david fridlund | november 2004

where are all these swedish bands coming from? well, sweden, obviously. but those of you who cower in dismay shouting "how?! why?!", calm down a minute & notice that the reason for this scandinavian invasion is that there is some amazing music coming out at the moment, and you could do a lot worse than to hush up & have a little listen to one hidden gem in particular.

indeed, this is the band that gave belly ache it's name: possessors of brilliantly melodic songwriting, beauty-and-horror poetic lyrics, & a biting and kicking live show to boot. but don't worry; they wont hurt you.
not the punk fuelled garage rock of the hives or vintage hippy chic of the concretes, these are but five gentlemen, known by the enlightened as david & the citizens.

belly ache had the pleasure of talking to david whilst awaiting the release of his new solo album.

it's 1pm in london, & raining in malmö...
belly ache: so, you've been recording a solo album?
david fridlund: yes, my brother, sara and i have been working since early march on this solo album of mine. it's finished and should actually come to print today, hopefully... then i just have to wait for the reviews...

ba: if the citizens material is anything to go by the reviews will be excellent - how does the process of writing & recording work differently doing a project without the band? is there much difference apart from the number of people involved?
df: well, i don't have to compromise with anyone. not that it's usually a problem, but sometimes magnus and i have different opinions on things.
i've tried to think a bit differently in terms of arranging the songs this time: less power-pop and more basic piano songs. concentrating on the melodies more i guess.

ba: so we can expect a lot of piano then? have you done anything else interesting regarding instrumentation or production that you wouldn't usually do?
df: lot's of piano. i've worked a little on different ambient sounds, not a lot, but it's the first time i've used synthesizers at all. and a drum-machine on one track. johan (who co-produced the record) contributed some as well, since he's a computer-guy who knows those things...

ba: excellent! so where has the inspiration for the songs come from? or was this pure experimentation?
df: well, at first i thought i'd do an instrumental ep, with 4-5 songs, but then i got a scholarship and i bought a piano and wrote a lot of songs that didn't quite fit the citizens. i guess the theme on the songs are basically the same as always; that is, life and death and everything in between. you have a lot of time to think about things when you don't have to go to a job.

ba: & the choice to use synthesizers for the first time?
df: i don't know, but i wanted to do something that didn't sound excactly like the citizens. which is hard, since i do all the writing and singing there, as well...

ba: you definitely have a firm imprint on the citizens, including in the art work, so have you done the art for this release as well?
df: no - the cover for this one is actually from an embroidery my brother bought at a fleamarket.
ba: are there a lot of them in sweden? (you're going to tell me he doesn't live in sweden now aren't you?)
df: no, he lives in sweden. on the street round the corner actually and yes, there are some fleamarkets in sweden, but people from stockholm and germany buy all the good stuff, leaving only the poor leftovers for us mortals...

ba: sounds bad - how mean! but back to the album... will you be touring it soon?
df: i hope we'll be touring in jan-feb with my solo stuff. i've just spoken to my agent about that. the citizens might be doing a small tour in germany in march, however that's not decided yet.

ba: you seem to go to some pretty far out places that you wouldn't expect from bands in the uk; is that usual of artists in sweden? our music industry tends to be pretty sheltered really...
df: well, its almost impossible to get a good gig in the uk if you're not a huge band, which we're not. in germany it seems like any band can play just about anywhere; they're really interested in hearing new bands and they aren't spoiled, so they actually pay and stay the concert.

ba: so germany know where it's at. you've played in london a few times now though... it seems the majority of people who turn up are actually from sweden, but apart from that have you had the 'privilage' of the arms-crossed "entertain us" london crowds?
df: hmm, the london crowd is hard... me, magnus and sara played an acoustic gig at notting hill arts club about a year ago: that was really snobbish and a lot of crossed arms.
but i think people have liked us though. we played at the spitz once which was really nice... actually, we've played there twice.

ba: now that i did not know! how do people react to your music in other countries, & indeed sweden? do you have a nice home crowd?
df: in sweden, we've built a good, growing crowd. it seems more people like us every year. i guess anything from 500 to 3000 people would come to see us at festivals. or depending on the venue... but in general, people are surprised when they go to our shows - there's a lot of energy when we play live. and we do sound a bit different from most bands. people like the trumpet as well. it gets them going...
ba: good! and magnus flaunts it so well.
df: we're considered a party-band in germany. or at least the flyers said so everywhere we went. however, there's more to the music than party, and in sweden, or anywhere really, people really seem to like that.

ba: you do sound different - i think the closest comparison i've heard is bright eyes, but connor's live show doesn't have the same energy as the citizens...
df: tell me about bright eyes... we've heard that a million times. but it's ok; it's a good band, but a little too introvert on stage. i don't listen to them anymore, but i respect connor oberst and i think he's a brilliant songwriter. one of the rare ones that actually seem to live his music, like the citizens have always done.

ba: so you don't listen to them anymore, who are you listening to at the moment?
df: i don't listen to a lot of music, but as we speak we have lambchop in the stereo. also i like the postal service a lot. i'm impressed by the mixture of pop and electronica. very very good.

ba: we've come a long way since the 80s!
well, that's my questions exhausted, unless you have anything you want to mention?
df: no, i'm happy. however i hope to come to the uk to play, either with my solo stuff or with the citizens. if only it wasn't so hard to get a decent gig over there...

well when he does come over i for one will definitely be there & consider it your mission to be there yourself. for news of david's solo work, & more on david & the citizens, check onto their website at thecitizens.nu

mighty thanks to david, sara & jason

hundred handed | december 2004

many moons ago, i went to see a band called "the german exchange" at the barfly monarch, for no particular reason, but i'd heard a rumour they were good. i wasn't disappointed, and as time went by they miraculously became the hundred handed, & somewhere along the line their on parade ep found it's way through my letter box & into my cd player.
it's some time on from those magical days, but with a gig planned in the good ol' east london just days before christmas, what better time to tell you all about quite a wonderful band...

ben & dan found time to answer some questions about the e.p, the forthcoming album, and keeping with the seasonal bellyache theme, christmas. they also gave us an insight to their gig on the 21st (details at the bottom of the interview, & check their website for more info & flyers)

bellyache: who are you, & how would you describe your sound if you were asked by someone like... bellyache?
dan: we're benjamin reynolds, moh rahman, alex norman, ben beare & dan barrett. what do you think we sound like ruth?
ba: like nothing ever heard before! there's something quite quaint & military about you i think, but i have to try really hard to find someone to compare you with - it seems that musically you stand alone...
dan: i'd like to think that we sound like an english art-rock band in the 70s tradition (e.g. roxy music), but with less fat & more steel.
ben: incendiary!

ba: who do you get musical inspiration from? & what music/artists do you usually listen to?
ben: first, it's hard to get any inspiration from our peers because you can see where they're coming from - wearing their influences on their sleeves - and then you just compare them to one band or another and rarely they're any better.
dan: this is a difficult question to answer without writing an essay. i think that we get a great deal of musical inspiration from each other, for starters. we're mostly self-taught (i think alex had a few drum lessons) and i never wanted to emulate slash or eddie van halen or whoever - i've always just picked up a guitar and played. the initial ideas for songs are similarly spontaneous. ben's especially good at structuring songs, and we work with our ideas over a long period of time before something is 'finished'.
ben: certain interests are easy to see in the music like david bowie, iggy pop, roxy music, captain beefheart, television and fugazi. but the end result is very much our own and lyrically the influences are from a very different place.
dan: personally, this year i've listened to a fair bit of jazz (monk, coltrane, mingus), a fair bit of metal (especially mastodon & isis), some old stuff (neil young, crazy horse, the band) and some new stuff (the futureheads).
ben: maybe the new material will see the band shifting towards jazz-metal? who knows?
dan: i know that the hundred handed will only take a jazz-metal direction over ben's dead body, but there are elements in both musical styles that i subscribe to. however, there's a great deal of grandstanding in metal and jazz, and that's just not us.
ben: no.
dan: sometimes i get sick of other people's music and have to give my head a rest - i think ben's had the same feeling at times too.

ba: regarding the on parade ep: when did you record it? what was the aim behind the recordings & music at that point? ie: what were you trying to convey as a band?
dan: i can't remember when we recorded it exactly - it was over a year ago. it started out as an expensive lesson in how not to go about making a record, but the 3 tracks that we had done were salvaged by our legendary 6th member dom lethbridge. we then added a couple of new tracks recorded with dom and in many ways it formed the blueprint for our current, more "d i y" ethic.
at the time we were trying to produce a more representative document of the band - we've always played around with different styles but (perhaps because of this) we hadn't yet put a coherent set of songs together. we hoped that the e.p. would cement our identity, both for us and for the listener.

ba: how has that changed or developed in the time since the ep coming out, if at all?
dan: because of the circumstances surrounding the ep it still sounds disjointed. i can't distance myself from it, so i don't know how it sounds to the listener.
ba: i picked up the ep again the other day & gave it a good listening to; it sounded good as ever to me. it is pretty old now though so i guess naturally you would have moved on, but it still sounds static & curious & intense, which was why i liked it in the first place... & that bassline in a lazy complaint.
dan: to be honest it seems really outdated to me now, especially considering the quality of the songs that have been written since the ep. i think that 'a question of etiqutte' and 'a lazy complaint' came out best, but i know that if we were to record the same 5 songs tomorrow it would sound completely different.

ba: you've been quite quiet for a while - what's been going on in camp hundred handed since getting the ep done & now?
ben: taken our time - done a little thinking - recorded an album in an old sunday school by a farm. in fact my old sunday school - but not my old farm. my doctor recommended i take some country air - so who better to spend it with than these boys.
dan: in september we went back to cornwall to play at a wedding. we dressed up and brought the house down, so to speak. we also got a genuine encore. some songs were more successful than others, although the al green song 'love & happiness' is still the band favourite.
ben: things have changed for the band over the year - new leaves being turned and all that - but we've had a great deal of positive support from friends old and new and i think that (thanks to them) we've got a clear idea of what we're going to do next.

ba: can you tell us great wondrous things about the album?
dan: the album contains the best songs that we've ever done. some of it will make you get up and dance, some of it will make you sing yourself hoarse and some of it will make you fall to your knees and weep.
ben: i beg of you, readers, that you come up to dan and tell him one of our songs made you "fall to your knees and weep". he has a little thing about it.
dan: i do! it's my only measure of success! i lose count of the number of times that i've listened to the rough mixes, but there's one song where ben's vocals never fail to send a shiver down my spine.
ben: ah, back to my home village... maybe that rural influence was going to come through at some point - but with any hope what you will hear is a far cry from folk and something that can give a different voice to growing up in the country - something touched on by some of p.j. harvey's early stuff. i feel very removed from this urban sound pushed by the nme, etc. there needs to be something countering this.
it's hard to argue that any guitar music is pushing the boundaries these days, but we're perhaps ploughing a neglected furrow in our own way. growing up in the country means you have to get used to the solitude, but it gives you an inbuilt optimism and i think that the album reflects this.
dan: of course, we didn't all grow up in the country, but i agree with ben that there's a particular feeling of confidence and individuality coming through on these songs. not sure that you can say there isn't any guitar music pushing the boundaries though - isn't it more the case that too much modern guitar music is working within boundaries that were set in the last 40 years?

ba: changing the subject, what are you looking forward to about this christmas? have you found the christmas spirit yet this year? put the tree up? eaten many mince pies? collected a copius supply of brandy/sherry/babycham/[insert appropriate seasonal beverage here]?
ben: i have recently tried babycham after years of bated breath. replace bated with morning.
dan: i haven't got the christmas spirit as yet, but i'm looking forward to hanging out with the family (all four of us) and having a marathon scrabble session. it's been decided that we're not going to spend much money on presents this year, so i'm expecting to come back to london with a can of soup, a pair of socks and a handful of buttons.
ben: i've decked the hall with someone elses holly - but i wouldn't condone stealing so don't take me up on this.

ba: what can we expect as we flock to the on the rocks gig on the 21st?
dan: you can expect an "incendiary" performance.
ben: i said that earlier!
ba: i am scared you're planning to burn us all now!

what do you hope the new year holds for the hundred handed?
dan: i hope that the album will be finished in the spring and that we can have the mother of all parties to launch it. i hope to play more gigs outside of the m25, and some less 'conventional' gigs in london too. i hope that somebody gives us a great deal of money so that we can build our own studio. most of all i hope that we can continue to make music together and on our own terms.

ba: anything else you would like to add?
dan: expect new mp3s from the album on www.hundredhanded.com next year. we're also going to put together some sort of 'album diary'. finally, i'll be perfecting the recipe for 'hundred handed biscuits'.
ben: think garibaldi's with a difference.
dan: thankyou for the opportunity to speak!

thank you both for a fabulous interview, the pleasure's all mine!
if you think you're game enough to brave the apparently inevitable fire of a hundred handed gig, to warm the cockles before christmas, they're playing at on the rocks on tuesday 21st december, on stage 9pm, £5, £4 w/flyer, @ 25 kingsland road (near old street tube). be there, & fall to your knees & weep. okay!

hundredhanded.com