Messed!Up
The best indie record labels have helped push the boundaries, drawing the mainstream into their world whether it’s local or global, and have changed the face of music in the process while breaking new bands to the world.
Growing rapidly to become hugely influential in Sweden, Gothenburg-based imprint Luxury became the epitome for releasing young bands that unexpectedly emerged and won over fans and critics alike.
Signed by Luxury already in their mid-teens while trying to figure out how to graduate from high school, Agent Blå released their debut single “Strand” in 2015 and a few years later their self-titled debut album became a jaw-dropping, eye-opening record, an unrelenting collection of post-punk, shoegaze, and indie-rock songs echoing the ’80s and early ’90s. And after they started, they never stopped releasing music.
Since the arrival of their debut the band have spoiled the scene with new music every year, either in the shape of an EP or an album, and at the beginning of October their latest work, the “Atopos” EP, was released on Kanine Records as a sneak peek of what to expect on their upcoming third album, which hopefully will see the light in 2021.
Messed!Up met up with the band at Fyrens Ölkafé in Gothenburg and chat about the band’s history on Luxury, a third album in the works, future plans in America and still being marked by the legacy of Broder Daniel on home turf in Sweden.
The Luxury years and the future on Kanine Records
You did some great work on your latest EP ”Atopos”, but it must feel a bit disappointing to not be able to play it live at the moment.
Maybe just a bit, but we didn’t really plan for any live shows, we had planned for staying in the studio quite much anyway and now we can spend even more there. We just wanted to release something to push ourselves to continue rehearsing with the band, and since we had these three songs ready we thought “Why not record and release them” to boost some interest for our next album. But from the beginning it was just supposed to be a single release, it just happened to turn into an EP.
Wasn’t 2020 the year Agent Blå were supposed to have an international breakthrough and tour the world? You played The New Colossus Festival in New York and were supposed to have played a few more shows in America.
Yeah, that was the plan, to kickstart it all at The New Colossus and do a few shows at the East Coast, but that didn’t happen for obvious reasons. It was our first time ever in the US and a great chance for us to get attention, being backed by an American label and all that stuff. But we’re quite sure it will happen as soon as the pandemic is over, our label wants us to do it.
It was sort of chaotic to leave New York, the festival took place right at the beginning of the corona outbreak and we had our flight cancelled two days before we were supposed to have returned home. Some slight panic there and completely empty streets when everything closed down.
But it was weird. One night we did this DJ gig and had heaps of people coming out for it and a few days later it was like a zombie apocalypse – completely empty. At the time no one knew how dangerous the virus was, but we’re Swedes and usually a bit more careful than Americans and just bathed in hand sanitizer (laugh). In the end we sorted it out and made it home safe and sound.
Does it feel like you lost a golden opportunity when you had everything set for a launch in America?
Not that much actually. We work very close with our label Kanine Records and are quite sure the chance will turn up as soon as it’s back to normal.
We’ve had quite many writing sessions and rehearsed new songs instead. It’s also easier to write new songs when you work or study from home and can use that opportunity to write music and bring it with you to the next rehearsal to try it out. It’s quite a productive period at the moment.
If we get back to when it all started. You were discovered by legendary Gothenburg label Luxury which came to an end last year. How important was the label to get you out of your rehearsal space and play big venues.
99% of everything is Luxury. 99% Rasmus [labelman at Luxury], 1% music.
Luxury signed us when we were 16 and still in high school, and hadn’t Rasmus pushed us and believed in what we did we wouldn’t have got that boost in confidence and released anything on record, that’s all because of him. We would never have recorded anything because we didn’t have any money. Being a high school student is being poor when you just have a small study allowance to live off every month.
There will never be a label like Luxury in Sweden again.
All bands have to deal with being compared to other bands at the beginning of the career, but you must have suffered quite a while now from the never-ending references to Broder Daniel [legendary Swedish indie rock band in the 90s]. Doesn’t it feel that you deserve to stand on your own today?
(laugh) That’s something that has been bothering us a long time, but it’s probably because both bands are from Gothenburg and that we had some Broder Daniel influences on the first album. But it’s much better today. Or maybe we’re better on filtering it out?
It’s quite a boring question to get and we get it often. We’re not “the new” Broder Daniel. It’s much better abroad, no one knows Broder Daniel outside Sweden and we’re labeled shoegaze and post-punk instead, general references and not compared to bands. Our goal is that someone writes that other bands sound like Agent Blå, it actually happened once (laugh).
If you finally have been unleashed from the Broder Daniel chains, how do you think people see you today?
It’s a good question, but we still have to free ourselves from Makthaverskan (laugh) [Gothenburg band, also on Luxury]. That’s a tough one because we supported them quite often, and were on the same label and are close friends. But we don’t sound like them at all!
At the same time, it’s a bit arrogant to say that you have your own sound when not many bands have it at all. You always build on something else because you’re influenced by other bands. We just happened to listen to Broder Daniel quite much when we started Agent Blå (laugh).
Making up for second album mistakes
It’s always exciting when bands explore a different, innovative avenue when creating and recording their material whether it’s about changing the creative process or explore the boundaries of a new musical direction. Agent Blå have continuously evolved because influences change over time when taste in music tends to become more diversified than it was in the early teens. Above all, their creative process and who writes the embryos of new songs tend to change for every new record they write.
At the moment Agent Blå are in the works with their third record and they’ve learned from their mistake of getting into the studio and to record new music to quick, just like they did on their second album “Morning Thoughts”.
If you look at Agent Blå from the outside it feels like you’ve had some sort of strategy because you have released something every year ever since you released your debut, not only singles but EP’s or albums every year.
We just do what Daniel Ek told us to do [the Spotify founder who recommends bands to release new music more frequently which resulted in a furious response from the scene] and release music more frequently. What Daniel says, Agent Blå do (laugh).
The ”Atopos” EP was released two months ago which should mean you’re working on your third album at the moment.
Maybe, but only if we do something about it. We have to rebuild our studio first because there’s almost nothing in it (laugh). But we have six songs ready for the next record, they just need a bit of rework before they’re done.
The last record, our second, was quite a mistake because we recorded the songs as soon as we had finished writing them, and the album didn’t pan out that well for us, but it had nothing to do with the second album syndrome.
We had the songs ready quite early, but we didn’t rehearse them before we started recording the album, and we didn’t had an idea on how we wanted it to sound. It was like we stressed the whole process, went into the studio and recorded it just to get it done. It would have been much better to have waited at least two months and reworked them a bit before we recorded that album.
It sounds to me that you don’t like the second record at all.
Let’s say we’re a bit unhappy about how we did it. Our debut is way better and the “Medium Rare” EP is unbelievably fantastic compared to “Morning Thoughts” (laugh). There’s really no excuse for it. We should have waited a bit, and that’s something we’ve learned when we’re going to record the third album.
Does it mean that there’s a lot of pressure to do something better on the third album?
Not at all actually, just sort of a “We’re gonna do this way better” feeling. The pandemic has been good for us in terms of songwriting, there’s time to focus on writing and rehearsing new music when we don’t have any shows.
What’s more exciting is that we’ve had different people in the band coming up with ideas for songs and other people adding layers to them for every record we’ve released, it’s like we have been taking turns but it has happened organically. Everyone is involved in the final process but how the process starts and continues is quite different. That’s one of the reasons our sound evolves in different directions on our albums and EP’s.
On the upcoming record there may be some super-old songs that we wrote when we were like 15 that didn’t fit it on the debut album. Today, after some rework, they fit much better with our overall sound. It’s kind of fun to discover songs you made a long time and bring them to life later.
But you must have changed as well. You’re a bit older and probably get your influences from somewhere else today, and may not even listen to the same music as you did before your debut record.
Oh my god! Where do we start? This is where the Broder Daniel problem starts.
When we released our first record all of us listened to Makthaverskan and Broder Daniel and it may be reflected in the sound on the first album. There we go again, Broder Daniel is back (laugh)! Back then all of us listened to the same bands, at least we pretended to do it. You know, just like teenagers do (laugh). But it explains why we sounded as we did at the time. Today we have new influences that trickle down into what we write as well [well, not everyone in the band agrees on this. There was a bit of an argument on whether they have different taste in music or not].
To get back to the question, we’ve grown older and listen to more music today and it should be reflected in the songs we write. We haven’t released any songs from the upcoming record but think of it as a mix of Broder Daniel, trip hop, funk and Ariana Grande (laugh).
What has changed most though is that we’ve become better musicians. When we started we couldn’t write to complex songs because we couldn’t play them live. Although we would never claim that we’re extraordinary good musicians today, we’re way better than we were on our first album – and we work well together. It’s a lot easier to have rehearsal sessions and pick out great melodies when we jam together. Everyone knows when there’s a verse or a chorus even if it’s just a jam session. That’s what’s great of having played together for quite a while by now.
Dreaming of touring America
The New Colossus Festivals in March was supposed to kick off a mini-tour on the American East Coast, a great chance to show off for an American audience and boost their name in the American scene.
However, as corona changed the course of events, the band fully engaged in writing new music instead, but they haven’t given up on the idea of touring America as soon as it’s possible again. Or plan. Agent Blå don’t plan anything, they just go where the wind takes them.
After two albums and a few EP’s you’re an established band in the Swedish scene and with an American label I guess that it would be natural for you to try out American soil and the music scene over there. A first step was to work with Kanine Records after Luxury?
We worked with Kanine already during the Luxury era and used Lio, the labelman at Kanine, and his team for distribution abroad. Kanine have released all our records in the US. Lio is just like Rasmus, but American. Super sweet and great to work with; it’s the same kind of feeling we were used to at Luxury. He pushes us to write new music and release stuff all the time. And even better, Kanine have been around since 2002, I guess they have quite much experience.
But it’s just a dream at the moment. Right now it’s more important to write new music to our next record but as soon as the pandemic is over and we can play live again our goal is to tour America. But we need a new record to have something to tour.
It’s a bit unlucky for us to only have an American label in the sense that it’s harder for us to get a push in Sweden and Europe, especially from Westside Music Sweden which is great to work with, but they’re funded by a system that just allows them to help out bands on Swedish labels. The New Colossus Festival booked us, we didn’t go there with Westside although they promoted us in social media. It also means that we have to book showcase festivals in Europe ourselves, and we love to play those festivals like the one in Bilbao [BIME Live] or Focus Wales. Kanine can help us out in the US, Canada and Mexico where they have similar festivals, but we can’t afford to cross the Atlantic several times a year.
But is it a bit of a strategy to work with Kanine just to open up for American tours?
Have we ever been strategic? We’re just going where the wind takes us (laugh)! Of course we have some sort of idea about the future and that involves having a label outside Sweden. But it’s nothing we plan. We don’t meet up for strategy meetings (laugh). The most strategic thing we’ve done is to release new music every year since our first album.
[At this point there was an extensive discussion on how well-planned and strategic their decisions on the band’s future are and there’s an obvious split between those in the band that have ideas about the future and those trying to learn how to spell to ‘strategy’]
Much of the work Rasmus did for us we do ourselves today although Lio at Kanine has a lot of suggestions. But it’s not like he decides what we should do and not, he gives us ideas. Maybe he suggests a specific song as the next single and then we reflect on it and discuss what we want to release, and in the end it’s quite often the same.
Being strategic is more about thinking on what works best instead of releasing what we feel is best, and that could mean that we release a single that isn’t our favourite, but it will give us more attention in the end. But there’s no plan for the next five years, not even the next week (laugh).
Photographer: Björn Vallin
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