LOVE INJECTIONS…Back To Rock N Roll Roots !
Interview with KJ
1. Hello there…your music is so cool but first of all I wanna hear how the whole thing started. Can you explain me exactly
what do you mean at MySpace by saying:
“releasing three critically acclaimed demo CDs, building a small but dedicated
global fan-base, screwing up a record deal, scoring a publishing deal
(albeit with a company who ignored them until it ran out), changing line-ups,
doing a fair bit of gigging, listening to the usual industry BS sweet-talk and
appearing on a bunch of compilation albums.”
Thanks! Wow, that’s a lot of stuff to expand on but I’ll give it a shot… We started out back in 2001. Originally there were me (KJ) and Tobbe, we’d played together since we were teens, and this guitar player we knew named Thomas Hermansson. We were all playing with other bands but felt that our heads were in the same place and that we should be making music together and so we did. We hooked up with bass player Rebecca Moén at Tobbe’s brother’s suggestion and recorded/released our first demo. It was very well recieved, we scored a publishing deal and a couple of record labels started showing some interest. This US label got in touch and wanted to release the demo as an album and one of the conditions in the contract was that we let them use one of our songs on a compilation album that they were putting out. Now, we had not recorded the demo with a “big-time” official release in mind and we didn’t like the title of the compilation album so we opposed those aspects of the deal which seemed to piss them off and we never heard from them again. But we figured that, since we’d gotten that much attention right off the bat, there would only be a matter of time until another opportunity would present itself.
Well, some of the other interested labels folded and some turned out to be dead ends and it would take another four years until we signed our first record deal. And the guy that signed us to the publishers quit the company soon after we’d signed up and that whole thing just sort of fizzled out… During the next couple of years we were approached by a bunch of labels that wanted us to appear on different compilation albums of theirs, which we agreed to. We also recorded another well recieved demo and Judo joined the band, adding another guitar to the mix. We’d always wanted to have two guitarists, we just hadn’t found the right guy until then. Then Rebecca was replaced by Linkan and shortly thereafter Thomas was replaced by Mikael Sahlin, an old high-school friend of ours. We then released our third demo, which was also met with lots of enthusiasm and ultimately resulted in us signing the above mentioned record deal. Then it all got a bit much for Sahlin, who had just become a father and was doing double duty playing with another band as well as having a time-consuming day-job, so he quit. Then Linkan suggested we should get in touch with this guy he knew that he figured was the best guitar player in town and so Mikael Westerlund entered the picture. He came and saw one of our shows, did some rehearsals, was every bit as good as Linkan had said he’d be and so he joined the band and we haven’t looked back ever since.
2. Your music is a mix of Rolling Stones, The Faces, stuff along with later era material. Let me know about your influences in musical and personal level.
Well, we’re influenced by all sorts of stuff, of which the Stones and Faces are definately some of the common denominators between all of us. We all appreciate good heartfelt music, you know. It’s really hard to pin-point a particular artist as you tend to get some sort of inspiration from pretty much everything you listen to but I’d say some of the artists whose work has meant alot to us would be The Allman Brothers, The Replacements, Gram Parsons, Dylan, Wilco, the Dead, Steve Earle and The Black Crowes. And the Stones and Faces of course!
3. What’s the concept behind the Love Injections name?
I think it was Thomas Hermansson who originally suggested it. Although he wanted to call us Love Injection and I wanted it to be The Love Injections, so we met half-way. We pretty much took it because we figured it sounded alright, had a silly duality to it and was hard to pigeon-hole.
4. Your latest album have been in a basement on your own without any special budget. So describe the whole experience…
Lots of hard work! We’re pretty much musicians and song-writers first and foremost and not really that interested in the technical aspects of it all. We figured it would be a breeze to finally do things ourselves but, boy, were we up for a rude awakening! We all knew what we wanted to achieve sound-wise but realised that we had no clue on how to get there, so it turned out to be one loooooong process of trial-and-error. Very educational though!
5. How hard is for an independent band to play and record music today?
Pretty easy I’d say, what with all the technology readily accessible and everything.
6. What about the lyrics, what kind of feelings do you describe?
All sorts of feelings I guess. I’m influenced by pretty much everything I experience, see, hear or read about so it can go whichever way. Having said that though – I think there’s a reason why there’s so many songs about love or the lack of it. Or relationships, if you will. It’s a universal thing that affects us all, cliché as it may be… Since it’s such a major part of your life it would feel weird not to write about it.
7. Do you have any plans for touring?
Our management is looking into that at the moment. We’d be happy to tour – we just need to know that we get a fair deal with the promoters.
8. Have you got any ideas on your mind for the next album?
Yeah, we’ve got a lot of interesting stuff that we’re working on. Some pretty free-flowing stuff and some more traditional stuff. We’ll see what’ll stick. There’s definately a feeling of natural progression – both as musicians and as far as ideas goes.
9. Do you thing there’s still space for pure rock n roll in today’s digital times?
If by “pure rock n roll” you mean the sort of music that we’re doing then I’d say yes. For us this kind of music seems pretty natural but, judging by what’s considered popular music today, I think it might seem pretty exotic for some people. We generally get a very positive response to our music so it seems there is an audience for it. It might not be a huge audience but it’s there. It’s not like we’re expecting to ever sell a million albums or anything though. As long as we enjoy what we do we’ll keep doing it, whether there’s an audience or not. We’ve always done this for our own pleasure and that’s unlikely to change.
10. Do you thing that new technology canhelp you spread the words about the band?
Sure. But it’s also harder to get through to the potential listener since there are TONS of other music out there as well. Today every single person with a microphone and a computer is a “rock star” you know, with a myspace page an everything. Everything has a flipside I guess… I have to say though that we’ve been absolutely crap at promoting ourselves. We’ve always found that stuff pretty tedious so hopefully this new management of ours will do a better job!
11. What kind of stuff do you find in Mikael’s magical beard?
Interesting that you should ask! Just last week a small mexican man named Pedro wandered out of the beard as we were about to begin rehearsals. We gave him a home behind Judo’s new Fender amp and we’re proud to report that he now runs a successful dog-grooming business right next to our coffee machine.
MYSPACE PROFILE FOR LOVE INJECTIONS : http://www.myspace.com/loveinjections
