Before playing to the packed cavern of Doug Fir (QRO live review), Johan Duncanson (vocals/guitar/keyboard/drums) and Martin Carlberg (guitar/bass/keyboards/drums) of The Radio Dept. sat down with QRO to talk about the unanticipated success of Clinging To a Scheme (QRO review) and trying to cope with the aspects of being in a band, with their anti-rock mentality.
QRO: Clinging To a Scheme has been out for almost a year now and made it to several year-end lists (including QRO’s). I know you guys had difficult time narrowing the songs down from a hundred or so to make this album. How do you feel about it now?
Martin Carlberg: I’m quite happy. That it turned out so well. It was really hard in the beginning because it was hard to see what you’ve done. I mean it took three years. So it’s kind of a long time. And you couldn’t see the result really because it was too close. And now it’s been a year. I’m really proud of the album. I’m really happy how it turned out, I guess.
Johan Duncanson: Yeah, me too. Because, as Martin said, it took a long time. We lived in different cities. Now Martin has just moved up to Stockholm.
QRO: You live in Stockholm, not Malmö?
JD: Yes, since 2005. Yeah, I lived in Malmö. So yeah but I felt when we had just finished it, I wasn’t sure if it was good or bad – whatever. I didn’t know. Now I’m really happy about it. So yeah, that’s good.
QRO: It was my #3 album of the year (QRO Contributor’s Lists).
JD: Oh wow! Thank you.
QRO: How has this tour been?
JD: It’s been good.
MC: Yeah, it’s been really good!
QRO: Anything unusual or strange…
MC: No! Unfortunately, I mean [everyone laughs] – everything’s worked out really well. I mean you want to experience the whole thing. No breakdowns with cars – everything’s working out. We’re having a great time as well.
JD: And the people that come to the shows have been amazing. Really supportive – we’re kind of surprised by the – you know – lot of the shows been sold out. We didn’t know it was going go that well. So yeah, it’s been a pleasant surprise.
The Radio Dept. playing "The New Improved Hypocrisy" live at Doug Fir Lounge in Portland, OR on February 13th, 2011:
QRO: Politics has been the subject of several of your songs. What other topics inspire your lyrics?
JD: Apart from political songs, I guess the lyrics are kind of personal. Lot of – paranoia and anger – sometimes. And also classic topics like love and relationships and stuff like that.
QRO: You ever get inspired by film or literature?
JD: Yeah, of course! When it comes to the music, we’re often described as cinematic… when we record music, we often talk in pictures and colors, even.
MC: Yeah, when it comes to music, everything inspires you, I guess. But on the lyric side, I can’t really – because Johan writes most of the lyrics. I’ve helped out on this album.
JD:
That’s why we had many, many songs that weren’t finished. We could do the music together, but when it came to writing the lyrics… I’d rather just write a new song and uh – what do you say?
MC: Postpone…
JD: Yeah, postpone the lyric bit because – it’s hard. And you want it to be really good and uh. Sorry, I’m just thinking out loud. [laughs]
QRO: No, I can relate. I do the same thing when it comes to writing a review. I’d rather edit the photos and not think about the writing.
Let’s move on.
Found a song called "Bound to Happen" on the net the other day, which was sorely missing from my collection – what year is that from – it sounds very different from what you’re doing now.
JD: It was really early – it was a b-side on an EP we released, just on a CD-R single, on our own label: Slottet. It’s the only Radio Dept. track ever produced by someone else outside of the band. It’s almost like a remix, except there’s no original. We never released the original. We decided that the version we got from this guy who produced it was going to be an original because it was better than the one we had done. It’s somewhere between Euro disco and bit pop. I guess.
MC: I don’t think it’s the same song. "Bound to Happen"?
QRO: Yeah, definitely not disco…
JD: Oh no! I’m talking about "Bad Reputation". Sorry.
MC: I was like – ok, maybe this is not it. [both laugh] "Bound to Happen" – that’s really old song. Actually, when we started recording, we went into the studio – like a demo – yeah and he was kind of a producer for that song. And we had really hard time! Arguing with him all the time.
JD: We produced it.
MC: I know, but he wanted to be. We had such struggle with him! He always wanted it to be cleaner. We tried really hard to get what we wanted. Actually, it was the song that made us not have a producer again.
JD: I guess so.
MC: One of the reasons.
QRO: And what year was that?
JD: That was 1999. We hadn’t really started the band for real. We just been hanging out for a while, and I was in this other band – been recording with this guy couple of times. So we just thought we’d go there and record couple of songs. And we did, and this is one of them. I guess we were 18, 19 at the time. So it’s a long time ago.
QRO: I don’t know – it still sounds good to me. [everyone laughs] I haven’t heard any song of yours I didn’t like.
JD: Ok! Wow! Thanks! [laughs]
The Radio Dept. playing "The City Limit" live at Doug Fir Lounge in Portland, OR on February 13th, 2011:
QRO: Do you have any side projects? Or is there someone you’d really like to collaborate with?
JD: I’ve had couple of bands. One’s called Pop Hitler. [everyone laughs] We haven’t really played music together in years now. But when The Radio Dept. started out, for real in 2001, we were kind of busy. In the same way that Martin and I did stuff. Just a way of – hanging out. A way of socializing, we made music. So we had this band. And stated this project with Marcus called Stab in the Face, which is… [everyone laughs] Yeah, we just started recording our debut single.
QRO: Great band names!
JD: Yeah. [laughs]
QRO: Whatever happened with the project with Jens Lekman (QRO album review)?
JD: Oh yeah! Umm – we’ve been talking about it, quiet recently of doing something. He actually sent me couple of ideas for songs – back in 2005 or 4? I guess it was a long time ago. But I got a virus in my computer – I’ve been starting to work on one or two of those songs – but it all disappeared since then, we haven’t done anything.
QRO: The Radio Dept. has been known to be uncompromising and you like to have control over everything – Obviously, when you want to do everything yourself, you have less time to produce stuff – like music videos. But you recently made one for "Never Follow Suit". How do you decide which songs should have a video?
JD: An old friend of mine…
MC: We’ve done one before with him – "Where Damage Isn’t Already Done".
JD: Yeah, back in 2002.
MC: It was a fun project to do. We didn’t have so much time to put into it as we would’ve liked to have.
JD: It was still – it was fun. He’s an artist in Malmö, where we come from. Almost all his artwork is video-based. What do you call that?
QRO: Video artist.
JD: Yeah, yeah. I don’t know if that’s what he wants to call himself. We got to know each other when we were going to video school together. Film school. In 2001, 2002, I guess. So we did that video with Jens [Henricson]. I haven’t talked to him in years, and Labrador wanted us to make a video. They’ve been wanting us to do that for years. But every time we met with someone, to discuss ideas – it just hasn’t felt right. So we thought we’d call him and see.
MC: Yeah, exactly. We got twenty different ideas from video artists or video makers. But none of them…
The Radio Dept.’s video for "Never Follow Suit":
QRO: What about "Puling Our Weight"? Is that official?
JD: No, it’s a fan video.
QRO: I thought it was pretty good.
JD: It’s nice but doesn’t fit the song. It’s too sweet. It’s really cute.
QRO: Better than other fan videos.
MC: It’s well done. It’s really good. But doesn’t represent us. It’s not really what we would’ve done.
QRO: Maybe if it got stabbed in the face.
JD: Yeah!
[Johan and Martin laugh]
Fan video for "Pulling Our Weight":
QRO: Surfing through YouTube, I came across this video of you (Johan) at the Taoyuan (Taiwan) airport and was quite taken back. I guess you (Martin) weren’t there because you were having a baby. There was a mob of people crowding you, and I was thinking, "Oh my god! Johan is so uncomfortable right now!"
[everyone laughs]
What was going through your mind? Have you ever experienced that?
JD: Never!
QRO: That just seemed so unusual.
JD: Yeah, we were really taken back. We had been in Hong Kong, and we had been partying all night.
QRO: They had banners.
JD: Yeah, exactly. It was crazy, but I was so tired. A bit nervous, I guess. But still tried to be polite and nice. I’ve watched that video since I found out it was on YouTube. I think I felt at the time that I was being more polite than I come across on the video, I think. But I blame the party or something. I don’t know. [laughs]
The Radio Dept. at Taoyuan National Airport:
QRO: No, I thought you handled it very well. There seems to be a big fan base in Asia.
JD & MC: Yeah, definitely.
ML: Yes, we were really surprised when we – we played in Thailand – it was a big festival.
Not huge, but I guess 4,000 people. And we got to Indonesia, it was 2,500 people. A huge venue.
QRO: Did you guys get all nervous?
JD & MC: Yes!
QRO: So what did you do to chase that nervousness away?
JD: Drink alcohol. [everyone laughs] For some reason – I never get used to walking on stage and singing to people. Even though we’ve done it almost nine years now. It’s a – such a – strange – thing. And we’re kind of shy people.
MC: It gets better, but you’re not comfortable. Like someone said to me – when it gets comfortable, it seems very boring. So I guess it’s a good thing. We didn’t play for three days. We traveled from Minneapolis to Seattle. During that time, I wasn’t nervous. But once we got to Seattle, I got extremely nervous! Again! It’s like starting over. Just three days.
JD: Same for me. I was extremely nervous last night.
MC: We have to play everyday – to not be that nervous. It’s strange. We ask ourselves all the time – why are we doing it. Because – sometimes – it’s really bad. You want to get sick or something. And think maybe we should cancel it… Why do we do this? It always feels better –
JD: Afterwards?
MC: Yeah, and during – after the first song.
QRO: Have you picked up any good records lately?
MC: It was a while ago, I guess, I found Wild Nothing – Gemini (QRO review). It’s a good record. There are some great songs. And I found some new ones. I mean the hit songs…. It’s an interesting development for – doesn’t sound like an American album, from my perspective. I’m used to hearing American music to be – much more – American? [everyone laughs]
JD: It sounds quite European.
MC: Yeah, it’s almost English sounding record.
QRO: I think it’s becoming more prevalent because more of the younger generations are taking cues from European bands.
JD: Some of the new American bands in this indie scene that’s emerging – sound almost Swedish to me sometimes.
QRO: For example?
JD: Well, Wild Nothing is one of them. I mean Swedish in the way that – a lot of Swedish bands sound like – well, get a lot of inspiration from – I guess U.K. ‘80s bands and early nineties stuff. I don’t know really. It’s hard to explain – what it is – make them sound like that. There’s this band, for example, called The Drums (QRO photos). They sound in many ways they’re from Gothenburg. You know Gothenburg? There’s all these – well, Jens Lekman comes from Gothenburg, and The Embassy, and Tough Alliance (QRO album review), and lot of other bands. Honey Drips.
MC: In Sweden, it’s the Gothenburg scene.
JD: And um – I don’t know.
MC: And jj (QRO photos).
QRO: Oh, I like jj. I think I’m starting to get a picture of the Gothenburg scene.
JD: there’s been couple of labels like Service, and Sincerely Yours, which is Tough Alliance record label. They put out jj, for example.
QRO: So have you found anything interesting to listen to, lately?
JD: I’ve been listening to lot of the same stuff as Martin, and old music as well. Like, I’ve been listening to lot of Lovers Rock – reggae love songs. And dub records. Before we released this EP, Never Follow Suit (QRO review), from Clinging, with a couple of new songs – it was supposed to be kind of dub-pop EP. And it was kind of dub influenced. I’ve been listening to Augustus Pablo – East of the River Nile- from ‘77. It’s really good.
MC: What’s that "My Tune"?
JD: Yeah, The Cool Notes. "My Tune" – it’s a Lovers Rock song from ‘79 – I guess. Lot of seventies music. I don’t know why.
QRO: Judging by your music, most people wouldn’t guess.
Speaking of Never Follow Suit EP, so what is the joke behind "Never Swallow Fruit"?
JD: It’s just a word play. It doesn’t mean anything.
MC: It was a friend of ours who sold merch at few gigs we had. He just called it "Never Swallow Fruit". Kind of funny. [laughs] It didn’t mean anything, but we ended up – it stuck.
And then Pisco Disco – Alexander – wanted to call his version – the remix "Never Swallow Fruit".
JD: Yeah, we asked them a dub remix of the song because we have hard time – we wanted to make our own dub remix of "Never Follow Suit" for the single. But um – we almost find it much more fun to make a new song than return to the old. So we asked Pisco Disco to make a dub remix of it, and they decided to use that wordplay as the title.
The Radio Dept. playing "Never Follow Suit" live at Doug Fir Lounge in Portland, OR on February 13th, 2011:
QRO: You guys want to add anything? What’s in the future? Clear up any misunderstandings?
JD & ML: Yeah! There’s a few. [laugh]
QRO: For example, you guys are not a shoegaze band.
JD: Oh yeah, that’s one of ‘em. Yeah, we’ve never been into shoegaze. I guess in the beginning, we were really into noisy and distorted records. Of course, I love My Bloody Valentine, but apart from that, I’ve never really listened to shoegaze stuff. Some – I mean The Sweetest Ache, which is a band on Sarah. They just did couple of singles. One album that wasn’t too good. We never listened to Slowdive. I’ve hardly heard of them until we were accused of sounding like them.
QRO: Really? I wouldn’t say you guys sound like them.
JD: One thing that surprises me is the twee reference we get sometimes. People say that we’re partly shoegaze, partly twee? I don’t know. I’ve never been really into twee.
QRO: Yeah, you guys sound nothing like The Brunettes (QRO album review).
JD: Maybe that’s because we’re little shy. People think that…
MC: Maybe the melodies. Maybe not that rough – as we could’ve been.
JD: We’re an anti-rock band. But doesn’t mean it has to be cute. Doesn’t have to be – you know – Hello Kitty.
[everyone laughs]
QRO: Ok, I think that was a great closer – Hello Kitty.
The Radio Dept. playing "Heaven’s On Fire live at Doug Fir Lounge in Portland, OR on February 13th, 2011:
