Scandinavia – land of Vikings, cold winters, beautiful girls and great music on any sorts. Yes, I know that majority of people would pick up ABBA, Roxette or Europe, but we will pass them by for now (you didn’t really think we will do interview with ABBA, do you?), instead, we turn to the lovely couple of Bisson and Anna-Lena. Many of you know them, especially Mr. Bisson, and we will try to steal some of their precious time to “interrogate” them – Defiance style!
You have a good reason for celebration these days, for you are just a few days away from releasing your new CD entitled “Steelcapped ballads”...I think you should have a break from folding up the booklets now and share with us some info about that new album...how long did you prepare it, where did you record it and most important – how do you feel about it?
I really didn’t prepare for making a ballad album at first. It was Anna-Lenas idea first. She asked me why I didn’t write some ballads so I took up on that and wrote 2-3 songs. We like them so I continued to write some more and then the idea came up to make some old Steelcapped strength songs into ballads. I asked a friend that own a studio at his home if he could help me out to record it. It was just supposed to be a simple ballad album with 2 acoustic guitars and vocals but suddenly he came up with the idea to put some accordian on a song and then it all kept on going. We said that it would be nice if we could find a girl to sing a little bit with us so we asked Anna-Lena but first she refused and told us to F..k off:) She claimed that she couldn’t sing at all but we managed to convince her at least to take a shot and she fucking did!! we were stunned after the first song so we let her join in for more songs without hesitations. So now I’m very proud of her and that we have recorded an album together. I feel strongly about this recordings because for me it’s not just a CD like the other ones I’ve recorded. This means so much more to me. It’s a thing I’ve made together with the one I love and a thing we will share forever. This is just the beginning, already planning for the part 2.
Defiance crew has always good manners, so lady first...Anna-Lena, was it your first singing experience? I know you are a couple, but anyway, how was it like to work with Bisson who has a lot of experience with recording and related stuff? Tell us, is Bisson a recording studio dictator? By the way - and risking the slap from my girlfriend - I have to say you have a great hair on the cover of the album!
Yes this was the first time ever I tried to sing and that day I was having a cold and sounded like a man when I was talking. After listening to the guys all day and spending alot of time conviction me I thought, what the hell, the best way to get them to shut up and leave me alone was to sing and scare them off. It turned out going better than expected... Bisson is easy to work with, he is pushing me to do better and better and the only problem I have is to read his notes on the lyrics, looks like Greek to a normal person ; ) Other than that we are having alot of fun in the rehearsal studio and he is inspiring! About my hair, as you said Bisson is a man that knows how to do alot of things and it is actually Bisson who is cutting my hair this way hahaha!
And now for Mr. Bisson! Doing this interview, I’m listening to the song “Break Free” and it’s just amazing! I hear in it old American blues-like tunes and kinda – I don’t know why – reminded me of Jon Bon Jovi’s “Blaze of Glory” (no insult intended, no need to put your boots on, brother! :)) So the first question – untypically I think – is: Bisson and the blues guitar, how right, how wrong?
Bon Jovi??? Aaaah, now I’ve put my DM's on;) Haha, no it’s OK, by the way, “Blaze of glory” is a good tune. Well the song break free is not from the ballad album actually, it will appear on a split cd together with the band Filopatria called “Vikings meets the Spartans”. It’s just a strange thing we tried to do and it’s supposed to sound a bit like some outlaw styled tune from the American south ...or something like that. It’s fun to play around with the music especially when I almost always make music in the same kind of style.
I can without hesitation swear, that you are among those who seem to have more hours in the day then the rest of us, otherwise I can’t explain how did you – and still do – manage all the work you doing...so to sort things out, what exactly you are now associated with? I know about Bisson Productions, ballad project, Bisson and the Vikings...did I miss something?
Hahaha, well I would lie if I said that it’s me who’s doing all the heavy work. I just writing music and playing live. It’s thanks to Anna-Lena that I can do this. She’s the one who taking care of the productions, pushing me (and that.s not an easy thing) to get up on my ass to write stuff. She really is fantastic!! Yeah, Bisson and the vikings was like a second solo album for me and it was Anna-Lena who helped me release it so it could come true. Then we came up with the idea to go under this name and play songs from all of my musical projects like Steelcapped, Enharjarna etc and with the new songs as well. The ballad thing is what we wanna do now with recordings and gigs all around because it’s such a great new experience for us. we will also go to Germany in September to make a new album together with Mr Barny. He will join me and Anna-Lena when we are going to play live with this.
I pose this one to all the musicians in every interview – what was the reason you started with the music in the first place? If you can recall, who or what was the inspiration behind it?
I started to play early in my youth, punk music. Then it came naturally to start playing Oi! music when I turned into a skinhead. In the beginning I’ve listen to old classic Oi! music and RAC like the Skrewdriver, No remorse, Skullhead and Brutal attack. But it was our first experience with a gang fight against immigrants I’ve started to get more into Ian Stuart’s lyrics for real. So it’s from Ian I got the inspiration and also Ken Mc’Lellan. and it always will be!!!
You play guitar, bass, drums, write music and lyrics...do you cook? (ha! :-)) )
Actually I have a fulltime job, working 2 days in a row from morning to the next morning and then I’m free for 4 days in a row. I am using those days off to do everything that considering my music, painting, cutting Anna’s hair;) AND I can COOK as well:)
Your first band Enharjarna is among the oldest patriotic bands in Sweden. When you look back, how did the scene back then looked like compared to these days? I haven’t had the opportunity to ask anybody from Sweden, so I will use the opportunity now, what did you (or do you) think about the split-up of popular Midgards Soner?
It was Ultima Thule, Enharjarna and Midgards soner who started it all here in Sweden. Those times were really fun but at the same time very hard. Back in the early 90.s we had a lot of problems with groups like the AFA, red action and shit like that so it was very hard to get a gig or anything at all that had to do with the patriotic scene. But we survived! Midgards soner was a great band but the singer Nitton change his ways and went to the media and cried out that he were going to leave the scene. Then he started to work for an organization called Exit that helped nationalists to drop the scene... some of the ex members continued to play in a band called The Jinx.
I was very surprised to learn that in Sweden also patriotic bands, like Ultima Thule, could be successful even with the general public, something unthinkable in the rest of the Europe, I would say...what’s your opinion about that?
It was a mediamogul called Bert Karlsson that discovered that Ultima Thule sold many albums and just because the music was a bit “forbidden” in the mainstream scene he signed them so he could make millions on them. I think that was a great thing because it surely did wake up people that never was in the skinhead/nationalist scene.
Follow-up from the last question, I think apart of typically Scandinavian music (which is amazingly melodic, whether I would play aforementioned Roxette or, say, Children of Bodom), the lyrics are the core of “our” music. So, what are “Steelcapped ballads” lyrics about? Do you think you can win the general public with nationalist lyrics...and yea, what audience is the latest CD targeted at?
The lyrics is just the same as I always sing about. Nationalism, the pride of our heritage and stuff like that. we play for anyone who like it and of course to the Nationalists all around the white world! If we can wake anybody up to realise what’s going on with our music, we’ve reach one of our goals.
What type of gigs do you prefer… festivals like ISD, smaller gigs or ballad evenings?
We prefer all kinds of gigs but at the moment we’re into Ballad evenings. ISD would also be a great gig to do with this band.
You played at this year’s St. George’s Day Gig in the UK, how do you recall this gig?
This gig was really special and an amazing weekend! We got to meet alot of people that we have had respect for and the gig was amazing as well! Really something special to play for the most honorable people in 28 and us made alot of new and important contacts. To get Rob to drive us around and show us London and tell us stories about back in the days was a priceless experience for all of us as well! We loved it and hope to be back there soon again!
What bands would you like to play with in the future?
Well it may depend on with which band I play with and what kind of concert it will be. But there are great bands out there and especially British bands like Brutal attack, Blackout and off course Whitelaw, LSG, March or die that we have played together with.
You have your own production company now – Bisson Productions. Why did you feel it’s important for you to go DIY style after all these albums you have recorded?
We decided to do this on our own for many reasons. I’ve done a lot of recordings through all these years and they have been released by different labels and now I feel it’s much more fun to do it by ourselves. This is all because we want to control it all ourselves and make the desitions about the music. Also we want to build up a studio and be able to do more for the scene with other bands etc. But we still let other labels release some of our stuff like Rampage productions for the solo ballad album because it is important for us to involve the right people and to help the scene.
Music and downloading from the net (sharing sites etc, torrents...). How do you view it as a musician and as a producer?
About downloading we feel the same, feel free to download anything as we do sometimes as well BUT if you like it you fucking go ahead and buy the cd from the band to support them because that is the only way that they can continue to do the music! True fact!
Finally, one for the end… any message for Defiance magazine readers?
Final words from us is to keep spreading the word of RAC out there and support us and if and when we meet at a gig out there, please come and say hi to us Visit the webpage to order and SUPPORT US at http://www.bissonproductions.com/ !
No comments:
Post a Comment