{"id":9150,"date":"2012-05-31T07:30:36","date_gmt":"2012-05-30T21:30:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/maytherockbewithyou.com\/mtrbwy\/?p=9150"},"modified":"2012-05-30T21:48:34","modified_gmt":"2012-05-30T11:48:34","slug":"erik-ohlsson-of-millencolin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maytherockbewithyou.com\/mtrbwy\/2012\/05\/erik-ohlsson-of-millencolin\/","title":{"rendered":"Erik Ohlsson of Millencolin"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n<\/a>\u201cWhen we started this band we could barely play our instruments, we were kids so I think we reached a time when we became much better musicians, and you can really tell that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Renowned Swedish punk outfit, Millencolin, are celebrating twenty years with the release of The Melancholy Connection on June 1. This assemblage of B-sides, a follow up to 1999’s The Melancholy Collection, features two brand new songs and twelve rarities spanning from their break-out album, Pennybridge Pioneers,<\/em> through to today. \u00a0The CD is paired with a ninety minute DVD that takes fans inside the making of Pennybridge Pioneers with never before seen archival footage, interviews with the band and live performances (including their visit to Australia last year on the Soundwave Festival playing main stage).<\/p>\n

With an impressive string of releases behind them, nearly two million records sold worldwide and having shared stages with the likes of Blink 182, the Foo Fighters and Queens of the Stone Age, the \u00d6rebro based quartet have put together an rousing collection of material that allows fans get an inside look at the past twenty years which have brought Millencolin to where they are today.<\/p>\n

We chatted to guitarist Erik Ohlsson about the release and the DVD, new material, old material, and their own festival they are playing to celebrate two decades as a band\u2026<\/p>\n

So, why was now the right time to release this B-Side \/ Rarity package?<\/strong>
\nWe did like a compilation before called \u2018The Melancholy Collection\u2019 which came out in \u201899 or something, so it felt like that was the first decade of the band and now it felt like a perfect time to sum up the second decade of this band.<\/p>\n

How did you choose what would make the final cut?<\/strong>
\nThey were maybe like five or six that didn\u2019t make the cut and I mean, the idea first came up as we went in to the studio and we had recorded like five brand new songs which we chose two new songs for this compilation and then twelve other hard to get B-sides.\u00a0 It was kind of fun because you cannot forget about these songs which was exclusive material here and there, it was fun listening to everything and I\u2019m surprised that they actually sound that good and some of them didn\u2019t make an album.<\/p>\n

There are two new tracks on this release, how did these come about?\u00a0 Were they ideas you\u2019d had for some time or old demos that were never recorded or were they purely new material?<\/strong>
\nThey were purely brand new songs.\u00a0 It\u2019s been a while since we\u2019ve recorded Machine 15 so we got lots of ideas, we didn\u2019t feel like there wasn\u2019t enough time, we didn\u2019t feel like that it was the right time to record a full album.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know if we had that many songs ready, but we had four or five really good songs, and we\u2019re in the good position of owning our own studio as well, so it\u2019s kind of easy for us to set up everything and record.\u00a0 Mathias our guitar player, he produced everything except the vocals were recorded in another studio and produced by some other Swedish guy, but music wise we produced everything in our own studio, we\u2019ve got a good set up going on here.
\nRather than going to The States again?<\/strong>
\nHa ha, yeah, a little more convenient.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>How much fun was it making the updated \u2018Pennybridge Pioneers\u2019 cover?\u00a0 Whose idea was it to do that?<\/strong>
\nIt was mine, since I drew everything myself as well.\u00a0 I do all the artwork for Millencolin.\u00a0 I\u2019ve done everything you\u2019ve seen graphic wise with Millencolin and I\u2019ve done that.\u00a0 Sometimes ideas hit you when I\u2019m going to bed or waking up or taking a walk with the dogs or something ha ha, but I just came up with the idea and thought it\u2019d be fun.\u00a0 It also connects the whole concept of this album as you\u2019ve got the compilation and the movie which reaches from \u2018Pennybridge Pioneers\u2019 until now, but it\u2019s kind of fun to show people how we\u2019ve aged in the same positions.<\/p>\n

Alongside the album is a 90 minute documentary basically showcasing recording of ‘Pennybridge Pioneers’, had you always planned to release this and this just became the perfect opportunity?<\/strong>
\nKind of yeah, around the same time we released the first compilation in \u201999 I did the first Millencolin DVD called \u2018Millencolin and the Hi-8 Adventures\u2019 and ever since we had promised the fans we\u2019d do a new DVD but the thing is, getting something like that together takes such a long time and we\u2019ve been shooting a lot both in the studio and on the road and I\u2019ve got a box with like a hundred DV tapes or something, it\u2019s just so hard to start somewhere.\u00a0 Then we realised, well, I realised that we shot a lot of stuff during the \u2018Pennybridge Pioneers\u2019 recording, I hadn\u2019t even looked through this material, I guess watched it once or twice after we got back from the studio, but since then it was like forgotten tape in a drawer somewhere in my basement.\u00a0 So, it is the ten year of \u2018Pennybridge Pioneers\u2019 and we\u2019ve got some new live footage, I thought I could probably get something out of this material.\u00a0 Then I read some interviews with ourselves and how hard it was to get this piece together, it was just us picking up the camera in random situations in the studio.\u00a0 So it was kind of hard to get some sort of order of the songs and what we talked about, some songs we didn\u2019t even have any material shot when we were recording our stuff.\u00a0 It came together in the end though ha ha.<\/p>\n

You also had the fun job of directing and editing the project, how long was the process in putting this together?<\/strong>
\nHa ha I didn\u2019t leave my office or my computer from the beginning of December to the beginning of March or something because I was directing this thing, I was recording in the studio and I was making the cover art work as well ha ha.\u00a0 There\u2019s been some hectic months for me.\u00a0 That\u2019s the way that Millencolin always works, we\u2019ve been taking care of everything, even though we have a great record label behind us doing good jobs for us but we always took care of everything on our own anyways based from our own ideas anyway.<\/p>\n

What do you think it was about Pennybridge Pioneers that attracted people to Millencolin?<\/strong>
\nWe had been touring for four years and were steadily growing, so I don\u2019t know, I think that album was the first time we found our own Millencolin sound in a way.\u00a0 The first three albums we were recording them in Sweden with the same guy but we were still looking to the American bands we looked up to, like the Californian sound, so we almost tried to copy that sound more or less.\u00a0 For Pennybridge Pioneers, we went to the States for the first time recording with Brett but still it became the most personal Millencolin record I think and from there on we turned more in to a rock sound than a regular basic sound I think.\u00a0 When we started this band we could barely play our instruments, we were kids so I think we reached a time when we became much better musicians, and you can really tell that.\u00a0 We\u2019ve got this 20 year festival in our home town so we\u2019re rehearsing all our old material and we just realised, hey what happened with \u2018Home From Home\u2019 when we recorded that album it sounds so much better than Pennybridge Pioneers and that was the time when we set up our own studio, we didn\u2019t record in our studio but we became aware how to make this music and record on our own ha ha, we became better musicians and I think Pennybridge Pioneers was the start of that in a way.\u00a0 As we say in the video, Brett Gurewitz, he thought that we were really great musicians and we didn\u2019t realise that and he made us believe in ourselves as musicians in a way we haven\u2019t done before I think.<\/p>\n

As you just mentioned, you\u2019re having your own little two day Millencolin 20 year Festival in June for two days, and that\u2019s pretty much all you\u2019re playing this year. What was the idea behind only doing this rather than extensive touring?<\/strong>
\nThe thing is we pretty much just ended an extensive tour which was the 10 year anniversary or Pennybridge Pioneers playing old material, this year we need to have something brand new out, more than just two new songs out to be able to tour, we can\u2019t just start touring again based on old material.\u00a0 We did Soundwave in Australia with this Pennybridge Pioneers tour. People have been talking about what we\u2019re going to do for our twentieth anniversary, we were expected to come up with something and we didn\u2019t think much about it, and our manager, we are working with our best friend and he came up with an idea he said why don\u2019t you start your own two day festival and invite bands you like. That was a brilliant idea.\u00a0 It\u2019s going really good, we\u2019re really looking forward to this.\u00a0 In two weeks today we\u2019re on the second day of the festival.
\nWho have you got?\u00a0 I saw The Hives are playing, but who else?<\/strong>
\nThe Hives, Danko Jones, we\u2019ve got Bombshell Rocks, The Peepshows, Nine, there are a lot of old Burning Heart fans, our record label here in Sweden, there a lot of bands we\u2019ve been touring with, we\u2019ve got a lot of history with a lot of these bands.\u00a0 At least with Bombshell Rocks and Nine and The Peepshows as well, they haven\u2019t played much at all, in five years or something, it\u2019s almost like they haven\u2019t quit but it\u2019s like reunion shows for them, so it\u2019s a really, really cool set up.\u00a0 This is the first festival I want to watch every band, so it\u2019s going to be so much fun.\u00a0 Before it we listed all the songs we have done and we realised that we have recorded or written 134 songs so we have taken than down to 50 so we\u2019re going to perform 50 songs at the festival.
\nWow, long set ha ha<\/strong>
\nYeah, we\u2019re ending both nights, we\u2019re closing both nights so we\u2019re going to do 25 songs a night.
\nHa ha I thought you were going out to play for four hours or something\u2026<\/strong>
\nWe haven\u2019t really thought how long it\u2019ll be, but it\u2019s our own festival so we\u2019ll play as long as we want ha ha ha.<\/p>\n

You mentioned you can\u2019t tour without new material, but are you currently working on new material for an album?<\/strong>
\nWe\u2019ve still got two or three songs recorded and finished, waiting for something to come, some platform for it to be released on.\u00a0 Especially Mathias, he writes all the time, he\u2019s like every day now when we\u2019re not on tour he\u2019s in the studio every day writing Millencolin stuff, so we definitely got stuff going.\u00a0 We\u2019re not just sure with when to release this, we know where, with Epitaph, but we don\u2019t really know when.\u00a0 Since we\u2019ve been working on this release since before Christmas, we haven\u2019t been touring but we\u2019ve been working our asses off on this release so we kind of need a break after this anyway.\u00a0 We\u2019re going to do this really cool Italian festival as well this Summer but these will be the only shows during 2012.<\/p>\n

As no stranger to Australia, what are some of your fondest memories of touring here?<\/strong>
\nOoh, tonnes of good memories\u2026 I did an interview with a skateboard magazine the other day and they talked about favourite cities and I remember that me and Ben from Bodyjar, we skated downtown Melbourne one night, the full night, this must have been back in 96 or 97, it was just a really warm night and we were skating downtown Melbourne.\u00a0 That actually was one of the best Australian memories for me.<\/p>\n

How are the crowds down here for Millencolin, I\u2019ve seen a show and it seems they absolutely love you down here\u2026<\/strong>
\nAnd we love Australia, we love being in Australia, we love the people of Australia and playing live in Australia is great.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know how many times we\u2019ve been to Australia?\u00a0 Maybe eight or something like that and every time you realise I want to live there during the Swedish Winter time and live in Sweden during the Summer time which it is now, it\u2019s really beautiful here.\u00a0 So that may be the future for me\u2026<\/p>\n

Twenty years as a band, can you pick one moment that stands out above the rest as the most amazing?<\/strong>
\nI mean, when we grew up Epitaph records was what we listened to, all the old albums, we picked up everything from Epitaph, it was the coolest music we knew.\u00a0 When Brett Gurewitz who was our idol signed us, as the first non American band, that must be the coolest thing that happened to us, and it also opened so many doors for us, especially in the States.<\/p>\n

Lastly, what does the rest of 2012 have in store for Millencolin?<\/strong>
\nWe\u2019re going to start working on a new album, I also have five projects going, I have a graphic design company, I always work on the side of that with Millencolin.\u00a0 I spend half the year working on Millencolin stuff, I feel I need to spend time on other stuff to get more inspiration to do cool stuff for Millencolin.<\/p>\n

Essential Information<\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n

From:<\/strong> Sweden<\/p>\n

Band members: <\/strong>Nikola Sarcevic – Vocals & bass, Mathias F\u00e4rm \u2013 Guitar, Erik Ohlsson \u2013 Guitar, Fredrik Larzon – Drums<\/p>\n

Website:<\/strong> http:\/\/www.millencolin.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Latest release:<\/strong> The Melancholy Connection (June 1 \u2013 Epitaph Records)<\/p>\n

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