Misconduct Interview mit Fredrik Ollson (2011)

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MISCONDUCT gibt es seit 1995 und wurde unter anderem von Fredrik Ollson gegründet. Von den anderen Gründungsmitgliedern ist mittlerweile keiner mehr in der Band und somit hat sich das Pressure Magazine Fredrik geschnappt, um ihm einige Fragen zu stellen.

Misconduct haben in ihrer 16-jährigen Bandgeschichte neben einigen Singles, EPs und Split-CDs, 5 Alben und eine Best-Of veröffentlicht. Ihr aktuelles Album „One Step Closer“ erschien im April 2010 unter dem Label Side by Side Records. Unser Interview mit Fred lest ihr hier in der englischen Originalfassung.

Hey Fred, please introduce yourselves once before.

Fred: MISCONDUCT is a punkrock band from Sweden and consists of:
Fredrik Olsson – Vocals / Guitar
Erik Ydlinger – Lead Guitar
Simon Guidoum – Bass
Daniel Petri – Drums

Misconduct exist since 1995. What has changed until today?

Fred: Oh so many things have changed since I started the band…

We formed the band when we were all kids going to school and the band was not really serious in the beginning. We just wanted to play some really fast oldschool hardcore inspired by bands like Minor Threat, 7Seconds, Gorilla Biscuits etc, but our goal was to one day sound like Bad Religion with more melody and lots of vocal harmonies. Also, in the beginning, we were not really that good at playing our instruments and my vocal skills was kind of limited so the songs tended to be really straight forward and very short. Most of our early song were only around 1 minute long but we still sometimes play the first song I ever wrote „Lack Of Knowledge“, which is only 34 seconds long.

In 2002 we released our „New Beginning“ EP, which was a huge step in the right direction for the band music wise and also for me in terms of a songwriter. This EP was much more melodic than our previous records and we felt that we were finally getting closer to the sound we had always wanted. With the „United As One“ album in 2004/2005 we took everything even further and for the first time, I felt that we made an album where all the songs turned out as I wanted. I guess you could really say that we created the Misconduct sound with the „United As One“ album.

With the release of our new album „One Step Closer“ 2010/2011 it feels like we’ve done our dream record and we are super excited about doing a follow up with our next album.

Through endless touring and a lot of hard work we have really grown a lot as a band over the last three years. Nowadays we are much better as musicians as well as a band and I think the strength of Misconduct is that we are a very tight and energetic live band that always deliver a 110 % show for the crowd.

Your current album „One Step Closer“ is on the market since April 2010. What is the difference compared to the previous album „United As One“ from 2003.

Fred: Like I mentioned before the „United As One“ album was the first Misconduct album where I was really satisfied with the turnout of every song and I think we came kinda close to our vision of how we wanted the album to sound like. However, in terms of production there was still a lot of unexplored ground to cover. I think the „One Step Closer“ album is a natural continuation of „United As One“ but „One Step Closer“ is much more diverse and we challenged ourselves more than ever before. There are some really fast stuff on this album as well as mid-tempo and also some more heavy stuff. Also for the first time, we did a slower song with some acoustic parts and piano with the song Side By Side pt II and this was the first time I sang in Swedish on a Misconduct record.

For the „One Step Closer“ album, we worked together with Swedish producer Marcus Nowak who is an old friend and one of Sweden’s greatest drummers. Also on this album, I wanted to challenge myself more when it comes to songwriting and vocal harmonies and Marcus Nowak really got the best out of us. „One Step Closer“ is the album I always wanted to make and in the end, it turned out to be our dream record.

Please tell us something about the songs from „One Step Closer“.

Fred: Closer – This was the first song I wrote for this album and „Closer“ was the song that kinda set the sound of the record and started the whole writing process. The lyrics is about all the „invisible people“ that are passing through school or work place without being noteced until one day they are gone. It’s about being an outsider, a person that no one sees and also about the fear of walking through life alone.  Everybody needs a friend and no one should walk through life alone!Family – A very important song to all of us in the band and our way to celebrate our families that are always there for us and who support us and our music 100 %. The song is very personal and I was inspired to write the song after my grandfather passed away who was a huge inspiration to me and an amazing person. The song is one of my absolute favorite Misconduct songs and it’s so full of energy. The intro and the verse is very up-tempo while the chorus goes down in a mid-tempo pace to give more power to the chanting voices.

Side By Side part II – This is a song dedicated to our fantastic and very loyal fans and it was very important for me to do something different with this song to get the right atmosphere. Since I wrote the song for our fans I also wanted to do something special with the lyrics and sing a part of the song in Swedish since it’s my first language. The lyrics of the Swedish part was inspired by some of the amazing people that I had the pleasure to get to know the past couple of years. It was a great experience to record this song using both our regular instruments as well as playing the piano and making arrangements for the strings and acoustic guitar.

The first singles and albums were released on Bad Taste Records. Then your wife has created her own label and you are changed. How she come up with the idea?

Fred: Well in 2002 we wanted to release a 3 song EP but at this time the good folks at Bad Taste was totally busy

with the release of Danko Jones etc. So my wife said „why dont you start your own label and release the EP yourself?“, cause I had been talking about that for a couple of years. So we started Side By Side Records together and our first release, the „New Beginning“ EP, came out in 2002/2003. The release of „New Beginning“ was really successful for Side By Side Records so we decided to leave Bad Taste Records and release our next album on Side By Side. However, we got a lot of help and support from our great friends at Bad Taste Records with ditribution and licensing etc…

Your first publications can be called „Old-Style-Hardcore“, but then came a change and you´ve played punk rock / melodic hardcore. What was the main reason to switch the genre?

Fred: Well like I mentioned before we have always strived for a more melodic sound than we first had and also the punk/hardcore we grew up listening to was really melodic. For me hardcore and punk goes hand in hand so we didn’t really switch genre but rather developed into something new.  For me hardcore and punk is not about this or that but more about being a family where everyone takes care of each other.  It’s always important to check out different music and being open-minded cause that’s what it’s all about.

In the last years, you were on tour with bands like Sick Of It All, Hatebreed, Korn or Slipknot. What was the most curious, what happened on tour?

Fred: Sick Of It All we’ve played a bunch of times with and there all really nice people and good friends of us. Also they always put on a wicked live show so it’s always a lot of fun to tour with a band like them and the same for a band like Hatebreed. Playing with bands like Korn and Slipknot was a huge experience for us and it was great to meet some of the guys.

This spring we were on an amazing European tour together with the Dropkick Murphys which was a great experience and a fantastic tour. The whole production was really big and super professional and Dropkick Murphys has the best crew ever! Everyone in the band was super cool to us and the show was totally amazing! What can I say we all had a wicked time on the road… Lot’s of amazing arena gigs and wild parties haha…

Also, some of my favorite shows in the past couple of years has been playing the 30th anniversary with Bad Religion or when we played a special show with Rise Against in our home country Sweden.

 

What bands have influenced you personally and with whom you would like to play once a concert?

Fred: In the beginning it was mostly bands like Minor Threat, Bad Religion and Gorilla Biscuits but nowadays we are basically inspired by all kinds of music. Like I mentioned before we had the great opportunity to play with great bands like Bad Religion and Rise Against and I would love to play with those guys again any time cause they are such great people. Would be really super cool to play a concert together with Minor Threat!!!

 

On 1 March 2010 you have the music video for the single „Closer“ was released. The video was directed by the renowned Patrick Ullaeus. He has produced music videos for bands such as Europe and Dimmu Borgir. How did that come about?

Fred: Well I have always been a fan of Patric Ullaeus videos and so I sent him two songs from the new album and he called me up and said that he would love to do the video for our first single „Closer“. He is a great director and the making of the video for „Closer“ was so much fun. The people at Revolver are super cool and we definitely want to work with Patric and Revolver again.

What are your plans for the future?

Fred: Right now we are on our summer Festival Tour which ends on the 10th of September. After that, we will enter the studio and begin the pre-production of our next album together with our producer Marcus Nowak. In October we will do a short tour in Europe and then we will head back into the studio again to continue the pre-production and writing of our upcoming album. In November we will tour Scandinavia and France. We will also do a new music video this fall before we take a short break for X-mas with our families.

Thanks a lot for the interview, the last words belong to you.

Fred: Thanks a lot for this wicked interview and to all you rockers out there, Don’t forget to check out our latest album „One Step Closer“! Keep your eyes on our website www.misconduct.nu for tour dates and see ya all in the pit at one of our shows near you!!!

Peace, Love & Unity!
// Fredrik – Misconduct

Interview von Florian Puschke im August 2011

Mehr zu Misconduct:

Offizielle Homepage: misconduct.nu

Misconduct bei facebook: facebook.com/misconducts

 

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