Ahead of the release of their new album, Ceremonies, which we reviewed here, we sent Gilbert to talk to Swedish indie/post-rock band Ef. We really enjoyed these responses from drummer Niklas Åström, and we even got a fart reference - the only thing in the world more universal than music. Enjoy!
(((o))): How much of your life is devoted to Ef?
Ef: Well, it differs from person to person within the band. But EF means a lot to everyone. Over the years we’ve recorded the albums, designed the covers, made the tour posters, booked the tours, managed the band etc etc. And besides this we try to create and write musical tunes, release them and tour a lot to spread ‘em. So… A lot of our lives are put into EF.
(((o))): People categories types of music because it helps us to describe it, but we also argue about whether music like yours is indie rock because it has vocals, or post-rock because of its structure and instrumentation. It's so much easier to identify the genre of a film or book. Why do you think music is so hard to describe with words?
Ef: For us we always try to describe our music with colours, places or feelings. Kind of like a painter, a photographer or a philosopher… But we do music and honestly we don’t care that much what you categories it as as long as you like it. We’re highly influenced by post rock and indie rock bands – it’s nothing that we’re embarrassed over. But we’re also influenced by metal bands, old pop heroes like MJ and classical music such as Wagner.
(((o))): Which is more important in conveying the emotion of your music- the words you sing or the way the words sound?
Ef: How it sounds! Of course we put some time in finding the right words but if they don’t float very well into the music we rather find others. It all need to be in symbiosis. From the very beginning we promised ourselves to never sing about politics or religion. We don’t want to make a stand with our music – even if we’re highly engaged/involved people. We rather sing about dreamy stuff that you can interpret however you want. And hopefully they also make you feel something.
(((o))): Sweden has a reputation for being a country with far more metal bands per population than almost any other country. How does a band like Ef fit into the picture? Does this give you more room to find an audience than another metal band would?
Ef: I wouldn’t say so. The Swedish metal scene haven’t given EF anything. But while touring Europe we see a lot of metal heads at our concerts which we find amazing. I think people in Sweden are a little bit too much “hardcore” – no matter what music genre you’re into. But I totally agree, there’s a lot of great metal bands in Sweden… Or at least used to be.
(((o))): You've toured a lot over the years. It sounds romantic, but the reality can be very different. What are the emotions you go through during a tour? How does it impact on those around you and your loved ones?
Ef: Oh man, you should only know. Touring is one of the most funniest things you can do. You meet so much people, eat great food, drink free beer, see beautiful places etc etc. But it’s certainly no vacation – specially not for DIY bands as us. You play every night, you sleep for 5 hours, you drive for 6 hours cramped into a van with 6 other smelly dudes and carry heavy stuff when you arrive. Then you get fed and wait for show time (the funny hour). Now we can finally burst our hearts out for real – for 60 minutes. And then it starts all over again… Your bodies get sore and your mind gets totally fucked. You have no idea about what’s happening in the world when you’re in this bubble. All you know is what to do, when to do it and how your best friends farts smell like. Do that sound romantic to You? Well – in one way it is. Because tour memories is stuff you ALWAYS carry with you, and something we always fall back on when discussing happy times. It’s pure hate-love.
(((o))): You've now been around for around ten years. What are the highlights?
Ef: There’s so many highlights… You can almost find one highlight in each live show even if it’s only 15 people in the audience. But the biggest highlight must have been when we flew over to Asia for the first time. Such a different culture and we had no idea what to expect. But venues were packed, food great and the people was SO lovely. Another highlight was probably to hold our first CD album “Give me beauty… Or give me death!” when it arrived. “Fuck, this is for real…”.
(((o))): If your new record was an animal, what would it be? Is it a different animal on the inside than it is on the outside?
Ef: A bear. It’s warm, hairy and cozy but full of aggression that lurks behind that cute fluffy face which attacks explosively quick. But if you just become friend with it – it will keep you warm during winter and carry you on it’s back and protect you during summer.
(((o))): You gave us a taste of the new album “Ceremonies” with the beautiful EP “Delusions of Grandeur” last year and kept one of the songs – a thread holding the two together. Is the album a collection of unrelated songs or did you set out to create an album with a theme or story? How do you see the relationship with the EP?
Ef: “Delusions of grandeur” EP was the first song we created as a quintet. It kind of took us in a new direction that we refer to as “the pop-ish sound”. Emanuel and Erik that joined us are long time friend and been with us a live musicians or worked with us in the studio. But there presence in the song writing really changed our old way of looking at music and creating songs. It became more pop-oriented in the way that we started to think more about harmonies, refrain/verse-parts (even if that hardly exists) and keep “red threads” through the songs. We also implanted much more vocals and possibly even more melodies and arrangements.
“Delusions of grandeur” is a great song (probably my favorite still) and I believe it fits very well sound wise with the other new songs at the album that we also been writing with Emanuel and Erik. Another reason was that the song only got released on vinyl – and we know a lot of our fans don’t have vinyl and we want to provide it to them on compact disc.
(((o))): What inspired the song 'Yield, Heart. Yield!'
Ef: Forget what I said above… Haha… “Yield, heart. Yield!” was the first song we wrote together, and also played live during summer 2011 (I believe there’s a live clip from Hamburg of it and we called the song “Kiel”). But of course it sounded TOTALLY different back then… Much more monotonous and “raw” and we had no vocals on it. Before entering the studio we were actually about to forget about it / skip it. But I continued to nag on the guys and beg for us to at least try it out in the rehearsal space. Said and done, everyone loved it and we just felt we needed to rearrange it a lot. And add vocals – loads of vocals, catchy vocals, high pitch vocals, sexy voice vocals, choirs… and that funk bass line at second refrain. Gosh! It turned out extremely schizophrenic, catchy and great.
(((o))): The covers for both the EP and the album are so beautiful. Who is responsible for them?
Ef: It’s a Swedish guy called Staffan Larsson who works as an illustrator. We were about to release “Mourning golden morning” in 2010 and needed someone to take care of the cover art. Earlier albums have been based on photographs but we wanted a cover that felt more like artwork. Someone recommended us to contact him – that we’d like his work – and we f***ing loved it! We wanted it to have the feel of 70’s children books with very natural and deep colours and with a artwork that was a little bit psychedelic without becoming to much “magic mushroom”. The “Mourning golden morning”, “Delusions of grandeur EP” and the new “Ceremonies” covers are all a part of the triology-story about the big bird collecting flowers from the ocean to decorate his captured ship… yeah. Haha. It sounds very “magic mushroom”-ish now.
(((o))): What music are you listening to at the moment?
Ef: All of us are listening to such varied music. Both bands and genres. Everything from black metal, Pitchfork-hyped indie rock, hip hop to old classical heroes such as Wagner. Personally I’m listening a lot to the latest Kanye West album and the Efterklang live album for that Piramida concert with a massive orchestra. It’s amazing!
(((o))): You are touring again soon – what can audiences expect? What kind of beer should they buy you after the show?
Ef: Well – we’ll play many of the new songs and some old favourites. We’ll work a lot more with lights (and darkness). And of course we’ll throw our guitars around and hearts out. And burst into flames. Night after night after night…
