So, Robert, first of all, I see the line up is quite changed…. What
happened?
Well, our drummer (Johan Holmberg) left the band due to personal reasons,
and the former key player (Erik Wesser) left to continue his studies at
university.
Too
bad, no more music for him….
No, not at the moment. Not in this life, tho I suppose he’ll keep on
living with music in some way.
Good.
Talking about your new album’s music ( (Too Much Of Everything, Burning
Heart Records),
and talking about the review I made on it, I got to tell you that I found
that album a lot different from the last one. “World Wide Delivery"
was definitely a 360° ska album. There was reggae, ska, dub, rocksteady
and a little bit of ragga, while...
...while
there’s not much of that in this one.
Well,
to be honest, I’ve always considered you, since the “This is
Liberator" times, one of the most interesting European bands because of
your distinguish sound. But this time I think that “Too much of
everything" has a strongest rock n’roll and punk influence
more than ska or reggae…
Let
me explain. It’s a matter of opportunities of choices. We had the
possibility to record a lot more songs that the ones that were put on the
album, and choosing between them, we just happened to put on the album
those that were the less ska just because we liked ‘em more. We might
even do an e.p. with the excluded tracks. Definitely I agree with you: Too
Much Of Everything is not a ska album.
So
I think I’m right if I tell you that Liberator
is looking for a new kind of audience...
Yes,
that’s right.
So
don’t you think that it could be dangerous to leave one mainstreet when
your traditional audience expects you to play ska?
(New
Key Player): Yesterday, in Torino (first date of a short European
tour in Italy, Yugoslavia and Germany), the support band was a ska band;
the DJ was ska and there were skinheads as well. So the audience was
surely expecting a ska show, but instead they heard this kind of strange
mix….
Andreas:
they were a bit confused….
Robert:
….at the beginning I saw the skins with their arms folded, but then I
saw them dancing to the rhythm as well. Wherever you go, it’s always
different. It seems to me that here in Italy they want more ska than in
our country. In Sweden it could be that people won’t go to a ska show
because there’s Liberator playing somewhere else. The truth is that
we’re not really looking for a new audience or a different audience, we
like our audience. We’re just trying to make a different music.
But
I’m a bit of a precise and malicious guy and I thought that your changes
where a bit influenced by the fact that you’re recording for a label
which is more punk oriented, so you’ve been trying to reach that kind of
audience. Tho I must say that your style has never been really “soft".
The
exact word is: punky-ska.
I
personally think that Too Much of Everything is a good album, tho I must
say that I asked myself if there was a real need to review
it for SkabadiP, since there just for songs that have a ska influence.
I
believe that for a typical ska audience, the new record could be hardly
understood, but there’s also a track with traditional rhythms like
“Once you start (you can’t stop)".
Yes,
that’s true, tho it’s still in your own Liberator style.
Yeah!!!
Yeah,
ok, but in this new album there’s also a “Rocker’s revolution"
which is one of the most hard and violent tracks in the album…. And to
tell you the truth, I’d much rather a “ska revolution". But don’t
tell the guys in Liberator...
(they
all laugh) You see , there’s a bit of difference between the sound that
came out in the final production, on the album, and our own typical live
sound. Even when we play hard stuff, our sound is still a traditional
sound but it could also happen that some kind of melody we like does not
fit in a traditional ska style so we might get something from different
experiences.
Actually,
if I have to think of what we’ve done so far, I think we never played a
ska-beat or a reggae-beat; it’s more something like a swing-beat, that
works also with different rhythms and that makes people dance.
(Key
Player): this album’s sound is very different from the other records we did;
but we’ve done it because we believe that people will react just as
positively as we had fun doing this album. I can say this because I had to
listen to all the Liberator stuff to
get prepared for this tour.
So
what’s your favourite album then?
(Key
Player): it’s hard to say because every album has it’s own qualities, but I
guess that my fave is World wide delivery; I also have to say that since
I’ve joined the band, Liberator
have become amazingly better!!!
(everybody laughs…)
(Robert):
another
importan point is that we took about an year of hard work to release
“Too Much Of Everything". No live show, just 15 days in summer and
then only studio work. We worked on this album more than we did for all
the others together.
Sure
I believe that’s the reason why you can really feel that there’s a
great job and a great production behind the album.
Thank
you, we’re really happy with Too Much Of Everything.
Seem
to me that also the lyrics have quite changed. Am I wrong?
(the
guys now look very intereste in what I’m talking about, and after saying
“A-Ha", they let me explain my views….
It
seemed to me that World Wide Delivery was more oriented on the sentimental
aspects of live, like the relationship with your woman or your lover. In
Too Much Of Everything it seems more into the social aspects of life,
criticizing the way some people behave, live and do politics.
(they look enthusiastic that I paid attention to the lyrics).
People
generally don’t really care about the lyrics…
Did
you really listen to lyrics??
Sure
I did! Sometimes I even sing along with Robert when he’s on the stereo!
(we
all laugh)
Yes,
I have to say that also the lyrics deal with different topics from the
other albums, but the fact is that Too Much Of Everything is a special
work to us…..it’s like if we’ve put in everything Liberator
is about, our experiences, impressions, all in one album. You see
why it’s called Too Much Of Everything?? (laughs)
I
personally liked the melancholy “21st anniversary". Where
did you get the inspiration to that song?
I
guess it’s a sensation that you often feel in some old couples:
they’ve got nothing else to say to each other, but they’re together
since too long. Once it wasn’t that easy to separate and then divorce,
there was a different mentality, so, after 20 years living together it was
clear that they weren’t happy together but they don’t have the courage
to quit.
I
really liked also “Better Days" where there seems to me there’s a Madness
piano riff….
Very
good, you got it!!
We
weren’t really happy that we had copied that Madness
piano riff, but it was something that came out all by its own, playing
that song, so we thought that it would fit and we let it there. But you
know what? Do tyou remember that Madness’
song title?
(huge
embarassment by the Prophe who admits) No, actually I can’t remember...
It’s
“One better day"
Yeah,
that’s true….. from the “keep on moving" album of 1984.
(Robert
starts singing that song) It’s one of the best songs of that album…
In
“Louder Than Words" you say that actions have more powerful impact
that words….what kind of actions?
You
see Sergio, I’s easy to talk and it’s easy to play rock ‘n roll but
it’s so difficult to do
something to change things. You might criticize people for what they do,
but then, maybe, we’re doing worse. We criticize that kind of people
even though we know how easy it is to talk and hard to really do
something. Politicians are on top of that.
Song
n°10, “Get yourself together", is a typical example of the variety of
different musical styles you did get inspiration in this album: in its
rhythm structure it’s really soul/R&B!
Yeah,
it’s quite much like that. It’s the last song we recorde and our
feeling were pretty different….. in that song even our producer did put
something in. He’s a guitar player and played the rhythm guitar in that
track. We really liked the result.
In
the single cd called “Everybody wants it all" there’s something more
similar to ska/reggae rhythms. “It hurts so good" and “Heatwave"
are due cool reggae rocksteady tunes. So, what are your intentions then?
We
recorded those songs during the “world wide delivery" sessions. We got
a single out of that album, “Christine",
but we didn’t include those two songs. We thought we liked to put
them out now. They’re kinda live songs, with three keyboards. We only
added the brass section later. Well, it was fun. We had those two songs
and wanted to put them out in some way.
So
I guess we con hope for some new single with some ska tracks out of this
album’s sessions soon?
Sure. As
I told you, we did more songs than the ones we put on the record, and we
might put some of them out sooner or later.
That’s
what we did with “World wide delivery" as well…
We
took a lot more time to record this album than our first one (“This is
Liberator", 1996). We did that CD in 4 days, we took two weekends and
didn’t really have a big budget. We spent the rest of our time playing
live.
Liberator
change something in every recording they’ve done. We always change
something because when you listen to what you’ve done, you’ll think of
how you’d like it to sound next time: things you’ll add, things
you’ll cut and so on. It’s like we’re always searching for a perfect
sound, from time to time, a
more “live" sound, just like in “this is liberator" or maybe a
harder sound like in “Carefully Blended" (mini cd 1997).
This
new album is like it’s a new “This is Liberator". Totally new stuff,
without looking back.
I
have to say that your lyrics, besides being generally serious or cynically
ironic are…..
...depressing!
(we laugh)
I
would say: not happy at all...
I
guess it’s interesting to play such a music with a dance sound and such
lyrics…. Depression has always been in the middle of dance halls!
Remember the Pet Shop Boys?
They had such depressing lyrics, but still, everybody danced at their
songs
And
what about you video, that I still hadn’t the chance to
see….. did it come out the way you expected?
It’s
really funny! We had a lot of fun doing it. It’s on TMC
2.
I’m
lucky! I can’t get that channel…..no MTV?
You know, a couple of years ago with Hepcat
going on MTV I thought: “WOW!
Traditional ska climbing the charts in the pop world…. (everybody
laughs) How could it be that ska is not in the charts like in the two tone
era? How comes there isn’t a single ska band that sells records?
When
ska was born in Jamaica, in the sixties, it was nothing that pop music. It
was mainly live pop music. They were nothing but pop songs, and some of
them reached the charts in the UK, like “My boy Lollypop" by Millie. I
think the whole thing got sick, with all those American labels releasing
tons of records…. I happened to listen to great bands, but some were
awful. In Germany we played with such a crappy band that Peter, our
trombone player, was embarrassed when it was time to go on stage and play
‘cos he didn’t want his music to be compared with that crap.
So,
Liberator, what do you expect from
this album?
First
of all, what do I expect from this tour: we play in the places where we
already had exposure and had fans, so to get stronger fans for the future.
You know, it’s so hard to do like many American bands that are
continuously on tour. They can’t stop. They have to get money to live
and have no time to stop in the studio. This could bring those bands to a
lower quality music.
If
you say that, I think of New
York Ska Jazz En or Toasters
who frequently come over to Italy.
I
guess they’re having fun, but it’s such a hard work.
Ah,
I almost forgot to say that I really
loved “Cut Back (Will Hit Back)". A great soul/reggae song…
Well,
then you’ll love the live version….it’s perfect for you!
Why?
‘cos
it will shake you in the middle of the dancehall: on the album, there’s
two acoustic guitars on that track, but here we have just one electric
guitar. You’ll hear a different version from the album.
I
think we can say that the live one is the SkabadiP version of “Cut
Back"!
Well,
thanks then, I’ll tell Alessandro who is going to be proud to have his
own SkabadiP version of “Cut Back"
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