Can't believe this album, it's amazing!

I think the new wave is borning in europe

—

Guitar Player in Nahuelaizers
http://nahuelaizers.bandcamp.com

There was another topic where IvanP left an Spanish interview with Mike Barbwire translated to English. I saw the translator had some mistakes (my English has too).

Well, here is the original (longer version) interview in English. We did it in april 2008, before Searider album.
D.

THE BARBWIRES

• First of all I have to ask you to introduce yourselves. Who is who in The Barbwires nowadays?
  - The Barbwires is more or less the same 3 persons that started the band back in 1995. Mike Barbwire/guitar, J.R/drums and Carl E Fornia/bass.
  

• Since you released your CD “Sounds like trouble” (Zorch, 2001) you have not released anything new. Why did you stop the band and what made you return again years later?
  - We all worked so hard for the Sounds like trouble album in 2000. It took almost 3-4 month to record and produce. This album was supposed to be like the #1 instrumental surfalbum really like the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band or the Pet sounds.
  But we had some bad experience after it was recorded.
  A year later when it was supposed to be released, I got this phonecall, telling me that our record company had lost its distributiondeal.
  All the cd´s suddenly ended up on the shelves at labeloffice. Zorch records started looking for a new distributor. But nothing happened (for years).
  You see, this album would be sold easily in sweden at that time. But at the time it didnt reach any record stores.
  

**There were some ravereviews from a few journalists that got the album, but it more or less didnt make it outside sweden.

This frustration about having a fantastic album disapear in a stockroom made me loose interest in recording anything new. (Though, I been writing music all the time)

In 2002 all members in Barbwires (except me) were touring/playing with other bands (Moneybrother & Robert Johnson & the Punchdrunks). And I started up a new venue “Debaser”
(Today its the biggest chain of venues in sweden, www.debaser.se ) back in 2002 and it took alot of work for me the first couple of years.

We never ever really stoped the band. We only did like 3-4 shows a year during 2003-2005.
Mostly The Hives related shows, suporting them, on their private parties, weddings etc. They have been very, very supportive during these years. Maybe, If it werent for them, we might have stop playing. It has meant alot for us.

In 2005 we got this offer for doing a big 10 yearjubilee with “the original Barbwires”. People had been talking alot with me about doing the old school barbwires set. I told the promoter that if I´m supposed to do this, I wanted it to be biggest surfshow ever made.
You know with alot of decoration, original gear, movie screens, hawaaian art etc.
And we got all that.
There was a 100 metre que lined up outside the venue and when they opened the door to the venue. People litterally stormed in. It was fantastic.

In 2006 I started getting these mails from all around the world, radioshows picked up the album, fantastic reviews were coming in from the album (that was supposed to be released in 2001) friendly people kept mailing me what an amazing album this is. you know, really, really stoked enthusiastic, people.

So for the first time in years I think the album made 7 years ago has finaly started to get the attention that it deserves. And this made me start thinking that if there is alot of poeople who really dig that album. why dont give them another one? **

• You have been a long time without a new recording. Are you planning a new Barbwires record? What can you tell us about it?
  **- Yes, its been way too long, but we are about to record our first session since the ...sound like trouble CD. It´s going to be a new hot rod-surf-song “Go Go Gasoline” which is kicking off the new CD compilation “Go Go Gasoline” (release date in december 2007). On that song we´re going to work with the same producer as we did on the ...sound like trouble album. If this work, and if we can find time with him the new album its about to be recorded during the fall.
  

We got 17 new tracks which is pretty much the new setlist which we have been playing live the last year. There is alot of variation (pretty much as the last album) from the really soft Blue Hawaiian sounding “Rauk Reef” to the hard hitting “Thor´s Island”.

I really want to push my ideas even further on this album. I wont tell you anymore. Its still going to be a surprise for everyone. A release date would probably spring 2008 but, I´m very cynic when it comes to releasedates.**

• You started as a trio in 1997. Then you added a saxophonist and a second guitar for recording “Sounds like trouble” and some shows. The sound you got with that formation was incredible; solid and dynamic, traditional and unusual. Why have you decided to come back as a trio again?
  **- I agree, the sound we got when we were a sixpiece were amazing. A hornsection, percussion, theremin, organ, lapsteel, alot of guitars etc etc. But, some of our fans that started listen to the original Barbwires still kept telling me that they miss our old sound.
  When you add so much background the lead seems to disapear more and more.
  So alot of the shows we did, people kept complaining that they couldnt hear the melodies. Which is a total waste, beacause thats what the music is based on.
  

And I have always put alot work in writing those melodies. So its a shame when you couldnt hear them. And another thing why we went back to a trio is that the sound we create then as a trio was quite unique. In the beginning when we were writing song for the barbwires I didnt know how to write for a rhythmguitar and a leadguitar. So I just played them both at the same time. The reaction we got from people was that they thought we sounded like a 3 guitars sonic mayhem. Using 2-3 different amplifier at the same time and stuff like that made us sound bombastic but still crystal clear.

At the moment I feel very satisfied with the sound and songs.
We still play our sixpiece songs as a trio, and it work great live.
But who knows, we might start working with new members in the future?**

• Your first 7’’ was Rattlehead (Kook, 1997) and was produced by Lars KjellEn from The Daytonas, the first Swedish revival band. How did you meet him and how was working with him?
  -** Actually our first 5 song demo was produced by Lars at the Daytonas studio in upplands väsby.
  Long before we started the band we use to watch all the Daytonas shows, buy all their records, really digging their (instrumental) tunes. I knew Lars abit from then.
  And when we started in 1995 word spread around town that there were another great surfband, and one night he came down to our show telling us he wanted to record us.
  

There were this older generation from the swedish 80´s garagerock-revival, like people from disbanned bands like stomachmouth (stefan Kery), wylde mamouth (Måns Månsson), Livingstones (Lars Kjellen), Bottleups (Robert Johnson) and they were the first to pick up on our music, telling us we had created something really special. And Lars were wellconected to these people, so I guess he had just heard the talk of the town.

I remember we recored that demo in the winter. Lars is a really friendly, kind person who helped us out alot in the beginning. I remember when we came down to the studio, Daytonas had all their gear put up there, and it was amazing. I just run around playing on all these 60´s Jazzmasters and Jaguars and original reverb reverbtanks, blackface showman amps.
(He had bought all this stuff cheap in the 80´s when no one wanted a fender or gibson. You know when Ibanez ruled and all these hair-rockers played on japaneseguitars)

So we recorded at the same place as the last daytonas record (Parabloica, Cord Records) is recorded. It was really cool.
I remember his mum use to come down with freshly baked buns, cockies and coffe, she was nice surfmum.

The tape took a weekend to record, and its a real shame that the tapes actually are lost...

The first 7” is also recorded in a studio (Ehrlunds Rörstudio) where (beleive it or not) one of he daytonas albums is recorded. But how we ended up there is another story...

...We were invited to this studio (a 3 hour drive from stockholm) by engineer Göran Ehrlund
And when we turned up, he played us records from other bands he had recorded, and the first cd he put on was Ready Set Go! By the daytonas.
Its funny we didnt know that. And that studio was awesome. Competely with 50´s, 60´s technology.
He got this house built for making a echo chamber, and huge reverbtanks with springs that are over one meter long, huge compressors etc
And we run the guitar though all this, and the sound that came out were...bomastic.
I still think that guitarsound on that first 7” is the greatest and largest sound ever made on a surfrecord.**

• How did you decide to form a surf band in those years?
  **- I had this project back in school which I was supposed to write a paper /article about swedish instrumental music. This must have been like in 1994. I could find so many bands to write about. In fact, there must have only been like 3 bands around. So I decided sweden needed more surfmusic and we started The Barbwires.
  

The band is still around after all these years, but I never finished my article. Its a shame.

Though, in the new May 2007 issue of Continental Magazine issue #14 you can find a new article I wrote about the swedish surf music scene called “Surfin´ around the Baltic sea”
http://www.dblcrown.com/contmag.html#continental14**

• How were you involved with rock’n’roll music? Do you remember the shows you saw or the records you listened to that made you take a guitar and form a band for the first time?
  **- When I picked up guitar it was just punkrock, you know 3 chord songs. Listen to alot of swedish punk when I was a kid (KSMB, Asta Kask, Ebba Grön). I first started playing keyboard but I just couldnt figure out how to play the songs I had on my records. Until one day I was told it was “electric guitar” that played all the riffs. Then i just quit playing keyboards, and started saving money for a guitar.
  

I remember seeing one of the local punkbands S.T.S (a few years older than us) playing this intense instrumental tune called “Apache” I remember thinking it was soo cool.
Then me and Carl E Fornia started this band (we were like 14 years old) and on our first show we opened up with that same instrumental tune.

The first rocknroll band I saw must have been the Hi-winders in early/mid 90´s that was the real kick-off for me. It was like 1950´s punkrock, I really loved the style, the sound, the energy, the primitive songs, but most of all the extremly wild almost scary singer, Jan Svensson aka Wildfire Willie
Seing them live for the first time made convert into a greasehead.**

• Your sound drinks directly from the traditional surf masters: The Pyramids, the Centurians, The Surfaris, Astronauts, Dick Dale, Bel-Airs… how did you went into surf music from the very beginning and which band/artist has been the most important for you and why?
  **- When I stared to buy surfrecords I could only get hold of cd´s with those old groups like The Pyramids, the Centurians, The Surfaris, Astronauts, Dick Dale, Bel-Airs (this was before internetstores and i-tunes etc) And there was this recordstore Freakscene who use to have these records, but not so much of the 3:d wave bands.
  The only guys that I could talk surfmusic with back then was Lars, Klas, Jerker of the Daytonas. And they were only into 1:st wavebands from the 60´s.
  

So basically in the beginning I knew nothing better then sounding like the 60´s bands.

But a real landmark must have been when I got the Beyond The Beach compilation (Upstart 1994) for the first time I heard all these new bands with all these different sounds.
I thought it was really, really cool. And after that I knew that it was ok to sound different.
That record must have been the most important for start for me sounding the way we do.

Beyond the beach:
http://www.instromania.net/ALB/ALB_B/Beyond%20The%20Beach.php**

• Your single “Chicken race” sounds like a space tribute to Link Wray classic “Run chicken run”. What has meant Wray’s songs and style for you music development?
  **- Its even more a tribute to Itchy Chicken, one of my favourite songs
  Link wray has been a great inspiration, and there was this period during the chicken race recordings that was moving my guitarplaying, style and sound towards the late 50´s instrumental bands on those Collector records compilations. I still love these pre-surf instrumentals with alot of saxophone.
  It´s more primitive, raw and no reverb with only a dirty short slapback echo.
  

Its more a style which I use with other bands like The Orbitunes. As you can see on this clip (Rockin Rebel with The Orbitunes live from Green Bay 50´s rockin fest, Wisconsin)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYNnt4E63gc

As stagepersonality Link Wrays kicks ass. Thats what I want to be, hard as rock.
I saw one of Link Wrays last performances in april 2005. It was amazing, he blew like 2 amplifiers in the first songs (Rumble). Playing so loud so half the crowd left the hall.
And he just didnt mind, he was just doing what Link Wray was all about. I love it!!

...back to the style development
During this chicken race period me and our saxophoneplayer Gustav aka Thereminator had this legendary rough rocknroll club called Hot Rock Ranch r.i.p. And during this peroiod (as dj´s) we started exploring the instrumental scene even more. Playing songs from the mid 50´s to the mid 80´s all kinds of styles but pure instrumentals. I think this is what later developed into the ...sounds like trouble album. We wanted the album to sound like a Hot Rock Ranch Dj set.**

• You use old Fender amps and Fender Jaguar guitars. How did you get those 40 years old tube amps to record your songs?
  **- Well, on that album I used like 15-20 different guitars, just to make each song sound different.
  Vigilante Carlstrom is a friend of mine, he collect these really cool instruments. And when we got into the studio he loaned us loads of extraordinary equipment. It was just like heaven, playing on on a original 1954 Fender Stratocaster!!! And those 60´s showmans are amazing.
  

But we also used all kinds of more odd guitars like Travis Bean guitars, Silvertones, danelectros 12 strings, hollowbodies, lapsteels, pedalsteels etc

Live, I stick to my 30 year old fender gear. Theres no way you can afford those 40-50 year old fenderequipment today. It´s just collectable items.**

• How do you see the surf instro scene in Sweden nowadays? I have listen some other bands like The Hollywoods (not playing anymore if I am not wrong) or The Surfites (who recently have released “Big pounder” with Double Crown).
  **- I think we got a bunch of new bands that are great. But there isnt so much of a livescene up here. I think we (and RJ&P) are the only ones doing shows on a regular basis.
  

The best thing that happened during the start of this century is the comback of the Fjellgren brothers doing their traditional surf with the Surfites.
We also still got te Langhorns http://www.langhorns.com/ (fantastic surf from the south with 3 released albums) And then ofcourse we got The Robert Johnson & Punchdrunks, swedens longest running instroband http://www.myspace.com/robertjohnsonandpunchdrunks

If you read my article (which I mentioned before) you can see that we´re actually a bunch of bands up here in sweden.

The new sound of sweden is:

The Archers – www.myspace.com/thearcherssurf
New Gothenbourg quartet – soon they will release their debut split 7” with TheHollywoods (You´re right they are not playing anymore) (Kanaloa Records)

The Bustin´ Burritos – www.tandemhorror.com/thebustinburritos
Since 1999. Instrumental duo with alot of groovy beats, theremin, organ pedals, and ofcourse Fender reverb.

Maeds Domino – www.myspace.com/maedsdominos
This northern surfsound of Maeds Domino´s are made out of classic surftunes with a smell of modern swing.

Tremolo Beer Gut – www.thetremolobeergut.dk
Danish/Swedish combo w. Old school surf & western sound, as well as great film music of Mancini, Barry & Moricone.

The Surfites – www.surfites.com
Formed in 2003 by the two Fjellgrenbrothers of now defunct Swedish surf band the Daytonas. Their debut album, Big Pounder out now on Double Crown records.

The Five outsiders – www.theoutsiders.nu
Surf guitar instrumentals spiced with spagetti western themes.

The Tumbleweeds – www.myspace.com/thetumbleweedssweden
Really hot instrumental rock and roll band with all kind of influences; from Surf music to Punk to Rockabilly.

The Surfateers – www.myspace.com/surfateers
A blend with collective improvisations, based on surf music tonality and rhythm, bringing the listener on a psycjadelic trip to the shoreline.

Branko – www.brankobranko.com
Groovy & fuzzy instrumentals, some surf, some Link Wray alot of Bongo´s.

The following are surfbands that I dont know if they still exusts or is hard to find information about so they are only mentioned by their name Jaffa de Luxe, The Jars, The Go Gorillas, Pharaos, Common Surfers, The Trampolines and The Vincents.**

• Do you think we are living a little new surf music revival in Europe?
  
• There might be a little more bands. But it might also has something to do with
  sites like myspace. Helping small sub cultural genres like instrumental surf music to spread, and get conected outside their small community´s.
  

I dont think its the same revival as it was in the mid 1990´s or early 1980´s but if you compare to how the scene were like 5 years ago its getting really better and better.

But on the other hand, just six month ago one of europe´s greatest instroband 50 Foot Combo decided to stop playing after 10 years of twngin´. It´s a real shame. They have been working real hard for this. So I hope we will have new surfbands touring around europe. Or othervice the Barbwires has to shoulder this burden.

If the scene is to be kept alive, more band has to start doing good entertaining liveshows. You cant just release records. You have to get ut and spread the word!

• I have to stop again on “Sounds like trouble”. Sincerely, it is one of the best instro records I have heard in the last years. The songs, the melodies, the sound… even that fantastic retro sci-fi cover that reminds films as “Return to Earth” or “Invaders from Mars”. What did inspire you for this art and the related songs?
  
• From day 1 the Barbwires have been working with Per Thorsell from Switchblade Design www.switchbladedesign.com. Almost all our Posterwork, T-shirts, recordsleeve has been done by him. He´s is the number one retrodesigner here in sweden.
  

When it came to the ...sounds like trouble artwork I wanted it to be animated. Like a cartoon. At first we wanted the style to be like dark like 70´s grimmer, darker Batman, DC Comics with a scary story (There is another version of the ...sounds like trouble cover)
But then we change our minds, we had theese old swedish sci-fi books, and we change the idea towards the surfing austronaut. We also had idéas of a book inside the record with the whole story but after a budgetmeeting we had to cut it dow to just... 1 page.

We though the art had something to do with presenting the future of surf but with a retrodesign.
Its like the music, its a new wave of surfmusic but with the same old instruments.

• This record has 12 magnificent songs, from the ballad “Blue Java” (a song with that soul calm down that we can find in some old classics like “Sleepwalk”) to the crazy tune “Ms Riptime rpm” passing through other unforgettable songs like “At the skyline drive-in”, the energetic “The biggest wave” or “Let em out!”. It seems like with this record you were looking for something different to your other singles. How do you see it?
  
• When we decided to record the album I was really convinced that this album had to be different to all other surfalbums. Just for one reason, I find most of them boring.
  Actually, from the begining I had no interest in recording an album. I could go on and record 45´s
  

I beleive 45´s are the best medium for surfmusic. You can put 2 minutes of compact exploding surfinstromania on every 45 you release. But when you put em together it gets boring. The only albums I like with surfmusic is the compilation albums (Wail on the beach, Surfers Mood, various Gremmies etc) So I decided if we were going to do it, it had to sound like a Barbwires compilation album. In each song I wanted the twangy surfguitar to be surrondend by different beats, sounds, instruments and just see what happened. It took alot of work but in the end it turned out the way I really wanted it.

The album is very inspired of the 60´s luxurious instrumentaion of Brittish “orchestral pop”, space pop and easy listening, but it´s made with the rockn´roll attitude we have in The Barbwires. Its 12 great songs. All of the them with a special touch and treated in different ways.
I hope it can inspire other bands to start do it the same way.

• I have seen “Crazy Kooters” has been selected as one of the best Swedish songs by a now living Swedish artist. That tune is amazing. Could you tell me the history for this song?
  
• Yes its kind of funny that one got selected. In may 2007 there was this competition in one of swedens national newspapers. Something like 15 swedish classic songs was picked out and one of them was ours.
  

The song is like a Hawaiian blend between John Gregory, the Ventures and a swedish cool band called bob hund (bob the dog). (Bob hund is not a instrumental surfband but they has alot of really great instrumentals and the singer Thomas Öberg has produced a couple of Robert Johnson & the Punshdrunks albums)

Some memories from the making of the song:
When we had recorded the tune we go this choir into the studio and overdubed all the guitarmelodies. And it was aaaaaaawesome!!
I really wanted it to sound like those exotic choirs on the Martin Denny albums.
You know, girls taking those high notes.
It really blew the song away all the way to waikkiki.

The title, Crazy Kooters is this odd truckdriver from a 70´s american sit com,

• How was the California tour you did and which are the best memories that you keep from playing the land were surf music was born?
  
• When we we got the offer to fly over I was really flattered. You know it means alot to get the chance to tour on a historical landmark.
  It also scared the shit out me, you know these people over there grew up with this music. It must be like the same feeling if you play like Irish folk music and travel to Dublin to play, Or if you travel with your Reggaeband to Kingston, Jamaica.
  

This is what I told the promoter at first. I just thought it might be humiliating for us to go over there.
But he kept telling me California needed the Barbwires, and that if we sent over there we would kick ass. He had seen so many bands over there doing the same thing. But no one was doing the same thing as we do. Anyway we were convinced to go. And it was a blast!!!!
We have never got so much great feedback during this week as we have in the last 10 years back home.
All radiostations that are into rocknroll, garage, surf started playing us. We got a distrubutiondeal and started to sell records overseas. Pepole are still mailing me, and want us to come back and do other parts of US, from the eastcoast to Texas to california. One of the best memories are when Richard Knight who also helped us with the tour took us out on surftrip at Huntington beach, we have some fine photos from that day. I also enjoyed the Fender factory and customshop in fullerton, I got this private tour.
All great Tikibars that filled us up with fantastic drinks. And ofcourse the shows and meeting all these friendly people was marvelous .

• You play with a wild rockabilly band too, The Hi-Winders. The band started at 1992 and I have red you are preparing a new record for this year. What can you tell us about this band?
  
• I beleive its one of this universe wildest rocknroll band, its like pure 1959 rocknroll.
  www.hi-winders.com
  

We released a 45 in april 2007, “The Line was Busy b/w Gonesville” (Hi-Lite records) and we are ready to record a new album during the fall. We´re going on tour (Germany, Holland & France) last week in september and the plan is to record the Album in Berlin at the Lightning Recorders Studio first week in october.

Thanks for your time. I really hope you will be playing in Spain very soon.

Thanks Diego!!! I really liked your questions. The Barbwires are confirmed for the High Rockabilly Weekender, Barcelona in september 2008 so we will be there. But I hope we could make it to Spain a bit earlier than that.

Atentamente
Mike Barbwire

—

www.rtve.es/podcast/radio-3/el-sotano/

Yeah thanks for posting that. It was very interesting. I have Searider and some stuff the Barbwires were on comps. But I guess I need to delve into their catalog a bit more.

This album is mind-blowingly good. The guitar work here blows me away... tone AND skill. Sounds as if it's on the verge of just EXPLODING. Such incredible energy.

—

• Jamie
  SSS Agent #181
  Cartoons drenched in reverb!
  The Mystery Men?
  El Capitan & The Reluctant Sadists