ipunkrock.com posted a new interview with Mike Barbwire about two weeks ago. Unfortunately, the interview was in Spanish. I ran it through Yahoo Babel Fish, and it was a mess. As I found the interview very interesting, I took the time to go through it and try to fix it as best I could, inferring the meanings of the sentences, etc. So, the interview was probably initially done in Swedish or English, than translated into Spanish, and now into English - I wouldn't put a whole lot of confidence in the accuracy of any particular sentence! But still, I think it's really good and very interesting, so here it is. I hope you enjoy it. (The link for the Spanish-language version is: http://www.ipunkrock.net/index.php/site/comments/the_barbwires_las_mejores_olas_de_suecia/ )
THE BARBWIRES, The Best Waves of Sweden
The North cold of Europe wasnt immune to the instrumental sounds of sunny California. Quite the opposite. From the legendary Spotnicks of the early Sixties and throughout all its history, there have arisen a good handful of indispensable names to include in and understand the European instrumental scene. The most recent and the most remarkable ones are The Barbwires. They have been produced by another mythical Swedish surf band, The Daytonas, have played with Jon & the Nighriders and have toured the Californian coast. Their CD from 2001
Sounds Like Trouble is one of the most dangerous works with talented and adventurous experimentation that has come out in the new millenium, playing with the roots in ways that has turned the songs of its legacy into unique pieces. We spoke with Mike Barbwire, the guitarist and composer of this band, member of other roots-rock groups like The Hi-Winders, and authentic worshipper and investigator of the instrumental music history. With some luck you might be able to see them in person on the 17th of August as part of the Surfer Joe Festival in Italy. If you prefer a shorter trip you will have to wait for their concert at the High Rockabilly Weekend at Calafell (Tarragona) in the second week of September. (by Diego R.J.)
Who is in the Barbwires today?
- We are the same three people who began the band in 1995. Mike Barbwire on the guitar, J.R on the drums and Carl E. Fornia on bass.
Your disc
Sounds Like Trouble, released in 2001 on the Zorch label, seems to me one of the best instrumental works of the recent times. Why have you not released anything since then?
- Trabajamos very lasts for that disc. We thought that it was going to become a classic of instrumental music, a Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Band Club or Pet Sounds. But everything got complicated after the recording. Just before the release I received a telephone call telling me that our label lost their distributor. The CDs ended up simply crowding an office for years, never arriving at the stores. We could have sent some to several journalists, but what good would that have done? The frustration that this situation generated made me lose any interest in recording again. In 2002 all the Barbwires were playing in other groups like Moneybrother or Robert Jonson & the Punchdrunks. I managed (?)club Debaser (today it is the main chain of music clubs in Sweden: http://www.debaser.se) and did a lot of work during those years. We did not leave the band absolutely, but we only did three or four shows between 2003 and 2005, the majority related to The Hives: as a favor for them, playing at their private celebrations or their weddings. They always strongly supported us. Finally, in 2006, the album began to move and we began to receive letters and emails from people who loved it. And we had recorded it five years before! Then I started believing again in the work we had done and I thought we had to do it again.
And now you have returned to the studio to record a new disc that can already be heard on the song La Caja del Muerto, a spectacular song with additions of totally unusual violins in this style. After so many years awaiting your return in the long format, what can you tell us about this next album?
- It will be called Searider. I have been thinking for a long time how to create a perfect instrumental album. You know, an album that makes a difference. After debating much I reached the conclusion that the closest to that idea that anybody has gotten were Surfers Choice by Dick Dale and Pet sounds by the Beach Boys. I know that it is stupid to compare those two discs. But imagine what would have happened if on the 1st of November of 1965 Dick Dale had gone to the Gold Star studios to record an instrumental disc for the Capitol label which would be produced by Brian Wilson. The refinement of Wilsons wall of sound combined with the overflowing energy of Dick Dale. This never happened but it was the idea that we followed for the sound of Searider. I placed myself between Dale and Wilson and I wrote and I arranged all the songs, I recorded all the guitars and I produced the album. I have taken six months in finishing it. The trad fans will say that this is not surf. But I remember something that Mike Love used to say that Brian Wilson told him: dont follow the formulas!. This disc doesnt follow any formula. So prepare for a new wave! .
For the recording of
Sounds Like Trouble you incorporated a saxophonist, a percussionist and a second guitarist. Your sound was solid and dynamic, and it already mixed traditional ideas with unusual elements in this type of music. Why did you return to a trio again?
- I agree, the sound of the sextet was amazing. We used a wind section, percussion, theremin, old organs
but also there were many fans that told us that we lost our original sound. They said that the melody was lost and that bothered me because I am a composer of melodies. I thought that our trio sound also had something unique, I play the rhythm and solo guitar simultaneously and I believe that I get a very powerful sound and at the same time a clearer sound. That is what people say!.
Yours first recording was the single Rattlehead (Kook, 1997) that was produced by Lars Kjellen of The Daytonas, the first band of the Swedish revival surf.
- We were fans of the Daytonas for a long time, we always went to their shows and there we got to meet them. When they found out that we had formed a surf band they came to see us and after the show they offered to record us. All that generation older than us, the garage band Le Mans, the eighties revival like Stefan Kery of the Stomachmouths, Mansson of Wylde Mamouth, Lars Kjellen of the Livingstones or Robert Jonson of the Bottleups, were first in praising our music, telling us that we had created something very special. When I arrived at the Lars studio I thought I was hallucinating with the gear that he had: sixties Jazzmasters and Jaguars, amplifiers, original reverb units
He had bought it all cheap in the eighties, when the Japanese Ibanez guitars were fashionable with all the hairy hard rock bands. With him we recorded our first demo, a tape that was unfortunately lost with time, and our first 7 .
How did you get the idea to start a surf band back then?
- It was a project for school, they sent me to work on the instrumental scene in Sweden. It was 1994 and only three bands existed. I thought that the Swedish needed more surf music and decided to start a band. The group is still here today but I never finished my article for the school.
Before that, what was your first contact with rocknroll?
- With the guitar I began with the punk rock, you know, three chords. When I was a child I played keyboards, but I did not know how to play the songs on the albums that I liked until it was explained to me that it was an electrical guitar that played those riffs. I left the keyboards and saved for a guitar. I saw a concert of a punk group called S.T.S where they played an instrumental called Apache. It seemed incredible to me. So Carl E. Fornia and I started a group, I was 14 years old, we started our first show with that song by the Shadows. The first rocknroll group that I saw was the Hi-Winders and they were my authentic introduction to the punk rock of the 50s, I fell in love with its style, its sound, the energy, the primitive songs but, overall, the extreme savagery of their singer Jan Svensson, whom they called Wildfire Willie. After seeing them I became a greasehead .
How did you learn about bands like Pyramids, Centurians, Surfaris, Astronauts, Bel or Dick Dale?
- When I began to look for surf albums I could only find those groups, the local store Freakscene did not have any surf music that was more modern. And the only ones with whom I could speak about surf were the people in the Daytonas and they were only into the first wave of surf. So at the outset I thought that there was nothing else but those groups from the sixties. But one day I came across a compilation Beyond the Beach (Upstart, 1994) and I heard all those groups with new sounds. It was incredible! I knew then that it could be good to sound different. That disc opened the doors to my search for my own sound.
I imagine that your single Chicken Race is something of a tribute to the classic Run Chicken Run by Link Wray. What has supposed east personage in your musical formation?
- In fact its a tribute to Itchy Chicken by Los Straitjackets, one of my favorite bands. Link Wray always has been a great inspiration. During the recordings of this single I was adapting my style to play the instrument in the style of the late fifties. I adore those pre-surf recordings with saxophones, they were more primitive, crude, without reverb, only with a dirty slapback echo. I use that style more with other bands with which I play, like The Orbitunes. On the stage Link Wray kicked ass. That is what I always wanted to do I, to be hard like a rock! I saw one of his last concerts in April of 2005. He was incredible, blew up two amplifiers in the first song, Rumble. He played so loud that half of the audience in front of the stage left, and to him it did not matter, he was teaching us what was Link Wray.
You use Fender amplifiers and Jaguar guitars from more than forty years ago. How did you get this equipment?
- On the album
Sounds Like Trouble I used between 15 and 20 different guitars so that each song sounded different. Vigilante Carlstrom is a good friend who collects these instruments, and he lent us that extraordinary equipment. I was in heaven playing an original 1954 Fender Stratocaster! We also used guitars by Travis Bean, Silvertone, 12-string Danelectros
Personally I use Fender equipment of thirty years ago. I cant afford the equipment of forty ago or fifty years, thats for the collectors .
How you see the Swedish instrumental scene nowadays?
- There are very good bands around here but there is no actual scene. We are unique in that we play shows regularly. The best thing than has happened in years has been the return of the Fjellgren brothers - of the Daytonas- doing traditional surf with The Surfites. In addition we have the Langhorns (http://www.langhorns.com), with fantastic surf from the published south and three discs. And by all means Robert Jonson & Punchdrunks (http://www.myspace.com/robertjohnsonandpunchdrunks), Swedish instro with more crossover to sounds of today. The rest of the groups that you can find this way are:
The Archers http://www.myspace.com/thearcherssurf
A New quartet of Gothenbourg, is going to publish their debut in sigle shared in Kanaloa Record with The Hollywoods, a group that finishes disappearing.
The Bustin´ Young donkeys http://www.tandemhorror.com/thebustinburritos
An instrumental pair in active-duty from 1999 by far rate groove, theremin, pedals of organ and Fender reverb.
Maeds Domino http://www.myspace.com/maedsdominos
A group of the north that makes classic surferos with modern aroma to swing.
Tremolo Beer Gut http://www.thetremolobeergut.dk
A group to horse between Denmark and Sweden. Sound surf and to western of the old school and subjects of sound tracks of Manzini, Barry and Morricone.
The Surfites http://www.surfites.com
Formed in 2003 by both brother Fjellgren of defunct band the Daytonas. Their debut Big Pounder was released on Double Crown Records.
The Five Outsiders http://www.theoutsiders.nu
Guitars surf perfumed with subjects of spaguetti western.
The Tumbleweeds http://www.myspace.com/thetumbleweedssweden
A group of rock really hot n roll instrumental with very many influences, from surf to punk or rockabilly
The Surfateers http://www.myspace.com/surfateers
Their sound is a mixture of improvisations. The tonalities and the rates of surf for trasportarte in a sicodélico trip are based on.
Branko http://www.brankobranko.com
Instruments groove and fuzz. A bit surf, a bit Link Wray and many canoes.
There are other groups which personally I do not know and I do not have much information about, like Jaffa de Luxe, The Jars, The Go Gorillas, Pharaos, Common Surfers, The Trampolines and The Vincents .
Do you think that the surf scene is going through a new revival?
There are more groups or at least we hear of more. This has to do with sites like myspace which help the subcultures like surf music to extend and to connect themselves to each other. I do not believe that it is the same revival that was in the middle of the nineties or the early eighties. Comparing todays scene with the one of five years ago things have improved a lot. But if we want to keep the scene alive there must be more groups that offer a good show and clubs that support them. It is not enough to record CDs, it is necessary to tour and to spread the word!
For you made a tour by California not much, how memories guards of your Earth activities that saw be born music surf?
When they offered us the tour I was scared. You know, it means a lot to play in an historical territory like that, and I cagué. I thought that the people there had grown up with this music and that it was something like having an Irish folk band go to Dublin to play, or have a reggae group play in Kingston. I told that to the promoter and he told me that Californians needed to hear the Barbwires, that we will go to break, said that had seen hundreds of bands playing that way but to no like. He convinced me and it was incredible! We have never received a better response in all our years than in that one week. People continue writing us asking us to return. We sold a pile of CDs to people there. In addition they took from visit to Huntington Beach, and I could enjoy the Fender factory tour in a private visit. The drinks at tiki-bars were incredible but the best thing was the shows than we played and the friendly thing that were all the people with us.
Thanks for your time, I hope that we see you soon
Thanks Diego! The Barbwires are confirmed for the High Rockabilly Weekender in Barcelona in September of 2008. We will see you there! .
http://www.myspace.com/thebarbwires
http://www.the-barbwires.com
By Diego R.J., from the Cellar
Posted by diegorj on 07/29 AT 04:38 p.m.
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February Birthdays 
Yeah, that one completely stumped me. I had no idea what to do with it, so I just left it. 
