interview with Black Anemone

What´s the name of your band? The Band is called Black Anemone after the flower that is usually part of a wedding bouquetThe name is often both miss-phrased and misspelled, and many times people (tho they are joking) think that we are named after the "sea anemone". But hey we like it. (great conversation starter)

What made you call the band "Black Anemone"? We went thru about a million different band names and one day we where all just sitting around a cafe when one of our former band members said we should be called " Black Anemone". The name just stuck and we have been "Black Anemone" since then.

How was the band formed? The band started out back in 2010 when 5 guys barley dry behind their ears by the names of Mattias, Adam, Andreas, Jesper and Nermin started playing music with each other. A few months after that they recruited Sandra Lundh to the band on the tin whistle. since then we have been playing live, recorded music and just being an "needle in the eye" to all. About two years ago Nermin Festa decided to part ways with the band, we then recruited Marcus Rosberg on Guitar. Later the band recruited another member, Martin Hjärkvist on Banjo. At the beginning of this year (2014) Sandra Lundh decided also to part ways with the band and i guess that's kind of the current state that we are in now.

Can you tell about your band? Black Anemone is a group of individuals  that's been playing music with each other almost as long they have been playing music at all. We like to play live, we like to go a little bit crazy and to stir things up. In sort, we are musicians

Where are all band members from?/Who does what in the band?

We are all from a town called Jönköping in Sweden.

Mattias- Vocals and Mandolin

Andreas- Acoustic guitar and back up vocals

Adam- Drums and Back up vocals

Jesper (the dark lord)-Contra bass didgeridoo (and some other stuff we don’t really keep track anymore)

Martin- Banjo and Irish Bouzouki

Marcus- Lead guitar

What was the ambitions of the band when you started? To play awesome music that no matter what state your in may it be drunk, drugged or barley alive, you can enjoy it and sing along with the lyrics and just feel like your seeing a great band and listening to some great music

Could you explain your music to someone that haven't heard you? Well kind of like being run over by a train or maybe tipping a train over. One once told us that our sound was like a chicken on crack. We took that as a compliment.

Where was your first gig? In our hometown, at the towns cultural center. At an event called Club High Voltage

Where was the latest gig? We did a show in a town called Eksjö. It was kind of a Pre St: Patrick’s day celebration gig. We didn’t really know where we were going to be playing but turned out we were playing at the Eksjö Military base.

Who writes your songs?/ who writes the music who writes lyrics? We all write together. Often the writing process for us is that somebody has an melody or just an idea. Then we just kind of work on it until we feel that it's done. Some times people outside the band help us with the lyrics or harmonies.

Who has the best since of humor in the band? Well it kind of depend on who you're asking! Every one in the band would probably claim that they have the best sence of humor We all do have and weird since of humor when it comes to falos symbols thou.

What's good/bad with the band?/What genre do you feel you are? One of the good things are that we are all very goal minded and even thou we like to joke around a lot and talk a lot of bull, when it comes to music we are very professional. The bad can be that there is alot of members in the band and it can be very hard and frustrating to transport everyone plus our gear. We always said that we are playing Folk punk, but then everyone can but their own labels if they want. We play what we like.

Why did you pick that particular style?/What are your songs about? We got inspired by bands like Flogging Molly and Dropkick Murphy's. Their is something with mixture of folk and punk that's just awesome. Most songs are about drinking or having sex, sometimes we get a little bit political.

Do you write your own material or mainly covers? We have always written our own material. We never really got to the "cover phase" until recently.

Have you made any albums?/If yes what are they? We recently released our first full length album called "King of Kings".

Do you have any clips on YouTube? Absolutely! you can listen to our album on our YouTube page or you can watch one of our blogs that portrays our majestic every day life. We are meaning to get a music video up their.

How old are you?/What got you started in music? We are all in our twenty’s. some a couple a years older, some a year younger. We all had different reasons to what got us started in music. Many factors come in to the mix, but mostly we tried it and we liked it

At what age did you start playing? Most of us started playing in our early/mid teens

How old were you guys when you first stood on stage? Also early/mid teens. For most of us it didn’t take long after starting out with music that we just had to get up on stage.

What year was the band started? The band started out on the 25th of March 2010

Best/worst gig you've played? The best would probably be a gig we did at and festival called Karamell. The crowd was all pumped up and the placed we're smacked with people. The crowd just went crazy and people were "flying" everywhere. The worst was a gig we did a about a year ago were those who had booked us hadn’t done anything at all before the show so we ended up driving for like two and a half hour, played on shitty equipment, getting lousy paid and there where barley four people in the crowd. 

What places will you be playing in in the imidate future? We have a couple gigs booked in Stockholm for this summer, We're gonna be playing Copperfields and Medusa bar with another band and friends to us Called crow Country Outlaw

Witch band is the best you´ve seen? We all saw a band called "Vapenbröder" once. Awesome band, Awesome live performance

Is it always the same songs live? We are currently building on our repertoire and we do try to keep the set list as different as possible from gig to gig

What has been the best/most promising gig so far? The last one we did. It felt like we had gotten to a new, more professional level

Have you had any bigger tours from start to now? No we have not, also something we are working on

How big crowds do you usually play for? Depends on were we're playing, but mostly 50-100 people i would estimate

What are the plans for the rest of the year? Try to promote and get our music out there as much as possibly and as always write new music

Where do you usually play? Mostly local gigs in our hometown.

How do you get psyched up for a gig? We all do different things. Some smoke, some drink, some jump in place and others play on their instrument

What are your goals with your music? To have worldwide spread, Traveling around meeting people and seeing places and showing the world who we are and what we do (and making a living of it )

When did you decide to go all in for the music? We all have always been 120% when it comes to music

What are your sources of inspiration? Anything from A-Z that we can sink out teeth in to. But mostly it's awesome melodies that makes the blood pump

What's the first step when making a new song? Often just getting thru the intro, then after that everything usually works out fine

How do you feel about the downloading of music instead of buying albums? Do it!. But then you also have to realize musicians can't work for free(or anybody else who work in the industry). If you want great music and if you love a band or an artist make sure you'll support that artist or band  

 

Besides your own music, what genres and bands do you listen to? Rock,Jazz,Funk,Folk,trad,Country,Pop and probably everything else to.

What would be your greatest fears for the future? To forget why we started playing music in the first place and becoming just another money hungry artist.

When you are on stage, what do you fear most then? That the sound tech is an amateur and doesn’t know a thing about mixing and setting a good sound (it happens a lot)

Have you been part of any other projects? Most of us has one or more project on the side of the band.

What would you do if there was no music? Not being alive, a world without music would be a horrible place

How important are your fans? The fans is what makes the band. Without them we would just be musicians rehearing in front of a crowd 

How often do you rehearse? From once a week to three/four times a week

Where do you rehearse? At the KFUM Youth Center.

What drives a band that isn't all that famous and renowned to try to make a living on their music and to keep playing? A lot of things I think. If you like what you are doing and it absolutely means the world to you that's one thing. Or every time someone comes up to you after a show an genuinely like what you do, or even when people sing along to your lyrics. The little thinks the fans and other people do is what makes everything worth it and are most of the times the best thing about it.  

Do you have any webpages?

Yes they are as following:

https://www.facebook.com/BlackAnemone

http://www.youtube.com/BlackAnemones

https://twitter.com/#!/BAfreakshow

https://soundcloud.com/black-anemone

http://www.lastfm.se/music/black+anemone

http://www.reverbnation.com/blackanemoneofficial

http://mydebaser.com/music/black-anemone/

Any pearls of wisdom for all other bands out there? Don't be afraid to suck. Let your self be bad. Grab a crappy guitar and write bad music cause you will learn so much about who you are as an artist, what you like and what you want to do.

Would you like to add anything else? If you want to get a hold of our music and support us you can also find it on Itunes and Amazon

Describe your show, visually and musically Heavy guitars, Traditional melodies, Fast drums, a lot of hand clapping and screaming

How do you view the music industry of today? The whole "lets go to Hollywood and get signed and become famous, do drugs and make a fortune" i believe is slowly dieing out, The record company’s are more after finding that "quick fix" were they can make money than really taking care of their "product".  That’s why i think that the "independent" movement is the future of the music industry today.

What are the biggest obstacles for a band? Dealing with bad deals, getting thru the jungle of money greedy suits and thugs and most of all staying put with both feet on the ground not forgetting why you started playing music in the first place.

What is best/worst with playing the clubs?

Best: You often found people that genuinely likes your music.

Worst: People have somehow gotten the idea that musicians is free laborers and that they should be happy just to be playing

How would you describe your sound in one sentence Like a chicken on Crack

What is your favorite crappy instrument? Our first banjo. That piece of shit as broken, lost parts and gotten new parts more than i can count but it's still playable. It's still rolling.

What was one of the most quarrelsome times for you in the band? Some time after everyone finished school, Tough times some of us we're trying to get jobs or wanted to study elsewhere and it left little time to focus on the music

Kommentarer:

1 Ellionor Jarlson:

Great,GREAT,great music.....Love them all

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