I N T E R V I E W

Interview David Johannesson, Jejo Perkovic (face to face)

Hello David, hello Jejo, thanks for taking the time. We are AuxPortesDuMetal, a French Webzine and this interview will be published in French and in English.

Hi Didier. That's good.

Ok so let's start by presenting the band to the reader who might not be familiar with Mustasch.

David: Ok so I'm David Johannesson, the guitar player, and this is Jijo Perkovic, our drummer, then we have Mats Johansson on bass and Ralf Gyllenhammar on vocals. The band had their first album in 2001, I think, but I have been with the band for five or six years now and Jejo, for two years.

And tell us, how did you pick that strange name? It's a French name too, right?

David: Do you spell it the same way? I don't think so right?

No we don't, but it's a strange name isn't it?

David: Yes but your remember it, right ?

Yes, for sure, but it's strange when you tell your friends you are going to a Mustasch show, you know, sounds like a gay club or something like that...

David: [laughs]

Jejo: Well Lemmy, from Motörhead thought the same thing. Is it a gay band or what? [laughs] Actually it's a tribute to the old bands and people like Freddie Mercury, Black Sabbath, you know everyone in the seventies wore a beard or a mustasch. When when Ralf formed the band it started as a joke at the beginning, but after a few days they thought it was not a bad idea.

What would you claim are the major influences of the band?

David: It's the seventies, and especially Black Sabbath, I would say.

Jejo: I also listen to a lot of hip hop, reggae and soul music. But Black Sabbath is the band that all of us like.

I was at the Hellfest this year, and I saw your gig there, I liked it a lot. How was it for you?

Jejo: Very nice. A very positive experience. Because we didn't know anything about France. We didn't know if there would be anyone watching.

David: It was our first gig in France.

Jejo: We were very surprised to have that many people in the afternoon. Surprised in a good way.

David didn't you run into a too tight jeans problem while on stage?

David: Yes I'm too fat [laughs]. They broke. And it's not the first time. At a festival in Sweden, they opened up completely, so on the last song I pulled them out and threw them out to the audience.

Jejo: He is used to that, he is experienced [laughs].

How different is such a big festival compared to a headlining show?

Jejo: Both are good. The best thing about playing at a big festival, especially on the main stage, is that you reach so many people that have never heard of you before. I prefer playing clubs, maybe bigger than this one here, but indoor, because of the sound that is better. But don't get me wrong, I love playing festivals. It's a shorter set so the setlist is different, and you try to touch as many people as possible. It's also good for our fans, because they get to see a lot of other bands too. Some travel from far away, for example at the Hellfest I remember that there were a lot of Spanish people there. We toured Spain in March and a lot of them told us that they were going to Hellfest.

We received your latest album last Sunday evening, so it was a bit of a rush to prepare for this interview in only a couple of days...

David: It was finished on Thursday! So it's very new.

On the cover we see the number VII but there is also a title and it is "Thank You For The Demon". So tell us a little bit about what kind of demon we are talking about here.

David: It's a way to say that all the things that went wrong in your life make you better and stronger.

Jejo: It shapes you as a person, you know. And what Ralf, means is, thank you for making me the way I am. That's my guess.

David: And it's the seventh album so on the artwork, the artist put a VII and he asked if it was ok and we kept it.

So tell us how this album was composed.

David: We have a lot of riffs of course, but something like 60% of the work is done in studio, together. 

Jejo: We went in the studio with some ideas, and maybe three songs that were kind of complete and the rest was just riffs that we put together in the studio. We did it the old school way like they did in the sixties and the seventies, by jamming in the studio. Very nice experience. So even if the guitar players come with the riffs of course, after that we work together, we help each other and put the songs together.

And what about the lyrics?

David: Ralf takes care of that.

Ok, so I'm sure you have an idea but are these lyrics autobiographic?

David: Yes, all of them.

Because in many cases the lyrics are quite torturous, for example "Feared and Hated", "Don't Want To Be Who I Am"...

David: Yes. He is an adopted kid and so he has a lot of anger about why his mum and dad left him, so yes there is a lot of sad stuff in the lyrics.

And he doesn't like to dance [laughs]?

Jejo: No [laughs]

David: Wait, wait, I have seen him dance and I didn't like it [laughs].

I heard some violin on "Don't Want To Be Who I Am", and some piano on "Thank You For the Demon", did you use those instruments before?

David: Ralf is a classical trained pianist, you know. We had strings in some previous album. Piano, it is the first time.

David maybe a good question for you but I didn't hear any guitar solo in the album, are you on strike?

David: [laughs] We have a little bass solo. No we didn't have the time to sit down and discuss if we wanted to add a guitar solo or what. We had to release it. And we felt that there wasn't a real reason for a solo.

Jejo: Most of the time, for me a solo is meaningless. It doesn't add much to the song.

David: It's almost like a tradition, there has to be a solo, but for me it was just fine not to have any.

How was this mixed and produced, because I like the end result a lot, very well balanced.

David: It's a new producer. It was also us of course and two guys called Rikard Löfgren and Gustav Ydenius. We recorded in the woods in Sweden, where I come from. In between Oslo and Stockholm, near a big lake. We lived there int he studio for one month. That was really good. We couldn't do this in Stockholm, there is too much going on there. Then they mixed it, and the guy has worked with everybody in Sweden, Roxette, you name it.

Jejo: He is the most hired person in Sweden for mixing records.

There seems to be a few songs with soft intros going into heavier things. You like contrasts.

David: Yes on "Feared And Hated", we didn't know how to start it. So we did some vocals, and we thought it was cool, so we kept it.

The song "Borderline" smells like Metallica meets Danko Jones, do you hate me for saying this?

David: No. I actually agree when I hear the guitar in the chorus.

In "The Mauler", or "From Euphoria to Dystropia" it feels a little bit like Black Sabbath, so do you love me for saying that?

David: Yes, we like the reference to Black Sabbath.

The lyrics for "From Euphoria to Dystropia" are kind of scary and dark, is this still autobiographic?

David: Yes, all of it. Ralf has a real hard time to sing if he doesn't believe in what he sings. He has to always tell you something. That's his way.

"I hate to Dance" has a pretty industrial intro, and is pretty against disco music, do you agree with this?

David: Oh yes.

Jejo: I like disco music actually.

I noticed that there are lots of catchy choruses, do you work hard on those or do they come naturally?

David: The catchy factor comes more from the vocals. And most of the time Ralf has it in its head.

Ok, so now you are touring to promote this album, do you know which song you will be playing live?

Jejo: None unfortunately. This mini tour is not promoting the album and it's a bit unfortunate that our German promoter decided to call this the "Thank You For the Demon Tour". It's not that good because we will not play any songs from the album before next year. We had no time to rehearse.

David: It's only a two weeks tour, then we will rehearse and come back.

Jejo: First we are doing a very big Scandinavian tour in February, and hopefully we will be back to France after this, maybe in April or May.

Do you have any parallel projects coming from any members of the band?

David: Not really. Ralf participated in the Melodifestivalen 2013, a song contest. He did well. He went to the final. that was his goal. We, the band, said that we didn't want to participate so he did it on his own, playing piano. He said he would never do it again. It's a circus!

Jejo: I'm also playing with a hip hop band, I've done that for fifteen years, and we are going to release an album.

Do you have a last word for your French fans?

David: Yes, tonight you are going to have some Swedish steel!!

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