EF

From the western part of Sweden hailing from the city of Gothenburg and with more than 15 years under their belts, the alternative rockband “EF” has toured and released many records and found their own unique trademark which can be a rare thing within the world of music. 

                                Courtesy: EF

First of all how´s 2019 been so far for the band, and what are your plans for the remaining parts of this year?

EF: The members of EF are becoming older. EF members are becoming fathers. EF members are getting houses and more demanding job positions. EF members daily priorities are changing. They also have been but with age comes responsibility. Boring answer huh?! Well 2019 is pretty much as every year the last 4-5 years have been. EF members are having appointments in the studio, writing songs, drinking beer, telling stupid jokes and planning what to do the rest of the year. We’ve planned to release something in the fall. That’s the songs we’re currently writing. We tried one of them live last year and it got pretty nice feedback. Many fans thinks it reminds of ”old EF”. I mean we’re older now so I guess they mean the young EF ;) Anyhow; with a possible new release there´s possibly some shows to support it coming up. We’ve already announced a indoor festival in Munster, Germany for November. Excited about this one since we’ll only play instrumental songs. A demand from the festival promoters.

You started out in the early 2000´s. What do you remember from those early days?

EF: The 2000’s was a blur. A constant ”virrvarr” of everything. Life was beautiful but also a big hangover. We had butterflies in our stomachs, toured a lot, put EF on the postrock map. No beards but beautiful melodies. 2000 - it was also the birth of the modern post rock scene and so many great bands was coming up. Like "Explosions in the sky". "65 days of static". "Red Sparrows". "the Album Leaf". "Mono" etc etc. We shared stage with a lot of ’em. We had new upcoming bands opening up for us in Europe. Bands like "Caspian" and "This Will Destroy You", bands that have gained great international success. EF haven’t.

When looking through your touring history one can find that “EF” did play two smaller festivals, “Gullbränna” and “Frizon” in Sweden, both which also had a “Christian stamp” on it. Is your believes important for you or has it changed during all these years? Could the world do with more Jesus and less “politricks”?

EF: We have never believed in ANYTHING except each other and humanity. Friendship and love to one each other. If the festival is called Frizon or Ieper Hardcore fest doesn´t matter to us. An audience is an audience and everyone we meat out there are loving humans who like our music. What could go wrong? Christian or not, feel free to join our concerts, close your eyes and just enjoy the ride. Members of EF of course have political opinions but EF have never been an outlet for it. EF is about US, not about our hate to the undemocratic right wing or to call down on idiots like Trump. We leave that for other forums. Our songs are outlets for our heartaches. If EF are christian? Hell no! But we do believe in love and friendship. Guess that´s similar to Christian values. Why we have played so many christian festivals? We’ve gotten great money ;) But yea, some members of our bands have Christian roots and that might have helped out in the booking phase.

                                  Courtesy: EF

The unavoidable question and which also probably has bored you to death by now: Does the “Postrock tag” still follows you around, and how would you describe your music with your own words?

EF: We don’t hold any grudge to people who call us post rock. At least it´s a genre we can relate too. We’ve tried to do less post-rockish songs for a while now but we always falls back into the post rock theme. I usually call us experimental and atmospheric indie rock. 

Could you tell us a bit about the ideas and background to these two songs of yours?

-        “Lake Vaettern”

EF: We don´t work with background stories for our songs… Sorry.

-        “I Hear Heartbeats”

EF: Same goes with this one…

You have done some extensive touring all around the world, including Asia and Europe many times now. Do you have any fond memories from touring and also what concert so far has been the trickiest?

EF: European touring is a neverending hassle. One year you’re in a shitty small town in Germany that youve never heard off and it´s packed. Two years later you wanna go back because it was so awesome! And its like 25 ppl. If it´s like this for a band of EF size, then you can calculate why ”bigger” bands never visit your village. Asia on the other hand… Totally different story.. Since its pretty recently ”opened up” for western culture it´s also a ”hunger” amongst the boys n girls to visit the shows hosted by foreigners. A normal club show for us in China is about 10 times as many people as in Europe. Guess what´s more fun?And the food is better. Not the backstage rider though…

When listening to your music it´s easy to picture your music as a soundtrack to a movie or a documentary. Have any of your songs been included on a soundtrack and if you could choose any movie that you would like any of your songs to be included in, which movie would that be and which song would you choose and why?

EF:  This question could turn out pretty pretentious. Our music have been involved in various short movies that fans of ours have produced for school or similar. What I know nothing ”serious” have picked it up - yet. It’d be stupid to say we don´t want to be featured in a movie, it’d probably cause a lot of buzz. But this aint something we’re thinking of while creating our songs. And I guess many of our songs are too progressive to be a nice soundtrack tune. IF we could be in a movie I´d personally like to be in something wicked but happy like ”Eternal sunshine of a spotless mind”.

Last question for this time. What plans does the future hold for “EF” if we try to look some 5 years ahead into the future?

EF: 5 years from now? Do I even dare to predict 5 months from now? As I’ve stated earlier. We’re older now and there’s so much going on in our private lives. We’ve always joked about splitting up and reunite in 15 years. Seems to go pretty well for those indie bands who went that path. They’re bigger than ever. There’ll be a new release and some shows to support it. What, when, how, who…Just keep your eyes and ears wide open.

More info:

https://efmusic.se/

http://efmusicsweden.bandcamp.com