Music is not something you write about
Mando Diao have released their MTV-Unplugged Concert, their sixth record in eight years. Tink.ch met both frontmen and talked to them about the possible end of the band, their fans and their critics.
You have once said that the Swedish in your music is the cold and melancholic part.The weather outside is perfect for that.
Gustaf Norén: Yes, that’s the good weather for every artistic work. Musists are very slow people, and they become even slower when it is too warm. The cold weather brings us out of the bed in the morning.
Björn Dixgård: We are creative lazybones.
You have just released your MTV Unplugged album. Was this the creative or the lazybones in you?
Gustaf (laughs): It was a bit too much for us, so many albums in so few years. But it was too good a possibility to reject it. We didn’t want actually to finish our career when it’s not yet over, but at the same time it’s very difficult to make an unplugged album when your career is almost over. It was a big honour to receive such an offer. After this album something new will come. It doesn’t remind you about our previous era anymore. Moving into a new decade.
Björn: It was a good end for the first chapter of Mando Diao, this is how I see it. We don’t know what will come after that but we hope for something fresh.
In your interviews the focus has shifted. It’s no longer about your alleged arrogance but about your coming end.
Gustaf: Yes, when will it end? It will end, we can’t do it much longer any more. The only thing that I know is that there will be another Mando Diao album. But with the last three albums I had the feeling that it would be our last one. One day it will really be the last one. If I have to bet for it, I’d give us another three years.
Björn: We are not a band that plans for ten years in advance or talks about making another five albums. This would be stupid.
Björn, when I asked you three years ago about your concerts always getting worse,you said you wouldn’t know exactly anymore what you want and where you want to go, that you would need a break Has anything changed? You didn’t have a real pause in these years.
Gustaf: The last tour was really big, so it’s difficult to make something equal to what we did three years ago. During the latest tour there was more production, during the MTV Unplugged we learned a lot, especially how we can have a script, that you need a plan or a story to make a good show. With 200 shows in a year we didn’t have time so far to think about this. In the past year we increased the possibility. We can decide and plan a lot ourselves concerning the show.
Björn: We’ve learned that we don’t have to make a normal show. Rock shows are very static, the majority of bands have the same production and light, but after all you can do everything that is cool. This summer we saw a concert of Empire of the Sun, this was a cool show, I haven’t seen anything like this before. They had a clear story from the first till the last song. This made it clear to us that we can really do anything at our performances.
You also need different music for these changes.
Gustaf: Yes, of course but it’s not really something different because we’re always inspired in the same way. The majority comes from the American black music, almost everything that we have heard since we were six years old. Alongside this, Beatles of course, The Stones and Frank Sinatra, but always the American black music.
Björn: I don’t understand why white people don’t listen to the black music any more, like in England they only listen to their own music.
Gustaf: It’s a segregation problem in Europe, it becomes more and more nationalistic. People try to inspire themselves by their own selves, not by their neighbours. It’s egoistic to look at everything from your point of view. Lady Gaga will always win over Mary J. Blidge in Europe. We’ve been doing music for so long already, we don’t think in this way, in colours or cultures. It’s about the essence of music and it comes from the black music of America.
Cliches and categorization has also helped you. Swedish indie rock has been a huge
thing for five or ten years. You also benefited from this when you started, even if it
wasn’t your aim.
Gustaf: In your eyes we were always a part of that scene. My view on the subject doesn’t count. Music journalism writes on its own, creates styles and names artists, we have nothing to do with it. This scene has existed in Sweden for some time already. For ten years everything is already very similar, it’s inbreeding, a mutual influence. These people go and write music for their friends who are journalists or also musicians.
Björn: We were always on our own, always outside this world in Sweden. We felt that we didn’t belong to this scene.
This thinking in scenes, one part of journalism is criticizing and even giving labels.
Gustaf: This makes music understandable for people because people are stupid and need to be told what they must listen to. But music is not something you can write about. It’s something that people either like or not, without knowing why. I had intensive musical experience before i could read. At that time I still perceived music in a different way. I don’t like the bands about which I have already read, then I have a definite opinion about them. Music is so simple, you listen to it, and here it is. People are simply a bit too lazy, that’s why they need journalists who show them the way how to feel music. It doesn’t seem to be enough to simply love music. The mankind is not self-confident enough to be able to listen to music unconditionally. That’s sad.
You don’t draw a good picture of your fans.
Gustaf: They react to music like everyone does. I don’t like anybody who likes Mando Diao only because they have read something about us or bought an album just because of a critic in a magazine.But you need media so that people learn about you at all.
But you need media so that people learn about you at all.
Gustaf: Yes, we had this hype during our first two years but at the same time it brought us many false fans who listen to our music while reading about it. They don’t listen to it, but read about it. For this purpose you have books which you can read. You feel something about music but this feeling is so abstract, you want to describe it and pass further, that’s why there are music writers, that’s why there’s poetry about love. But that’s only a reflection of a real feeling.
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