SR: For our readers who aren`t familiar with Mammoth Volume, please tell us where you are from and provide a brief history of the band and it`s members?
MV: We�re a Swedish band, all of us living in Lysekil which is a pretty small town. Basically mammoth volume started out as a hardrock recording project by Nicklas, and during recordings I started writing too, and with Nicklas� older brother J�rgen adding vocals to some of the tracks the foundation for a band was cemented. We then wrote the music with overdubbing in mind, so we didn�t have a bassplayer (or an actual band at that) then, and alot of guitars, keyboards and harmony were added as we went along. On our first demotape an aspiring jazzdrummer named Emir was involved, but as he moved out of town Nicklas took the drumming-role. By the time we started work on our latest minialbum, Kalle joined forces as our permanent bassman and that�s the story so far.
SR: What is the scene like there? Do you get many people turning out to your gigs when you play live? Do you play live very often?
MV: There seems to be alot of activity going on up here and alot of rock bands are doing well on the international scene as well. In our particular town there are no other bands doing our thing, and since we�re not touring that much there�s no real interaction between bands going on. Of course we try to keep an eye out for new releases by bands we like and maybe some e-mail correspondence, but we�re not "hanging out". Too far apart geographically. When we do play live at local gigs the crowd usually consists of other bands and a few friends who are into music. The combination of a small town, and us doing somewhat odd rock music results in a less than overwhelming attendance. We don�t mind though; it gives the shows an intimate feel which is good for improvisational purposes.
SR: The Swedes seem to have a lot of new rock bands over the last couple of years, many of which fit nicely into the Stoner Rock vibe.. What do you think of this situation? And what other Swedish bands are you into yourselves?
MV: The fact that stonerrock seems to be overrepresented as far as genres go is a funny thing. A swedish university-student recently did an essay on this phenomenon in which mammoth volume and Dozer were interviewed and analyzed. He didn�t arrive at a definitive answer either, so I won�t even chance a theory. Well, maybe swedes have good taste. but then again we�re mostly known for ABBA and producing boybands so. Bands I listen to alot right now include Anekdoten (I wrote a little something on them on our homepage; if you�re interested come check it out), The Flower Kings (doing early Genesis/Yes type music) and there�s a band called Landberk who cut a classic rock album a few years back, "Indian summer". I strongly recommend everybody who are interested in slightly artsy rock to look that one up. And then we all try to keep track of what�s happening on the swedish "stonerrock scene".
SR: Your self titled debut album is very complex and varied in style. Your new EP "Noara Dance" is again even more varied from the first album.. I know myself and many others appreciate that a great deal, but I`ve heard from others who find it too `scattered`.. How do you feel about this?? Did you set out to record such a variety of songs or did it just happen naturally?
MV: We�re sorry if they can�t take it all in at one hearing, but hopefully that means that it�ll last longer. Maybe they just don�t like some of the material. Nobody likes only one kind of music so why should you put only one kind of music on an album? I�ve always wanted to hear a band doing all kinds of genres but in a way that I could relate to, and now that we�re given the chance to record albums ourselves, there�s the opportunity to do what we�ve always wanted others to do. Now it sounds as if we planned for it to come out in a certain way, very diverse, but we didn�t; it really just came out the way it did. Nothing forced.
SR: Speaking of song styles.. Who writes the Mammoth Volume songs? What is the process for the birth of a new Mammoth Volume song?
MV: On our debut album, either Nicklas or I came up with the basic idea for a song and then we made some minor joint arrangements. On Noara Dance we moved more toward joint writing; a basic idea was presented at a rehearsal and then we jamed on it. The stuff we�re writing now is even more of a groupeffort; if anybody has an idea, we try to squeeze it into a song we�re working on at the moment. This means we have to take care so it doesn�t come of as a patchwork, but it puts your arranging-talents to test, which is fun. The fact that we all like different kinds of music contributes to the variety of styles within the material composed. We find that interesting and hopefully that comes across.
SR: What do you all do in your spare time, when you aren`t playing in the band?
MV: My main interest by far is music, so it�s usually "music-related". Writing music or lyrics or listening to records. It�s a great kick to get hold of a rare record you�ve been on the look out for for a long time. I would put that down as my hobby: collecting records. Litterature is runner up, mainly classic fiction but also catching up on biographies, theology and poetry. The other guys are pretty much music-nerds too I guess. I�ve been known to fight it out on the tennis court with J�rgen!
SR: Mammoth Volume is signed to The Music Cartel. How did that arrangement come to be and how is it going so far?
MV: Nicklas and I initially sent a CDR with a couple of songs of our two demo tapes to a number of record companies, and we got a few responses. One of them was from MeteorCity, but it never happend. Not due to any conflict or anything, I think it was just economics, but they recommended us to The Music Cartel and it looked good from all angles so we went with them. So far it�s worked out good. You hear these tales about how bands are beaten into submission by commercial-minded companies, but if we wanted to record an album with our favourite polkas, I think they�d let us. Really. That kind of trust comes around.
SR: You also released a demo tape/CD full of songs that aren`t on either album via your website. What`s the story behind those songs and how come you released them this way? How come you haven`t sent me a copy yet? (Hint Hint :)
MV: You�ve got to earn it by writing us up (hint hint:). Well I guess you already have. We started getting some interest in our demotapes, but they were a pain to copy manually so we decided to put them on a CD, minus the songs that ended up on our debut, even though we rerecorded most of those. So the actual demotape-songs make up for 13 of the 17 tracks on the DemoCD. Then there�s two songs that were recorded for the debut but never made it all the way. The last two are an acoustic song (that showed up on Noara Dance) and an extended eclectic, electro-acoustic studioimprov with Emir on drumkit, me on bass and Nicklas on guitar. It�s different.
SR: Do you plan to tour in support of your recent releases? Any plans to (ever) tour in North America?
MV: No tours planned as of yet I�m afraid. We�ll talk to The Cartel and see what we come up with. We hope to play as much live as possible, as we haven�t played that much outside of Lysekil up till now. We thoroughly enjoyed the last couple of shows we did in Holland and Germany, and hope to go back there as soon as possible. Playing North America would be a dream come true, if there was a market for it.
SR: What are the members of Mammoth Volume listening to recently?
MV: Oddly, my latest crush in on italian progressive-rock. Not as lush as the british counterpart, it combines hardrock, amazing musicianship and big thinking as far as composition goes. Bands like Osanna, Banco, Il Balletto di Bronzo and Museo Rosenbach should be of interest even to people who find Yes and Genesis too "romantic". We�re talking early 70�s here, of course. I know Kalle is exploring Fu Manchu and Atomic Bitchwax right now. J�rgen generally sticks to classics like Black Sabbath, Kyuss and Unida. Nicklas has been talking about Budgie lately, and he�s getting into the Beatles too (J�rgen is still putting up a Beatles-fight). And you can�t go wrong with Hendrix.
SR: And finally, what`s next for Mammoth Volume? Any plans for the future?
MV: We�re ready to record four new songs, the first ones since Noara Dance. Probably in early June we�ll go into the studio. We all love recording and on good days we even come up with new material as we record, so we�ll see what comes of it. Other than that we�ll just keep on writing and hopefully do some live shows in the not too distant future. |
