Scandinavian Indie - Waterbug Interview


Scandinavian Indie Presents: A short interview with
Waterbug

by Erik Söderström (chief@lysator.liu.se) 
after a gig at Herrgår'n, Linköping, Sweden, 06-Apr-95.

Waterbug are:
Pelle Hedlund (drums)
Rickard Nilsson (vocals)
Patrik Jonasson (bass)
Anders Rasmusson (guitar)
Robert Nilsson (vocals & guitar)

(c) 1995 Scandinavian Indie

If the answer is "A." it was answered by the group as a whole.

Q. WHAT DID YOU THINK ABOUT THE GIG TONIGHT?

RoN. Fun. A lot of people. But we had horror visions about this place before we came here. We imagined it'd look like a living room! But it didn't. The stage was a bit different though. It swayed. But it was okay anyway.

Q. DID THE HOCKEY SM FINAL CREATE ANY PROBLEMS?

RoN. No, it suited us fine (and the right team won too!), we started to play about 15 minutes after the match so that the hockey-fans had enough time to get here [laugh].

Q. WHAT SONGS DID YOU PLAY?

A. 'Pedestrian Beware', 'Arizona', 'That Sound', 'Lost In The Pancake', 'Buttersinger', 'Insanity' 'Hollywood', 'Farewell', 'Birdnest' and 'Meatballs', 'Bigamy', 'Yellow' (the extra number).

Q. ARE YOU TOURING RIGHT NOW?

A. Well we're playing in Norrköping 15/4, Emmaboda 21/4, Växjö 22/4 and in Gothenburg on the 13/5 on the Rock För Angola festival that Ung Vänster are responsible for. Other bands there will be Mufflon 5, Larry, Honey Is Cool, Salt, Broder Daniel, Blissful and Monsterrock (with members from Teddybears and Girlsmen among others).

Q. WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOU'RE NOT PLAYING IN A BAND?

A. Pelle works as an educated daycare dad, Robert works as a guard. Anders is a mailman and the rest of us studies. Robert and Rickard are twins by the way. Rickard is the little brother.

Q. WHEN DID YOU START AND WHERE ARE YOU FROM?

A. We're from Gothenburg and started around 1988 under the name Pull, after the text on the inside of cigarette packs you know? But back then we were only tree; Rickard, Robert and Anders and a drum machine (Roland TR 505). Actually, we were a band before that, with another member, but we won't go into that. Anyway, we had to take a break between every third song to re-program the drum machine. Pull... damn indie name, and we had a Manchester sound too. 1991, Patrik joined to play bass and sing. Then about spring 1993 Pelle joined and we formed Waterbug.

Q. WHY THE NAME WATERBUG?

A. Nothing special. We just took it. Maybe it's because Rickard and Robert like to fish a lot?

Q. WHAT DO YOU CALL YOUR MUSIC NOW?

A. Not indie! Pop-punk maybe.

Q. HOW ABOUT RELEASES?

A. We released our demo "Supercalyfragiliticexpialidocious" in the spring of 1993 and then we have our full-length CD with the same name which we recorded during November-December 1994 and it came out in February 1995. We also have earlier demos of course.

Q. HOW ABOUT INFLUENCES / SONGWRITING?

A. Pavement, Flaming Lips, Pixies. Other than that it's pretty wide. All of us listen to most things except Eurodisco.

Q. WHAT DO YOU LISTEN TO RIGHT NOW?

A. The same things that we're influenced by.
PH. Robert's CD player is in a pawnshop at the moment.

Q. YOU'RE SIGNED TO A WEST SIDE FABRICATION. HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?

A. We just sent the "Super.." demo in the spring of 1993. Jocke [the owner of West Side] got really excited and told us to 'continue to make music like that and you'll get a contract!'. So we recorded another demo (really well produced and perfect, we thought anyway) and sent it to him. He hated it. He thought it was over-produced, and it probably was. Then we thought we'd give it all up and do something else with our lives, but we recorded yet another demo, porta this time, that we thought was just plain shit, a lot of noise really. So of course he loved it and signed us on the spot. That was during the summer of 1994.

Q. HAVE YOU BEEN FEATURED IN THE PRESS/TV/MEDIA?

A. A funny thing about how we got signed to West Side is that JF in Expressen [a swedish evening paper] loved the demo that Jocke hated and it was the other way around with the other demo. We were featured in Expressen before Jocke got the one he didn't like (which we thought he'd like), sort of like we would be signed to West Side next week, and Jocke read it and thought "what the hell is this?!".
PH. We've also been "Demo of the week" on Vapour Trail, a radio station in Gothenburg. As well as house gods! Maybe you know Ballde?

Q. YOU'RE ONE OF THE LATEST BANDS ON THE WEST SIDE LABEL....

A. Yeah, we and Blissful are really the last ones for a while. Jocke is not signing any new bands now. His stable is pretty much full, and his resources are limited as you probably now.

Q. WHAT FESTIVALS WILL YOU BE PLAYING THIS YEAR?

A. Emmaboda, Trästocksfestivalen, Ljungby and probably Hultsfred as well (they've been telling us we'll play there for a year now).

[They passed out some Emmaboda Festival 1995 cards, and one of them had a Emmaboda Festival 1995 t-shirt with him.]

Q. ANYTHING YOU'D LIKE TO FINISH THIS INTERVIEW WITH?

RoN. Ha ha! Yeah. When Rickard and Anders were rail-roving in the spring of 1991 they saw Johnny Marr at a hamburger restaurant in England. They had a copy of NME with them, and had to check it to make sure it was him. 'Is it really him?' 'Yes! Give him a copy of the demo!'. So they did. We haven't heard from him though. Ha ha. If you listen to 'Meatballs' you hear a line there about it too. It goes like "I met Johnny Marr at a hamburger bar".
A. We have to drive home tonight (300 kilometers)! Some of us has to work tomorrow. It'll take about 4 hours to drive because we have a trailer.


Scandinavian Indie Waterbug interview 06-Apr-95



Scandinavian Indie - your Internet guide to scandinavian independent music
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Snail-mail: Erik Söderström, Björnkärrsg. 13 B:34, 582 51 Linköping, Sweden

This page was last updated Dec 26, 1995 by Erik Söderström