Starmarket
The Swedish alternative indie rock band ”Starmarket”
will do a reunion concert in Stockholm in December of 2018. It must have been
close to 15 years back since we heard any signs of the band. The band have
released indierock classics like “Sunday´s Worst Enemy” and “Four Hours Light” just
to mention a few records from their brilliant back catalogue. We managed to get
hold of vocalist and guitarist Fredrik Brändström to catch up on things. Here´s
what he had to say about the past and the future.
Photo: Starmarket (Facebook)
First of all really great to have “Starmarket” back,
if only for one reunion concert (and a Japan-tour in 2019). How did the process
of deciding to do the reunion concert come about? What´s your initial thoughts
about this special concert?
Fredrik: Thanks! We called it quits around 2005, and since
then we have played only a handful of shows. The band had not been active for
many years when we got the question from Björn Olsewski from Start/Stop. He was
friends with our drummer Pontus Levahn, and often told Pontus that he would
like to arrange a show with Starmarket. It took over a year from the moment he
first asked us until we finally said Ok, lets go! So it was quite a long
process. We weren’t sure really what to expect, if people would care enough to
show up at the concert. After all it had been a while since we were around in
the scene. But the response has been overwhelming. Everyone seems very excited
which has been amazing to see.
Motala Folkets Park 1996.
Back in the 1990´s you were part of the wave of punk,
hardcore and indie rock that swept through Sweden. Back then Internet were just
starting to make an impact on the world. These days all bands have their own
Facebook to communicate with fans etc. How would you describe the music climate
back then? Back in the 1990´s you still had to order records trough mail order
or alternatively pick up a copy in your local music store(!)
Fredrik: It was a lot different when I grew up. You heard new
bands on the radio, and then went down to the local record dealer, who ordered
the record. It took maybe 2 weeks before it finally came,
but then you were probably the only one in the whole town who had the record,
which was also a pretty magical feeling, in retrospect. Then when we started
playing in bands, you wrote your post address on the album, so letters was the usual
way of communication with other band and with fans. When I started to search
through our old boxes recently, I found lots of hand written letters, from the
US, Japan, and Europe, even Sweden.
"Sunday´s Worst Enemy". Vinyl Edition.
You were also the generation that remembers Swedish
Z-TV and MTV, when they were still focusing on music. These days bands produce
music videos, yet how would you describe the importance of TV and Radio back
then?
Fredrik: For me, growing up in a small town in the north of
Sweden, radio was almost the only way where you got to hear new music, there
was weekly show called "Bommen" which I taped every Sunday. They played mostly
alternative music from The US, Great Britain and Sweden, so that was very
important for me. This was in the late 80’s.And of course ZTV was important for
Swedish indie bands in the mid 90’s. Our first video “Amber” was a very low
budget production, but nevertheless got a lot of air time in the beginning, so
that definitely helped us a lot.
It´s always interesting when you almost prophetically
happen to think of something and then just some time later it happens. The
other day we were ripping the CD-version of your album “Sunday´s Worst Enemy”
from 1997. It´s always good to have a back-up on your external harddrive of
your favorite and hard-to-get albums. Could you tell us a bit about the process
in making “Sunday´s Worst Enemy”? Lyrically what influenced you and musically?
Fredrik: We recorded it in Tonteknik in Umeå early 1997, the
studio which later got famous because Refused recorded “Shape of Punk” there.
“Sundays” was at least for me very inspired by my years in Umeå (I moved there
from Piteå in 1993). The sound is a lot heavier than our first album, and it
has a lot of energy which came from listening a lot to hardcorepunk and going
to hardcore shows in Umeå. The attitude is very defiant and “in your face”,
although the melodies are poppy and catchy.
You played in almost every small town in Sweden,
including Ljungby back in 1995, documented by our friend behind the
Youtube-channel “Rolling Rockvideos”. You also played in Japan and if we
remember correctly did some turns around Europe. Can you recall some early
touring memories?
Fredrik: Yes we did a couple of tours in Europe, especially in Germany.
And in Sweden, we played almost every small town, like you said. In these days
you could do a 1-2 week tour in Sweden, playing every night. Even if you were a
small band. It wasn’t very glamorous. If you got a hotel room to sleep in it
was considered a luxury, mostly we slept at peoples houses. But all the touring
made us a very good live band.
Poster for the reunion concert in Stockholm 15/12-2018.
One saying goes that don´t ever mention “politics or
religion” if you don´t want to kill a good conversation. Looking back at the
1990´s and comparing with today, it´s perhaps fair to say that Sweden was quite
a socialistic state and today the more conservative elements has started to
take over the political climate. With “Starmarket” it seemed that you avoided
the obvious political references in your lyrics and perhaps you were more
introvert or personal in your lyrics? Would you agree with this or is it pure
overanalyzing from us?
Fredrik: I find it very hard to make great political lyrics,
even if I have political views and thoughts like most people. For me it never
felt quite right, you have to write about what feels natural to you, and for me
it was always natural to write about my own life and feelings than to present a
“message”.
Back to the present. Can we expect some more touring
from “Starmarket” in 2018 or 2019, or is this really just one-off?
Fredrik: A Japan tour is planned in January! Then we will see.
We haven’t made any exact plans after that, but for the moment we really enjoy
playing together again.
Could you tell us who will be in the band for this
reunion, because at one point you even had the Granberg-clan from the band
“Randy” playing with you?
Fredrik: It’s the same line up we have had since around 2001.
Pontus Levahn on drums, Jesper Löfroth on guitar. Jesper started playing with
us around 1999, on Four Hours Light, and Pontus came onboard just before “Song
of Songs”. And me and Patrik Bergman of course, we have been the only constant
members over the years, since we do all the songwriting. Yes, Fredrik and
Stefan from Randy played on our first album, and were certainly influential in
that they added a little more punk attitude to our indie rock/pop songs. The
songs definitely got a lot faster with Fredrik on the drums!
Will there be any reissues of your old albums at any
point? Perhaps some 180 gram LP-vinyls in limited editions with demos and live
recordings as bonus stuff? Swedish “P3 Live” did record you and perhaps you
could get hold of these tapes?
Fredrik: That would have been cool! Yeah, we have planned to do
a reissue of our old records on vinyl, the first white album will be released
soon on Assembly Line Records, (on white vinyl of course) with two additional
bonus tracks. We are very excited about this since the CD:s are out of print
and quite hard to get, plus that record has never been released on vinyl
before!
Is there any last reflections that you would like to
bring forward for us?
Fredrik: If someone would have told me 5 years ago that
Starmarket would be on stage again, 25 years after we started the band, I would
not have believed it. So I guess you should never say never! Hope to see you at
the show in Stockholm!
Many thanks for taking your time to answer the
questions for us! See you later on!
More info here:
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