle that one way. But there is also an emotional part that relates to one’s philosophy and thoughts about the afterlife. Apart from the cultural stuff, it’s a bit hazy for me. It’s something to wrestle with intellectually and emotionally. They’re connected for me. It’s not just about my taste in music. I have an interest in and a love for that stuff. As a representative of ghost I highlight the pop culture aspect, it’s the only thing one can really talk about substantially. As soon as you talk about it in religious terms, or in terms of religious history, you quickly fail.

Unfortunately a lot of the visions we have of the devil and hell, ideas that have been useful for us artists making dark art, are visions that Christians have had, based on Christianity.

Fredrik: Without christianity, satanism doesn’t work, culturally.
Watain subscribe to chaos gnosticism, they believe that the human soul wants to return to the black chaos of fire that existed before creation. Have you had thoughts in that direction?

Tobias: Yeah. I’ve had thoughts.

Fredrik: This piece of music wasn’t written for occult purposes, but it has that kind of power. You used it as an intro for all your early shows.

Tobias: That’s right.

Fredrik: Jocelyn Pooks Masked Ball, first introduced to a lot of people in Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, where it is  played during a mysterious ritual. Those scenes in the movie almost touch on… I really got into this piece when I heard it at Ghost shows. It worked so perfectly as an intro.

Tobias: I’m a big fan of Kubrick. There aren’t superlatives… There is so much else going on in that scene in the movie. The greatness of the song doesn’t register because there is so much else going on. Starting the show with it is impactful. It wasn’t my idea! I saw Grand Magus at Tantogården many years ago. They had it as their intro. Maybe 2007.
When we started playing live in 2010 we asked if they were still using it.
No.
Can we use it?
Yes.
YES!
It’s so evocative.

Fredrik: You’ve also used  ”Klara stjärnor" by Jan Johansson,  a piano piece. But lately you’ve used your own music.

Tobias: It’s a combination of all of the things you’ve mentioned. If you see us headlining, we play ”Klara stjärnor” fifteen minutes before the show. The rock music stops in favour of ”Klara stjärnor”. it’s like wasabi… no… what’s it called… what ginger does when you eat sushi.

Fredrik: A palate cleanser.

Tobias: Exactly. Now we’re doing something completely different. Get the rock music out of people’s heads. ”Klara stjärnor” starts, and it’s also supposed to lead to a scandinavian lane…. not that people understand that. it’s a nice changer of the mood. Then we play a 14 minute choir piece called ”Miserere mei deus”.

The story goes that the song was written in the 17th century but no one had written it down. It was sung in monasteries. Supposedly Mozart heard it and, since he was somewhat musically gifted, he wrote down what he heard. It’s not clear who wrote the arrangement. It’s incredibly beautiful. The lyrics are the worst thing ever read, in self hatred. Pure fear of God. It doesn’t get more black metal than that.

 Fredrik. Let's listen.

Tobias. So beautiful it’s sick. I cry easily from music and if I sit down and listen to this I’ll break.

Fredrik: When we first met you said that only quite young people can make good aggressive music. You said: ”It’s no coincidence that Possessed recorded the world’s greatest death metal record when they were 15. There is something pure in a young angry person that makes it believable. A person needs to have lived a little to write pop songs, generally, to have something to say. There is not much to say about life at 18, but one might be able to squeeze out something about death.”

Tobias: Hehe.

Fredrik: A nice way to think of it. More often I’ve thought that young people are interested in death because it’s so far away. There is no genuine fear. There is room for play.

Tobias. It’s at a safe distance.

Fredrik: You can feel immortal. At 50 or 60, losing people to cancer, death is real. Then you’re not so full of yourself!

Tobias:  A few contemporary examples of records that deal with death, like Nick Cave’s latest… As a parent, I can hardly even listen to it. It deals with the tragic loss of their son. And Leonard Cohen’s last record.

Fredrik: I was gonna say. You want it darker. During the title track he wheezes ”i’m ready, my lord” and he dies a few months later. It’s so hardcore. Not mincing his words.

Tobias: It’s a different level. David Bowie’s last record. One just went…  oooh!

Fredrik: The strange thing about Nick Cave is, after all these decades with a dark and menacing image, after this horrendous loss… everyone who sees him live says there is something positive… he wants to help the audience to lead better lives. He writes incredible answers to fans that contact him, telling them how to write better songs. He gave away lyrics to a song to someone who asked. Excuse me, nick, I’ve run out our ideas, do you have lyrics to a song i could use? And he sends the lyrics to Incinerator man, a typical birthday party song. He says that the lyrics aren’t actually very good. but it’s important that you keep working on your song. He’s become outgoing and people-loving. I think I’ve noticed.

Tobias: I agree. He’s incredibly good and multifaceted and infernally deep. Old age and tragedy seem to have done something to him, that at least us the audience can experience as positive, for a lack of better words.

Fredrik: Speaking of old age, you wanted to hear something with Sven-Bertil Taube. What do you want to play?

Tobias. I want to listen to ”Uti vår hage”.

Tobias: When I hear this song…this is one of the most beautiful songs. I’ll never be able to explain to someone who’s not from Sweden.

Fredrik: Did you have this need for roots before you started spending 75% of your life abroad?

Tobias: Yeah, I think so. It’s become stronger with time, because of all this stuff with ageing and death. Ironically, I’ve done that thing that so many people do with ancestry and online genealogy, submitting DNA and building a family tree. I’ve always loved Swedish folk music. I’m easily moved by the music and the lyrics! It’s its own segment. The lyrics to this song have been up to debate, it’s unclear if it’s true, but I choose to believe the story, that all the flowers and herbs listed in the song were a household remedy, used as a contraceptive or for abortion back in the day. Suddenly the lyrics become… I tear up thinking about it!

Fredrik: Wait. It was the recipe for a brew used for abortion?

Tobias. Or a contraceptive.

Fredrik: Or eating all the flowers…

Tobias: I guess so. I don’t know exactly. But the lyrics have a different meaning. I loved this song when I was little but when I learned about the potential meaning of the words, it became deeper and prettier. Connecting back to my new found hobby, genealogy, I’ve recently submitted my DNA sample and I don’t know what it’s gonna say.

Fredrik :Your family has its roots in hell.

Tobias: Apparently hell is in Rättvik.

Fredrik: Not that far away, perhaps. You’re wearing a t-shirt that says THORN industries, the company in Omen 2, where the son of satan is the CEO. Rättvik, anyway!

Tobias: The surprising thing…  the last ten years or so when  online genealogy has been popular it’s lead to some shocks when people learn they’re 25% 50% something else. It says when you send in your DNA that you should be prepared. The results might shock you. I don’t know my DNA profile but I’ve followed my mum and dads family back to the 17th century. It’s very geographically limited. My maternal grandmother is from Mårtanberg, outside Rättvik. Eight generations have lived there, in and around Rättvik.

Fredrik: Are you saying you have genetic defects because of inbreeding?

Tobias: I don’t think…. let’s not talk about that. Connecting back to ”Uti vår hage”. I click my way through, these connections you can make online.  I’ve learned about some tragic life stories. An older man marries a younger woman. They get married in May and in June a child is born. It’s quick business. And a lot of dead children. These families have 7 or 8 children and only 5 survive It’s interesting but also sad to look into this stuff. 18th.. 19th century. Kids born in May die in August, They have another child they year after who’s given the same name. When i read about this, in combination with these kinds of songs.. it makes me feel very special feelings. it’s lovely but also sad.

Fredrik: Wistful.

Tobias. Wistful!

Fredrik: The mood is getting a bit low. Lets listen to some könsrock (genitalia  rock)

Fredrik: Trigger warning for my turkish friends for Turk på burk.

Tobias. HAHA!

Fredrik: Turk på burk or CP-turk by Onkel Kånkel, a secret band that you played in for a while. They toured briefly  and played once at Hulstrfred in 93. Or he did.

Tobias: Håkan. The first gig in 93 was with people from Mellotronen, as far as I know.  I’m shooting from the hip . I think Anekdoten played then. But this time it was me and Tomas, among others, who played the drums in Repugnant, and the first Crashdiet line up.

Fredrik: You toured with Onkel Kånkel, Håkan Florå.

Tobias: We did three concerts.

Fredrik: Previously mentioned David Hellman or Dave Lepard loved Onkel Kånkel. At the show at Nalen he stood up front and peed on his friends and they peed on him. Among hard core Onkel Kånkel fans that was the way to show appreciation . Did he know that you played with Onkel Kånkel?

Tobias: Yes. We were playing with Crashdiet at the time.

Fredrik: It must have been a big deal for him that his band members played with the band he worshipped.

Tobias: Absolutely. This was during the period when nothing about Crashdiet was fun. Everything about Crashdiet was complicated. Everything was difficult and nothing was joyful. Naturally playing with Onkel Kånkel was easily managed. We had three sets booked. They were extremely sold out. And we came to the realisation that it’s possible to do things, it can be fun and not so complicated. It’s another reason why I and Tomas pulled out of Crashdiet. And Gurra. Gurra played in Crashdiet but not Onkel Kånkel. We left because we learned that one could do things in an easier way.

Fredrik: And in secret.

Tobias: And in secret! That was something I carried with me into the project with Gurra. It was a fun secret to carry around. It’s a fun commando-situation to have under the pants. Knowing that … I’m not wearing anything underneath, but you don’t know that!

Fredrik: These lyrics are even more offensive today. You couldn’t play Onkel Kånkel in your Sommarprogram. Was that your decision or the producer?

Tobias: We were in agreement. We talked about it. But it’s complicated, especially today. We’ve had to define our entire vocabulary. Most people who grew up in the 80s, the 90s the 70s know that. words were used back then that had a meaning that was as serious or defined as they are today  Listening to Onkel Kånkel today, there is a lot in there that stops time.

Fredrik: A lot of time has passed. In the 80s racists would say: go home, turk. Today, not even nazis see Turkish people as that far away. They are a part of the European community. I don’t think hard core nazis have a problem with Turkish people anymore.

Tobias: I don’t have an answer to that.

Fredrik: There is a development toward tolerance that is stronger than political ideologies, with globalisation. That’s what I think about when i listen to this song. I didn’t use to laugh at Onkel Kånkel but hearing this one, it made me  pretty happy. It’s so unnecessary.  There is nothing edifying, nothing that will help anyone. The lowest level of pop cultural activity.

Tobias: Yes yes yes. it’s difficult to talk about or dissect. since the music is pointless, but it’s entertaining.

Fredrik: From beer, to EPA-traktor, to the raggare subculture, the the shoddy romantic movie ”Ingen kan älska som vi” by Staffan Hildebrand. You wanted to listen to the title track from that soundtrack. Who did this song?

Tobias: A band called Grace.

Tobias: They’re mostly know for this song a huge hit in 1988, which has accompanied so many make out sessions and clumsy attempts at intercourse all over Sweden. But it’s an incredibly beautiful love song.

Tobias: It smells of chewing gum and hairspray

Fredrik: Date hairspray.

Fredrik: Kent has a song called Klåparen which describes the feeling of going to a school dance and hopes to make out with someone or at least slow dance. The character enters the disco and they sing about red, green yellow lights . You were alone when you got here. You’re just as lonely now.
That’s the mood you described. The smell of hairspray and chewing gum.

Tobias: Another song that…  If I absorb this 4 minute cookie, I can imagine my entire childhood.

Fredrik: Were you part of a subculture in Linköping? Did you hang with the hard rockers , were you at Skylten with the sleaze rockers?

Tobias: I’ve been there but not with the sleaze rockers.

Fredrik:  With people like Jerry Prytz.

Tobias: I know Jerry now. But he was a lot older than me.

Fredrik: Right. He’s almost ten years older than me.

Tobias: Exactly. When i was a kid he was a grown up, so there was a big difference. The older you get the more it evens out. Subculture… I grew up with an older brother who moved in subculture circles . He was born in the 60s and there were  a lot of different groups. As a teenager death and black metal was my subcultural identity, even though I listened to other stuff. i saw a lot of bands at Skylten. A lot of punk. But i saw anything. From Dia Psalma and Millencolin to popular acts like Whale.

Fredrik: Do you see Whale at Skylten? Their first real concert. Whale started their tour at Skylten in Linköping the spring of 95.

Tobias: I was there.

Fredrik: Afterwords the band went to Frimis. My colleague Andres Lokko who i worked with at the magazine Pop was there, someone, maybe it was hi, was stopped by the bouncer at Frimurarhotellet who said you wouldn’t even be allowed in with those shoes in Stockholm. Andres answered, we are Stockholm.

Tobias: Hehehe!

Fredrik Top ten cocky Stockholm comments.

Tobias: Especially in 95, when Killinggänget was at their peak, the coolest dudes in town.

Fredrik: Whale had Christian Falk on base.

Tobias:  A lot of famous people on stage.  Cia Berg from television! Tiny and extremely good looking. Standing there alone I don’t even know if I was 14 yet. She had on… or.. she had in her… braces.

Fredrik: She wore braces on stage?

Tobias: I think so! I’m pretty sure.

Fredrik: When I got braces in the mid 00s i hoped I’d look like Cia Berg but it  didn’t really work.

Tobias: It’s difficult. She was very good looking!

Fredrik: What’s ghost up to this autumn?

Tobias. We’re touring until Christmas.  We’re doing one thing early next year, but other than that we’re done touring with this album. Now we start thinking about recording in January.

Fredrik: How will it sound?

Tobias: I don’t know. I have a lot of ideas and things i want to accomplish. Usually I want to do things differently from the last record . It’s an exciting process and in a year, when I’ve been in studio for 6 months, it’s not as fun. But. I have to go now!

Fredrik. You have to go! Tobias, a gigantic thanks for coming. How i’ve longed to have you on the podcast. Good luck with everything.

Tobias: Thanks and good luck yourself. It’s always fun to talk shit with you.