guerolitoexclusive | interview with THE RADIO DEPT.

Posted: Mai 23rd, 2011 | Author: Marshall | Filed under: guerolitoexclusive, interview, mp3 | Tags: 2011, interview, the radio dept. | No Comments »

photo by Shiver_Shi

Despite Swedish music scene’s rising popularity and commercial recognition, a lot of artists from the country remain underexposed. 15-year-old Swedish fuzz-pop trio, The Radio Dept. have been quietly refocusing their shoe-gaze sound, more recently integrating drum machines and synth-laden backtracks, giving them a more electronic feel. Their low profile can only be attributed to the infrequency of their record releases. Officially, the nearly four-year wait between albums by the group was attributed to vague “unexpected delays” but despite this, their newest release, Clinging to a Scheme, has garnered widespread critical acclaim. We got to sit down with the band to talk about their how they have grown during their decade-plus career. Read the interview by our man Marshall below!

mp3 | Heaven’s On Fire

Marshall Moutenot: Last album that came out was a few years ago, anything change in the general process?

Radio Dept: There are many reasons why it took so long. Mainly we lived in different cities.  Some of us have just moved up to Stockholm but we used to live in Malmö, all of us until 2005 and then some of us moved to Stockholm. Now we are all there again. It wasn’t for any career reasons; I mostly just met someone and moved up.

M: I’m always interested in bands using things like toy pianos or neat recording techniques. Anything interesting you guys do on the new album?

RD: We use a lot of toy keyboards as well. We have all of toy stuff: toy amps, toy keyboards… $100 bass. As long as it sounds good we will use it. We have some real instruments we really love, but we love using real basic stuff.

There was this Yamaha I got as a Christmas present when I was 12 and used that a lot and we just found and fixed a new one so we have a spare one if mine ever breaks down. A lot of the piano parts you hear on that record is that Yamaha. Actually I think it has been on every album. And we love our Casios.

M: Have you moved to more digital stuff for your live shows? A lot of the sounds on your albums must be really hard to replicate live. Do you guys use those same keyboards to play the shows?

RD: No! We use way more serious stuff. We don’t want to touch the toys it’s so tricky to play on them properly. The keys are very small and it’s all just very sensitive. We have a few backtracks, mainly bass lines and drum machines.

M: If you guys could have any facial hair, or any person’s facial hair, what/who’s would it be? Or just keep your own – yours is pretty great.

RD: Hah, well I have my moustache. I was sort of anti-bearded bands for a long while because it was too popular – all of the bands had beards. I was a huge fan of the pet shop boys and they would never grow a beard so I felt kind of… I guess my choice would be mine, way too lazy to shave every day. You should see him after a week. I actually had a beard for a while. I was forced to grow it because I was in a band called pop Hitler and my friends in the band forced me to grow it because they were jealous that I could grow a beard and they couldn’t.

M: Are you still in that band?

RD: Yeah, but we haven’t really done anything in years.

M: Is it because you shaved?

RD: Hah. Yeah, I think so.

M: Do you guys like doing shows overseas or would you prefer to be able to do your shows back home.

RD: Ah no! That’s one of the best parts of being in a band, you get to travel and see other parts of the world. I mean I wouldn’t want to be in a band that toured all of the time because its nice to; you really get worn down being on the road playing every night.

M: Yeah and you have to get back to your special person in Stockholm.

RD: Exactly. We also love making records most of all. That’s really what I want to do.

M: I know the new album just came out but are you guys working on anything new?

RD: Just a little bit. We are writing songs. We have a couple but we are keeping them under wraps for a while. We aren’t sure when the next album is going to be finished – none of them have lyrics yet or anything. Since the beginning we have been really into noisy distorted stuff. Our take on shoe-gaze seems to be a lot different from other groups.

M: There have been a lot of personnel changes in the band over the years. Do you think that’s helped you guys change from album to album, or just necessary for location reasons?

RD: It’s just live people really, nothing has changed. It was just the people we toured with. Yeah, for some reason there is a long list on our wikipedia. We were in Chicago and they were mentioning people in our band, really random people – people who recorded drums a few times, sang on one song. It’s really just been us three. We ask people all the time to do small things like record drums on a song but we three really control all of the creative input. I used to have a band with the same name in ’95 but this is the new band.

M: So do you guys sauna much back home? That’s a big Scandinavian thing, right?

RD: Well in Finland it’s great. I try to do it every now and then. It’s not really my thing. It’s too warm. Maybe if you could turn down the heat or something.

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