The Soundtrack of Our Lives

The Soundtrack of Our Lives
An interview with Ebbot Lundberg
by Alexander Laurence

AL: What is Gothenberg like compared to Stockholm?
Ebbot: Gothenberg is a paradise. I actually live in Stockholm now which is like living in a poodle city. It has a poodle mentality. It's very posh and hung up. The whole vibe is cold and stiff upper lip. It's very boring.

AL: In Sweden you would never talk to someone on the street.
Ebbot: Absolutely. Here in New York City, everyone talks to you. That's not the case in Stockholm. Not even in Gothenberg. I guess it has to do with temperature. It's very cynical. When it's summer, it's a paradise.

AL: How is Soundtrack of Our Lives different from Union Carbide Productions?
Ebbot: It's just an extension I guess really. It's something bigger and wider. Soundtrack can be whatever. Union Carbide was more an underground thing. It was part of the late-1980s movement in music, which was itself, an echo of the original hardcore punk explosion. Our band died when Grunge died.

AL: How did you put together that band? Did you choose who was in the new band in 1996?
Ebbot: Yeah, basically it was me and the guitar players from Union Carbide. I knew some guys who were in a band called Different Builders that I had produced. I thought that we should put a band together. It made sense. We started actually because we were doing music for ski movies. That was the case. We didn't initially have plans to form another group. It turned out to be a good thing, so we gave it a shot. It worked well.

AL: Have you spent time producing other bands?
Ebbot: Yeah, when I have time. Now I just end up producing this band. I like to work with other people.

AL: Most of us in the United States are more familiar with the "Behind The Music" CD. All three were released here about the same time. Is "Behind The Music" representative of the three CDs?
Ebbot: They are all great, I think. I can't really say which one is the best. The first one came out in 1996. That's a while ago. It's called "Welcome To The Infant Freebase." People should get into it. It's a fantastic album. It's on Parasol and people should be able to find it.

AL: When I got "Behind The Music" I listened to it, and then I found out that it was one of many albums.
Ebbot: The idea was when we started was to release a box set. We wanted to start out by releasing four albums. That is happening now in America almost. It's like digging up something in the past. "Behind The Music" was done after the Millennium shift. It came out about a year ago.

AL: Do you have a home studio?
Ebbot: Yeah. Some songs are home demos. We add some things. We have our own studio and production and we do everything.

AL: Do you all write songs in the band?
Ebbot: Everyone in the band has song ideas. I have to pick them up and write lyrics and melodies. Everyone in the band adds something in the songwriting process.

AL: You are known to be a great live band. Are some of the recordings just live takes?
Ebbot: I guess. Sometimes we just screw up on a song. Okay come back next week try it again. Let's try something else. The studio is this small bunker. We can barely fit in there. We like it like that. We can smell each other. We end up getting the right feel and the right emotion to it. We feel like we are in a rehearsal room. We try and make it as easy as possible.

AL: You have been touring this record for a while?
Ebbot: We have toured Europe so much. We enjoy being somewhere else like America. We enjoy just being here. We are going to China next.

AL: Has there been a larger fanbase in the past year since there is so much focus on Swedish music?
Ebbot: It is a slow growing process. I think that we want to maintain a following. We want to keep on doing good albums. We want to create a good vibe. That is what is missing in the world today. We don't have much choice.

AL: Do you have a group of new songs? When will you start recording them?
Ebbot: Yeah. I think that once we finish this tour in America, we will start on the next record. We will have time in December and early 2003.

AL: What will the new record sound like?
Ebbot: I hope to put out some good music before the shit breaks down. But the world is already breaking down. We want to create our own little parallel universe.

AL: What music did you grow up listening to?
Ebbot: Everything. I used to listen to stuff like Hoagy Carmichael and stuff like that. When I started to play in a band I used to listen to UK Subs, Black Flag, and a lot of American punk bands. Minor Threat and all that stuff. At the same time I was into The Beatles.

AL: You got all of that punk aggression out of your system?
Ebbot: Live, it's still there. When you are on stage, you are in the audience as well. Somebody is watching you that is you. So you don't want to disappoint yourself. I get that feeling. I don't want to be bored. I want to be thrilled. So we want to thrill the audience as well as ourselves when we play live, which can be hard. It used to be that you were in a bubble and here's the band and here are the people. People say "You suck" from a distance. If you are in a band you can't go on doing that for a long time.

AL: What excites you about music?
Ebbot: Everything. I hate to wait in the dressing room before you go on. You have to wait all the time. I am very excited by music. I wouldn't do it if I wasn't.

AL: Are you playing songs from all three albums on this tour?
Ebbot: Hopefully. Mostly from the latest one. We will come back for another American tour as soon as we can. We were going to tour with Oasis but I am not sure if that is going to happen. They want us to.