Robex Lundgren virkblogg.

Personliga frågor om bandet och deras medlemmar:

Har ni spelat i något tidigare band? We all played with various bands, a few made records like Royal Carter Show and Infra. 

Hur kommer de sig att ni började komma in på musik området? Everyone in the group more or less grew up with - or reached back to – older beat and pop music. We were certainly aware of each other before this group. And I guess when The Most got together we discovered our common roots and used all to great advantage! This was probably what everyone wanted to achieve.

Vad heter ni?/ Vem spelar vad? The one who’s talking to you is Mats Westin: drums, backing vocals Frans Perris: vocals, guitar Magnus Kollberg: vocals, guitar Martin Claesson: bass, backing vocals

Har ni haft tidigare medlemmar? We recruited Martin a couple of years ago, when bass players Marcus Holmberg and Inge Johansson were unable to continue playing with us, they remain part of the band however! 

Gjorde ni musik redan när ni var små? We all had a little bit of musical training. I played the clarinet for instance, but I never much wrote songs. The other guys probably started songwriting quite early on.  Vart kommer ni ifrån? Umeå in northeastern Sweden.

Vilket år startades bandet? 2002. 

Vad spelar ni för musik stil? It’s a fairly wide palette of beat/mod/pop sounds. It ranges from the quite melodic to the quite raucous!

Vad inspireras ni av? We’re totally anchored in 60’s music listening.  Hur ofta repar ni? Maybe once a week.

Vart repar ni? We have our own rehearsal rooms with some recording facilities too.

Använder ni öronproppar när ni uppträder? Not necessarily the other guys, but even as a more technical than bashing drummer, I find especially the snare drum hard on the ears. Earplugs are at least useful towards the end when everything tends to get loud! 

Hur har ni utvecklats sedan ni började med musiken? I think we now have better ”ears” to join parts together to get a better flow to songs. Solutions now tend to come easily and naturally and songs feel less contrived than our very early stuff. Strong songwriting and getting a good groove are more important than advancing technically as players. Vocally, though, we have tried lately to put more work into harmony vocals. 

Har ni något annat intressen eller jobb utanför bandet och musiken? All members have like full-time day jobs. I think everyone has a couple of minor interests, though much has to do with music, music, music!

Söker ni bokningsbolag, vad har ni för tankar och krav runt det i så fall? Not really, there have been encouragingly many direct enquiries from Europe and even the USA, and we’ve been able to deal with them ourselves.  

Söker ni skivbolag, vad har ni för tankar och krav runt det i så fall? No, we have a couple of vinyls and CDs out on German label Copasedisques, and it’s working really well.

Frågor om eran musik och texter:

Hur kommer de sig att ni gör musik? It’s more rewarding doing original stuff. Keeping a 60’s sound and conjuring up the vibe of the old bands is challenging but fun. As fairly few bands work in this field nowadays that might help getting us noticed, but above all I hope our material has merit for a lot of different music lovers.  

Vad handlar era låtar om i de stora hela? I really believe that while they are normally a bit beyond the usual love/relationship pop things, they come across fairly universal and uplifting! They range from having humorous twists to more profoundly deep thoughts. If a lyric appears questioning, it’s certainly done in a soulful rather than preachy/political way. I think we often have succeeded in getting lyrics and music to fit together to create a very special mood.  

Vem skriver texterna? I guess Frans is the most prolific lyric composer. Usually we have only minor suggestions to changes to them! 

Vem gör musiken? Frans is most prolific here too, although Magnus does write (complete) songs too. Input from other members are more on the musical than lyrical side, but not so much in co-writing, rather contributing and discussing ideas for arrangements. 

När ni ska göra en låt börjar ni med musiken eller texten? I vilken miljö brukar ni göra era låtar? I’m sure at least a couple were spontaneously ignited by happenings in everyday life, and scribbled down during a coffee-break! On the other hand, readying such a fragment to a full-blown The Most song is hard work. I’d think others were created during bursts of inclinations to write? That’s when thousands of solid hours enjoying the 60’s vibe pays off well! J That doesn’t mean to say our songs are carbon copies of others, rather that we sometimes succeed in tying together themes, styles and pieces in an unusual blend. So, however deeply rooted in the 60’s, we get a fresh feel.

Spelar ni bara egna låtar live eller även covers? We really want to let people hear our original material, but sometimes we let loose on, say, a rhythm & blues classic, for good measure!

Vilket språk sjunger ni på? We exclusively sing in English.

Frågor angående era spelningar och liknande uppträdanden:

Hur många har kommit som minst på era konserter? Surely, as unknowns we must have played at some time to just a dozen in a small club. But we always try to give 100% and I’m sure that intimate experience made those present spread the word afterwards!

Hur många har kommit som mest på era konserter? I think we played to well over 2000 people at a festival in Leon, Spain. We had some equipment hassles and it was even Martin’s first gig but he handled it really well!

Hur har ni gjort eller tänker göra för att det ska komma mer publik på era gig? I think our YouTube channel (THEMOSTMUSICVIDEOS) and Facebook page (www.facebook.com/FaceTheMost) have been particularly useful tools in that field.   We make occasional light-hearted videos and try to publish photos, many of which both are fun and indicative of what we’re up to lately.  

Vilka åldersgrupper dras oftast till era konserter? People of all ages basically. Especially In the UK. Younger people wanting something different from the current musical trends. Older ones who even may have seen some original beat bands saying very complimentary things! All this of course makes our continuation of the beat group ideals of the mid-60’s in a contemporary setting, worthwhile! 

Spelar ni alltid samma låtar live eller varierar det? We have half a dozen core songs that we usually do, like ”The Action”, ”Really good” and an as yet unrecorded special ”live intro”. Then we pick a bunch of the more recent songs to try them, and squeeze in some oldies but goodies that we haven’t played in ages. And it depends on how long an encore we get, ha ha! 

Har ni något stam ställe där ni brukar spela? Not really.  

Vart var erat första gig? That must have been at some club in Umeå.   

Vart var erat senaste gig? We played in Putney, London, UK late April. That was a sweaty, wonderful gig! We had UK rock/psych legend Twink (Tomorrow, Pretty Things, Pink Fairies) playing superb percussion with us.  

Har ni behövt ställa in nått gig nån gång? Actually, I think we haven’t cancelled ever, due to any reasons within the group. Just a few proposed gigs from various promoters that didn’t materialize. And some gigs were just moved to a later date anyway.

Vart har ni spelat i år? We haven’t been so active gigging.this year, though right before X-mas we played France, for example. We have concentrated on arranging, rehearsing and recording new songs.  

Vart har ni planer att spela resten av året? We’ll play a tour of the east coast of the USA in November. 

Vilka länder har ni spelat i? Sweden of course, Germany, France, UK, USA, Mexico. 

Frågor angående era merchandise:

När började ni sälja Merchandise? I think that really took off 3 years ago when we first played a Liverpool festival and issued our first album that same day. Reportedly, it was the most popular item of any artist at the merch stalls!

Vad har ni för Merchandise prylar? Mainly records; our vinyl EP’s, LP’s and CD’s. Pins, patches, T-shirts (nearly sold out by now).   

Vart kan man köpa era Merchanndise? We have a web store, just look at our Facebook page!

Frågor om era åsikter:

Vad tycker ni om att man laddar ner mer musik än att köpa skivor nu för tiden? Well, we all love physical records, and would love if more people bought any music on that format, especially vinyl for its great audio. But we realize the importance of digital platforms and thus are on iTunes and Spotify. Our latest vinyl album ”Invasion Completed” nearly came with a download code, but we chose a free inserted CD instead! 

Hur tycker och tror ni musik industrin förändrats sedan de började laddas ner musik? One big disadvantage is that tracks easily get spread around at random, when artists like us work hard on sequencing album tracks to tell a story or at least build up a certain feel.  I like, though, that you may have the opportunity to download or listen to samples online. Also, I must admit it can be fun to make playlists through the convenience of digital!  Föredrar ni nerladdad musik, kassettband, CD eller Vinyl?   (Besvaras ovan, kan strykas!)  

Vad skulle ni göra om musiken inte fans? Life would be somewhat meaningless ;)  It has on the whole been difficult to get away from the shadows of music… once I had dreams of becoming a music journalist!

Vad tycker ni om vakternas jobb på era spelningar och sånt? Generally, security have rather helped, not hindered anything. Providing the right balance in their profession isn’t always an easy task. We try to co-operate and have a friendly relationship with all professions when working live or in the studio. Oh, I now recall a gig at some punk club up north where no security was hired, and punks, skins and mods had a great time together without any trouble, absolutely wonderful.

De som sköter ljus och ljud hur mycket har de hjälpt er egentligen om ni tänker efter? Nah… live, it’s rather us hoping the engineer for the night has a good, natural-sounding PA and a dependable ear as our sound must not be complicated by gimmicks. We try a dialogue beforehand, asking for a natural sound from drums and amps, and maybe some vocal reverb. As for stage lighting, I guess we more want it lit up than playing in doomy darkness! When in studio, we have the fortune of having musically and electronically trained engineers who have been a nice help. Though we are fairly proficient ourselves from years of making demos.

Vad tycker ni om mitt arbete?  I’ve looked around a little and am somewhat impressed by the number of articles and thought-provoking questions you put to artists and the wide range of music covered. Music journalism has always been fascinating to me anyway! 

Hur tror och vet ni att denna intervjun ska kunna hjälpa er i musikbrassen? I think articles like this may work well getting us new fans in two totally different ways: 1) If we seem a bit ”unique” and ”different” to other artists on a site. 2) If music fans notice us at a site going there because it features music in the same spirit as ours. I hope my answers were not too overlong for the reader! 

Vad har ni för förebilder eller idoler? Foremost bands of the 60’s: some name bands like Kinks, The Who, Zombies, Yardbirds, Beatles but also less common bands like Love, Buffalo Springfield, Grass Roots. Beat and pop! Although members are variously into jazz, rhythm & blues, bluegrass, folk music etc.

Vad tycker ni om att de finns ålders gränser på vissa konserter? Well, I missed a lot of great gigs when I wasn’t quite 18. I did manage to sneak in to see British rock’n’roll legends The Pirates.

Varför tror ni att de är de? The main reason has to the alcohol licensing and laws? Certain punk gigs and certain festivals come to mind as offering the tremendous experience of live music to younger people, too. I think you’re quite impressionable by the age of 15, and then the more the need to see something potentially life-changing!  

Är det lättare att hämta inspiration från äldre band än band som är aktiva idag?  In our case that’s really a must, isn’t it! Interestingly, The Most draw inspiration not only from other 60’s musical movements than beat/mod, for we realized one day that we quite naturally have always enjoyed the music that preceded but influenced the beat boom. Like big band jazz and rhythm’n’blues of the 40’s and rock’n’roll of the 50’s. And that is a nice platform to work from. 

Vad har varit erat största hinder i musik industrin? Maybe that no major company has latched on to us yet? Ha ha!   

Vilka råd skulle du ge till andra band och artister? I think it’s always wise to stick to what you are really happiest to play, everything will sound (and look) more true and convincing. And while not necessarily destined for a mass audience, it may really strike a note with lot of people into a certain genre – and yourself! Sometimes when we rehearse I think of people who already are aware of us, and wonder if what we’re working on will give them the same thrill I get when I put on a really satisfying record.  

Hur taggar ni upp inför en konsert? We prefer to just have a brief warm up singing and strumming in the dressing room, a short while before getting on stage, maybe cracking a few in-jokes. Minimal interference from other people during warm-up certainly helps us focus better. 

Nyheter och uppdatering:

Har ni nytt material på g? The next plan is for one vinyl EP. We’re writing material that should result in a full-length album later on. 

Vad har ni för internet sidor? The Facebook page is *the* one and it’s easy to follow contact info there. 

Vad har ni för planer för framtiden? Making even better albums! Maybe branch out more musically, there may be thematic vinyl EPs reflecting different styles. 

Har ni något att till lägga? Many thanks for being given the honour of being featured here!