Robex Lundgren virkblogg.

Have any of you played in other bands? Not all of us but our bass player have had lots of different projects and he is currently playing in other bands also.

Erik Tano, vocals and guitar.

Lars Alatalo Bohm, guitar.

Simon Rautio, drums.

Hanna Fjällborg Kyrö, vocals.

August Tapojärvi, bass guitar and vocals

Have you had other previous members? Yes over the years we have had lots of different people playing with us, Lars and Simon are the only ones who have been in the band since the start.

Where are you from? We are all from Kiruna, the most northern town in Sweden and the surrounding villages.

What year did the band form? 2011

What's your style of genre? We like to describe the base for our music as Progressive Heavy Metal, but we mix in a lot of Doom, Death, Thrash and 70s Psychedelic Rock. We think that it shows well on our first album “Return To Madness” that we released on Spotify last fall. We aim to show our range even more on our upcoming project “The Mother Machine” that's coming later this year! 

What inspires you? Well if you are thinking about other bands that inspire us the list would be extremely long but some key bands are Black Sabbath, Rush, Kreator, Amon Amarth, Iron Maiden, Cirith Ungol and Morgana Lefay just to name a few. But we also take inspiration from the world around us. Movies, tv, games and the internet are things that effect how we view the world around us and our own psyche.

Are you looking for a booking agency, and what are your thoughts around that? Up until this point we have not looked for anything. But now that we have released our first album on our own and booked our own gigs for years, we think that it is time for us to expand and that's really hard to do on our own. If we are to play gigs down south we are going to need contacts down there to help us find places to play and help with the travel expenses.

Are you looking for a label, and what are your thoughts around that? The answer here is the same as the last question, we have not searched for a label up until now. But we hope that our next album “The Mother Machine” will have a label backing it up and helping us reach a bigger and wider audience. The thing is, it's great to be independent and be able to say that you do everything on your own. However, doing everything by yourself can also exhaust you. Especially if you want to play bigger venues and reach more people with your music. It's not about being famous, it's about being able to do what you really want to do. We have made it this far on our own and we will continue to do everything on our own if we have to, because we need to do this for ourselves. We just think that with a label we will be able to do more of what we want to do. To be able to focus more on the music and in the future quit our day jobs or at least work less hours and dedicate that time to the music.    

What are your songs about? The overarching theme of our songs are about the human psyche, our view on the world and mental health. Every song tells its own tale and we like to think that different people are going to pick up on different things in the same songs. 

Who does the composing and writes the lyrics? Lars has as of now written all the lyrics to the songs and done most of the composing on our last album. Erik also did some of the composing on “Return To Madness” but as it looks now for our upcoming album “The Mother Machine” the composing will almost be a fifty fifty split between Erik and Lars, except for at least one song that August has composed. But the lyrics are all going to be made by Lars. The setup we have when writing a song is often that one of us comes up with the first draft at home and comes to the rehearsal with that. Then we all tweak it together to make the best thing of it. So you can say that each song has a main composer/main composers but it's often all of us who's had a hand in making the finished product.

Do you compose in a certain inviroment? Well not really, the draft is often made at home and then we go in the rehearsing room and finish it.

Have you done any covers live? Yes, we have done a live cover on Metallica´s “For Whom The Bell Tolls”

The least people we ever had on a gig was in 2015 when we played in small town in Serbia on a Wednesday. The only people there was the owner of the local pub, his friend and some people we had with us. 

The most people we've had listen to us live was when we played at “Kirunafestivalen” for a few hundred people. But at a standard gig at the small places there are around 50-70 people. 

What ages are most of your concert attendants? It differs quite much, there's people in their 20's up to 60 year-olds but mostly they are around 30.

Do you always play the same songs live, or do you vary? We have a few songs we have always played but we tend to add new songs as often as we can.

Do you have a regular place you play live often? No not really but the closest thing to that would be the local bowling alley. At which we have played a few times.

What was your first gig like? Nervous but fun. Quite a lot of people actually and it went really well! 

What was your latest gig? It was at our dear old Lars own wedding! An extremely happy night! 

Where have you played live this year? This year we have only played on the wedding at New Years Eve. We are going to start looking for a gig in the near future. However most of our time right now goes to making the next album!

When did you start to sell merchandise, and what do you have for sale? Back in 2015 when we did a mini tour down in Serbia. We mostly sell t-shirts like all bands. But some caps and hats, stickers and patches are also for sale when we play live and if people ask for them.

Where can people buy your merchandise? At our live gigs and if they contact us by mail, Facebook or at our own website.

We understand the convenience. It’s easy to just go online and just get it and we think that most people don’t do it because they want to steal music. They do it because it is the easiest way to get it, but the people who want to support a band still go out of their way to buy a record. But it definitely is less people.

Luckily with streaming sites like Spotify it is easier to listen to music without downloading it illegally. It has however made it harder for musicians to generate some kind of revenue that actually can support their music. For an example 1000 streams on Spotify generates less than just one sold album for the artist or the band. The good thing is that it's more available for people to listen.

How do you think the music industry have changed because of this? Well it has had to adapt. Some things are bad and some are good. As an independent band or artist you actually can be heard without any outside help now, but it has also made it harder for bands to be able to live of their music.   

What do you think of my work? I think that it is great that you take your time to bring forth independent musicians. The hardest part of the music industry today, we would say, is reaching out in an oversaturated market and people like you makes it a bit easier. It makes us feel appreciated and that means a lot to us! 

How do you think and know that this interview will help you in the music business? We think that it will make more people hear about us and maybe help us find new opportunities. 

Do you have any role models or idols? We think that you look up to different people for different reasons. For example, we look up to Devin Townsend because he is not afraid to do exactly what he wants however weird some might think it is. Alissa White-Gluz is also a person we look up to parts for her talent as a vocalist and parts for her entrepreneurship, her way of really breaking through. Tony Iommi is a person who has inspired our playstyle like no one else.

Why do you think that they exist? We think that people want someone to look up to. To see that someone has succeeded in something makes people think that they also can do it and that inspires hope. We all just want to be hopeful and end up more happy.

Is it easier to find inspiration from older bands, or bands that are more active today? Yes and no. That depends on what you are looking for in the moment you are searching inspiration.

What have been your biggest obstacles? Distance. We live so far up north that playing gigs is really hard. There are only so many places you can play up here and just going to the coast where there is just a few more people and places to play costs thousands of crowns. Smaller venues can’t afford to pay for travel expenses or at least they won’t risk it with smaller bands. If we are to play for example in the south of Sweden like Stockholm we are talking about tens of thousands of crowns just for us to travel and sleep for a weekend. Playing gigs for us almost always costs more than we get.

What advice would you give other bands or artists? Don’t live to far from the venues you want to play at, haha! But seriously keep going even when it’s hard. Even if there are few people listening, take pride in what you do and don’t let others bring you down!

Do you have any new material? Loads! We are working in the studio on our upcoming album as we mentioned earlier. But we have material for almost two or three more albums who just need some touching up before we are ready to record it!   

What are your web sites? We have our own website Pointlessfate.com that we try to update as often as we can. We are also on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/pointlessfatemusic/?hl=sv and Facebook.

Do you have something to add? Just a thank you to you for having this interview with us! It means a lot to just be heard sometimes!