Rockezine.com interview with Mustasch on Apr 22, 2004

with Hannes Hansson on Apr 22, 2004


		Mustasch isn’t an established name in the scene (yet). Tell us a bit of the history so far in a few words.’ We started out in early 98 after B>thong broke up and Ralf was available again. Me and Ralf was sharing an apartment at the time and were playing heavy detuned riffs at home in our living-room. We then decided that, what the… let´s put a new band together for a last go, doing what we´ve always had wanted to do. So, we phoned in our old friends and former band-members Mats “Stam” Johansson and Mats “Dojan” Hansson. (no, we´re not brothers though we share the same name and we used to have the same address!) We started rehearsing and we went up to the island of Orust north of Gothenburg to my little farm and recorded the first demo, using Björn Olson´s (ex Union Carbide, Soundtrack of our lives…) mobile studio. One year later we made a second demo-recording wich landed us a record-deal with EMI (Capitol). We released the first EP early 2001. Toured the whole summer and then started recording the fist full-length album “Above All”. It was released early 2002 and stayed for 17 weeks on the top 40 chart in Sweden, pretty amazing for a hard rock album, and got us nominated for the Swedish hard rock grammy. We started playing abroad, mainly Germany. And finally we went in to the studio to make “Ratsafari” Witch got us nominated for the second time for the swedish grammy. And now we´ve entered Holland…
		Why the band name “Mustasch” It all started as a joke. We were discussing a band-name on ouir way home from one of the first rehearsals and said, let´s call ourselves Mustasch! And we had a laugh. But after a while we started to realize that´s it´s actually really cool. It´s short, accurate and noone ever seems to forget it. Everyone has an opinion about it. They love it or hate it but never the less the remember it. And after all, it´s just a name, and after a while it seems it grows into the music and the logotype. It´s simply us!
		How would you describe your music, since the bio mentions it not being stoner anymore? Our intention never was to play “stoner”. Our music is just the mix of our different sources of inspiration. And our arrangements are as far from stoner you can get. We´re really into cutting everything that isn´t nessecary . And I think you can hear influences from both the seventies and the eighties. I prefer to just call it Hard Rock. But is it really that important to put etiquettes on music?
		What are the reactions about the new album? We´ve actually got fantastic reviews from all kinds of media. Now we´re just waiting for the sales-figures from Holland… We´re very satisfied ourselves.
		Any exiting stories from the recording days? We were picked up in a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow each morning at the hotel. ( the studio tech dropped by in his private car, not very exiting.) It wasn´t a very exiting recording procedure. It was all work and no play. And we were well prepared for once. So most of the fooling around had already been done at our rehearsing studio. Maybe we will try to get back to recording while fooling around.. Just to make it more fun.
		Having seen you live as support act of Rose Tattoo, I’d say you’re a real live band, what’s the main pleasure of being a musician, playing live or making an album? It´s more like two sides of the same coin. Recording an album can be really frustrating. There we are four “artists” struggling with one object, and all of us has his own idea of what it should sound like. It´s hard learning to give away responsibility for a song and to trust in someone elses idea. At the same time it is amazing to see how the new song evolve. The same differences comes with the touring as well. It´s great meeting new fans and getting feedback from the audience. But it can also be tough when you stay seven guys in a small bus for days and weeks. I bet you can imagine… But in the end we love it all!
		From that gig with R.T. I still remember the song “Down In Black” with severe Black Sabbath influences. Also on the latest album I can hear that band as a main influence. What’s the reason for this? We´ve always been great fans of Black Sabbath, specially me and Ralf. I´ve got a weakness for that kind of “stiff” riffs. Anyway, they´re the fathers of this whole genre. I think it´s hard to do this thing without coming close to what they did. Their songs have been with us for so long now, it comes naturally, I´m proud to admit.
		Which (other) bands made you want to be musicians? It all goes back to The Beatles, I´d say. But when it comes to starting Mustasch, we got a kick from bands like Kyuss and Fu Manchu. How they did their thing, without asking for the opinion of others. Maybe that´s why and where we got our stoner-tag.
		The individual capabilities of the band members reach far beyond the pretty basic song structures. Is that on purpose, to be able to exploit technical and emotional possibilities to the maximum? When we started this band, we wanted to do everything that felt right. Not exclude anything because “it doesn´t sound like us”. And we still try to work that way today. So, if anyone has an idea , we try it. We´re definitely not showing off any technical skills. We just take advantage of each band-members ideas and possibilities. Then off course, we have some good qualities. Mats, our drummer, is really amazing behind the kit. He´s really one of our strongest assets. We usually start from the rhythm when composing. You know, if you have a guitar-riff, it´s important to decide what beat fits to it, the pace, the tempo. Once that is taken care of, the song kind of comes alive on it´s own, and sets off in a certain direction… see what I mean?
		What are the plans for the future? We will see where and how far the Ratsafari-album can take us. Plans are, there will be a new album out in a year from now. And we´re actually already preparing for the recording. We´ve started to record the first ideas for the new songs. Our experience is that you can´t be too well prepared if you want to do it your way, while recording an album.
		(Cor Schilstra)