Robex Lundgren virkblogg.

Hany of you played in other bands? Oh definitely, all of us. Shawn is in two other bands currently. I’m in a Motown/Punk cover band called Mohawktown, but that’s just for fun. The two bands that most directly preceded Mischief Brew are The Orphans and Kettle Rebellion, in that order.

How is it that you started playing music? I’ve wanted to create music for as long as I remember. I grew up listening to Motown and what we used to call “oldies,” then got into metal, but it wasn’t til I started listening to punk that I thought, “Hey, I could do this.” So I bought a guitar from a friend and immediately started making noise on it. I didn’t even know how to tune it but I was making up riffs. And slowly and surely, I got a little better. I still have the guitar, it’s the one I’m playing in the “Pennsyltucky” video.

What are your names? / Who plays what? / How old are you? My name is Erik and I sing and play guitar, Shawn plays bass, and Chris plays drums. It’s a pretty basic power trio for a folk-punk band, where you usually see 7 or 8 people on stage. Sometimes there’s a fourth and even fifth member but it’s kind of a revolving cast there. We’re all in our 30’s, that’s all I’ll say.

Have you had other previous members? Plenty! We’re still friends with anyone who has ever played with us though.

Did you make music even when you were young? Like I said I grew up on rap in the 80s, which would now be referred to as “old school rap” – stuff like Run-DMC, Public Enemy, Whodini, Grandmaster Flash. I tried to record songs on a boom box with synthesizer percussion but I think the tapes have been lost, thankfully.

Where are you from? Philadelphia, born and raised! Shawn is from western Pennsylvania so he’s a Pittsburgh Penguins fan but we don’t hold that against him.

What's your style of genre?When someone at the post office or gas station or local bar asks me what kind of band I’m in, I just say “a punk band.” If they ask to be more specific, I’ll use terms like “folk punk” but that can mean so many things to different people. I’ll mention The Clash or The Pogues but so many bands are compared to them. I think our fans could describe us better than I can. We have a saying that a lot of bands sound more like us than we do, which is probably completely lost in the Swedish translation.

What inspires you? Good times and bad times can both inspire you. You can be really angry about something and write a really positive song. It’s a process that I’m always trying to dissect and understand. “The Stone Operation” was a very worldly record, for lack of a better term. It had a lot of diverse sounds and had a lot of exotic references. A lot of the lyrics were written while travelling in Europe. The last record, however, was very much inspired by the bad times, specifically a few close friends that died. So I think the reaction was to focus more on home, community, and friendship. So there’s more songs about our city, our home, in all its quirkiness. The trick though is to not make it too insular, but to place the topics into a story where it could be any city. So even though we’re talking about Philadelphia, someone in Boston could say, “Hey, that same thing is happening here, I can relate.” Because I hate when bands say, “These songs are more personal.” To me, creating music isn’t just a personal experience. You have to think about the listener and how it relates to them. You almost have to get into character, and force yourself to say things you might not normally say. You want a personal experience? Keep a diary and lock it away.

How often and where do you rehearse? Not as much as we should! Usually we rehearse in a garage near the Italian Market in South Philadelphia. South Philly is the absolute best, and the food is pretty damn good too.

How have you developed since you started with the music?I think there was a point between the past two albums where writing songs about burning cop cars and living in the woods seemed unnatural and silly. Not that I don’t like seeing a cop car on fire or anything, or that I disagree with the old songs… but what does an aging punk rocker write an honest song about? It’s still your observations, your travel, your interactions with people, and certainly things you see on the news, which is hardly ever GOOD news. The truth is, I’m not involved in the same things that I was when I was 17, so why would the songs reflect that? Also, early Mischief Brew used a lot of outdated words and phrases in the lyrics, but not so much anymore. I’m looking forward, not backwards.

Do you have other interests of work outside the band? Sure, this is not our day job. I also help run a record label called Fistolo Records. We’re teachers, carpenters, bartenders, martial arts trainers...we keep busy.

Are you looking for a booking agency, and what are your thoughts around that?We’ve worked with booking agents, but only when we’ve needed to. We’re a DIY punk band that has booked our own shows and tours for well over a decade. If we’ve ever worked with a booking agent or publicist it’s because we absolutely had to and it just made sense. Doing everything yourself is cool and really rewarding but you don’t want to wear too many hats, and flake on another aspect of a project. I think a lot of new bands get caught up in what they’re “supposed” to do, thinking it’s impressive to say things like “my booking agent” or “my publicist.” The fact is, you’re paying these people a lot of money for stuff you could do more efficiently, effectively, and cheaper, yourself. I know bands that have spent thousands of dollars, draining entire savings accounts, to maybe get one song played on the radio at 3AM.

Are you looking for a label, and what are your thoughts around that? Not at the moment. Most of the music has been released on Fistolo, our own label, but we’ve worked with many others too: Square Of Opposition, Silver Sprocket, Pirates Press, Gunner, Art Of The Underground, a few more. Our last album came out on Alternative Tentacles. If there is another Mischief Brew record in a year or two, I can’t say at this point what label it would come out on. Two years in the current music landscape is like fifteen years as we previously knew it. So much can change. Was Spotify even around two years ago?

What made you decide to make this music? Actually, I think it had a lot to do with fear of technology. In the late 90s, there was a legitimate distrust of technology, computers, digitalization of culture in the punk scene especially, none of which exists now at all. I was a hippie-punk who was getting into anarchism, specifically green anarchism, so I began wondering if you could have a punk band that doesn’t require any electricity. Almost like a one-man-band contraption kit, but with multiple people. I probably just sounded like a weird fringy Unabomber-type technophobe telling people about this at shows so no one really wanted to play with me. So I just started playing solo.

What are your songs about? If you peel off all the layers, I imagine they’re about the same things that most bands sing about: love, hate, dispossession, oppression, religion, gentrification, etc. The fun part, for a songwriter, is trying to figure out clever ways to say things that catches people off guard. Or even better, gets someone thinking about an issue that they wouldn’t normally think about. Folk music does that better than punk because its more accessible. So for me, I never explain what the songs are about. It’d be like saying “Moby Dick” is a book about a whale, or “The Godfather” is about an Italian family. The fun part is the storytelling.

Who does the composing and writes the lyrics? I write all the lyrics and most of the music, although when we arrange the songs, everyone contributes. Songs like “A Lawless World” and “Create Destroy” were very collaborative. They evolved in the practice space and went in completely different directions than I had planned.

Do you start with the music or the lyrics? Mostly the music. Then there will be a lot of general song ideas, and I play this game where I match up the lyrical topic with the tone of the music. For example, “O, Pennsyltucky” was originally a fast punk song, but it ended up working better as a melancholy ballad.

Do you compose in a certain environment? My house, mostly. Sometimes at the beach in Wildwood, NJ. If I’m working on a song, I write a lot in my head while I’m at work. It’s a hard thing to make time for and plan out. Ideas can pop up anywhere, and usually I’m too swept up in the busy-work of the label to find time to sit down and write a song. I’m working on that balance, though.

Have you done any covers live? All the time, but we don’t do any that people actually know. I guess that’s the point of doing a cover, but we don’t care. We just decide to do songs by bands that influenced us, so we’ve covered New Model Army, ABBA, Flux Of Pink Indians, Blitz, Swingin’ Utters, Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Dead Milkmen… and so on.

What language do you sing in? Aside from a random exclamation in Spanish or French, it’s 99.9% English.

Whatare the least and most people to attend one of your gigs? Well, I know we played a show in Mannheim, Germany early on where one person paid. We cancelled a show in Spokane, Washington after showing up, loading in, eating… and then not one person came. So we wrapped up and decided to drive to Idaho, then found out all these punks were drinking around a fire outside of town and headed to the show right after we left. But that was all early touring where you have no expectations. We’ve been very lucky, and even if there were ten people, you still have to give it 100% and play like there’s 100 people. Because those ten people tell their friends about you, and that’s how bands grow. I remember we were in Huntsville, Alabama on an early acoustic tour at an enormous venue, it could have held 1000 people, and eight people paid. I was going to cancel, then realized that those eight people all came to see me. So I pulled up a stool and everyone sat on couches in the middle of the dancefloor and I played a set. It was really fun and special and all those people still remember it. As far as the most amount of people? Hard to say, I’m bad at guessing. I know we played festivals in Germany where there were a couple thousand there but I don’t know if they were into us or just being polite…

What ages are most of your concert attendants? Money young, under 21. We try to play all ages shows. There was a time where we could not play 21+ bar shows, not many people would come. But lately the bar shows have been better. People like to drink when they watch us, I guess. Imagine that. Plus our young fans are all grown up and thankfully still like us.

Do you always play the same songs live, or do you vary? There’s definitely staples, songs that we play every night. We alternate each night though. We usually have a master list for each tour, with songs from each album, and we try to touch on all of it. The setlist is different every night though.

Do you have a regular place you play live often? There’s a cool bar in Philly called Kung Fu Necktie that we like a lot. It’s a small bar run by cool people, and it’s always packed. Sometimes if we’re not too active between tours, we’ll book a show there for fun and lots of our friends come. It’s a great place to try out new songs and just have a fun drunken set. There’s also an anarchist space in West Philly called LAVA where I play acoustic a lot. They do a lot of work in the community, so I’m happy to support them… it’s not just a show space that shuts off its lights and locks its doors after the punk show and everyone goes back to their hip neighborhoods. They are inclusive and involved in the community, whether it be Food Not Bombs or Indymedia or anti-prison work…

What was your first gig like?The first show I ever played was with a band called Swill Reality, and the plug was pulled on us after three songs. At the first Orphans show, the cops showed up after the second song. There were a few acoustic shows before the first Brew demo, but the first show billed as “Mischief Brew” was in December of 2000 at an anarchist space in West Philadelphia called DRLR, which has long since closed. I played a full set at least. I think I dressed up like a medieval court jester.

What was your latest gig? The last show we played was in Richmond, Virginia on Easter… it was the end of our most recent tour with a band called Everymen. It was a wild packed show, really fun.

Have you had to cancel a gig? Sure, it’s a rare thing but it happens. It’s probably only happened a handful of times… it would have to be a very extreme circumstance. Back in 2012, I was supposed to play acoustic at Plan-It-X Fest in Bloomington but I had to cancel because one of my best friends died, and I decided to go to Baltimore to play his memorial show. I felt bad about cancelling but it was pretty understandable. I made it out to PIX Fest two years later to make up for it.

Where have you played live this year? We did a few shows in the winter, in NYC and New Jersey, then we did the east coast with Everymen, down to south Florida and back.

Where do you plan to gig the coming year? We’re doing a few local shows and then heading back to Europe and the UK in late July, doing a bunch of festivals and such. Haven’t been over since 2009, should be fun! We also do acoustic mini-tours in between to stay busy. It’s fun and easy and there’s way less stuff to carry.

When did you start to sell merchandise, and what do you have for sale? We started right away with the first demo. It was eight songs recorded on a four-track, just intended to give to musicians so they might get an idea of what kind of band I wanted to start, so maybe they would want to play with me. I played it for my wife Denise and she said, “This is pretty good. Why can’t this be your demo?” I hadn’t thought of it, but that’s what we ended up doing. We dubbed hundreds of those tapes in our house. She silk-screened patches and T-shirts that we bought at the art store or Salvation Army. We had some records from my previous band and some pins maybe, and that’s how we started. We had a little suitcase we set up with shows, like a sidewalk peddler or something. We sold every one of those tapes and saved every penny, so when it came time to do a proper recording, we had the money to do it. Now we have so many records out I’d have to write it down to count them. Although, many are out-of-print.

Where can people buy your merchandise? That can buy the newest record from Alternative Tentacles, and a bunch of other records on our webstore, which you can find pretty easily though a Google search or through our website. You can also get the stuff from various distros and record stores, Interpunk, Amazon, iTunes, all that stuff.

What do you think about people downloading music instead of buying records now a days? I don’t think about it too much. You can’t tell people how to listen to music, it’s like telling them what food they should like. I think more people are streaming than downloading these days anyway… and while streaming royalties are very low, at least it’s something. As long as the tank has gas in it and bellies are full, I consider us very lucky to be doing what we’re doing.

How do you think the music industry have changed because of this? In every imaginable way! Twenty years ago, record stores could charge $20 for CDs and sell tons of them. Punk bands were selling thousands of CDs. Vinyl looked to be dead in the water. All that has changed. I have no nostalgia for CDs but I still like vinyl and tapes, and would prefer to sell someone a physical record than just have them buy it on Bandcamp. Unfortunately, the music industry fought the tides of change for so long that people got it in their heads that music should be free and musicians should work for nothing. Had they embraced digital downloading early on, who knows what would have happened? No offense to Scandinavia, but I blame a lot of this on Lars Ulrich.

What do you think of my work?It’s thorough! You’re asking stuff that I’ve never been asked before, but should have been. I could ramble on for each of these questions but you’d probably get bored. Keep it up!

How do you think and know that this interview will help you in the music business? Well, if anyone reads it and wants to check us out, it helps the both of us!

Do you have any role models or idols? Not really. There are definitely musicians and artists that have been role models but a lot of them are dead. There are definitely people in life that I respect and admire, not necessarily famous people or musicians though. As far as artists, I respect anyone that had to crawl through the mud to get recognized, as opposed to people that were manufactured by labels, corporations, stage parents, etc…

Is it easier to find inspiration from older bands, or bands that are more active today? I think a little of both. Nostalgia can be a bit of a trap. Likewise, you have to respect the artists that came before you, it creates a timeline and a history. I tend to find more musical inspiration from older bands, but as far as figuring out how to navigate today’s music landscape, I look to the youth.

What have been your biggest obstacles? Looking back, I can’t think of any specific hurdles… the whole thing was a hurdle. Sure, we’ve had bad things happen to us… but overall I think our growth has felt pretty natural. Like, “oh we did this, now it seems that we should try this next.” I actually am pretty caught up on the songs I want to record for the first time in my life – I have a clean slate and can go anywhere from here. It’s a relief but it’s also kind of intimidating. I don’t know it that’s an obstacle, but it can feel like it at times.

What advice would you give other bands or artists? Stay humble. Don’t set unrealistic expectations for yourself. Don’t tour until people in other towns know who you are and want to see you. Take an accounting class before taking a music class. Eat healthy on tour. Don’t rely on drink tickets, always keep a bottle of whiskey in the van.

How do you get psyched for a gig? There’s no ritual, really. Liquor and tacos are usually involved, however.

Do you have any new material? Our newest record is called “This Is Not For Children” and it’s out now on Alternative Tentacles Records, out of San Francisco. After that, there’s only some loose ideas for songs, nothing really finished yet.

What are your web sites? www.mischiefbrew.com is our official website. We’re on Twitter and Facebook as /mischiefbrew and Instagram as mischiefbrewband. There’s also our webstore through www.fistolo.com. We’re pretty available at your service, on the internet.

How can people reach you?Through any of those websites, mostly!

What are your plans for the future? We’re remastering and reissuing a lot of the old out-of-print stuff and basing a touring plan around that. We’re heading back to Europe this summer. The label we run, Fistolo Records, used to put out stuff by other bands but stopped to focus on my projects…not because of ego or anything, just because it got to be too much work to put into other bands while Mischief Brew was actively touring. But now it looks like we’re going to start releasing some music by some of our friends’ bands again, now that we’re not travelling as much and are way more organized. Stay tuned for that.

Do you have something to add? Thank you for the opportunity to talk, Robex! Keep it up and hopefully one day we will play in Sweden.