Soundtrack Of Our Lives are from Sweden. They rock. They’re a bit like The Wannadies but they have more than one song. They have a penchant for pyschedelia that would be worrying were it not for the fact that they mix it in with a sense of humour and every other musical style that they can get their hands on. They’re first single was a great example of quirky indie pop. Their second ‘Mantra Slider’ sounds like The Verve. They’re debut album is called ‘Welcome To The Instant Freebase’ and has 20 tracks on it. It would have been a double album of 42 songs but they thought that was a bit excessive. One of their guitarists is called Ian Persson and Ben spoke to him on the phone.

He’s great. He’s got a brilliant Swedish accent and he sounds as confused as I am by his band. Being a lazy sort I go for the obvious question first.

Sweden/pop. Why?

“I don’t know why so much good music comes from Sweden. It’s a melancholic feeling in Sweden. You want to do something good so you can get out of there.

“We live in a city where you make cars and you have a huge harbour... it’s like any other city I guess. They say we’re the most rock’n’roll, I don’t know if that’s true, but I want it to be Detroit.

“During the summer it’s really nice to be where I live. It’s on the west coast and it’s really beautiful where you can just take a boat out and sail along the coast. I enjoy travelling. I enjoy staying at home to write songs, but I enjoy more to go out”.

Okay, so you’re jumping to the same conclusions as me, they’re just more melodic Swedish pop, but SOOL are different.

“We’re just the best, I guess... Most bands are quite poppy: we’re more of a rock’n’roll band. There’s just a vast variety of songs, and you won’t get bored with the concept with us. We have a singer that looks like Jesus, or a prophet. The drummer looks like he’s on... I don’t know. He’s got huge eyes and he’s really fun to look at when we have concerts. He’s like Keith Moon on acid”.

When he says they have a ‘huge variety of songs’ he’s not kidding.

“The album contains a huge variety of music, it’s like a jukebox - you can slide a coin in and choose a boogie tune, or... anything. It’s a vast variety. We’re six quite different people. There’s a red line somewhere so we can get it all together, but the core of it is late 60s early 70s psychedelia. We have Eastern influences, with sitars and also 16th century music, harpsichords for that strange touch.

“We actually recorded 42 songs for the album. We wanted to make it a double CD, I don’t know why. Me and the other guitarist and the singer had another band, and then we split up and started just writing songs separately, sending each other tapes, which continued over one and a half years, so we had so many songs that we just didn’t want to sit on them, so to speak, but twenty songs is too much already. But you won’t find it boring. You can listen to it and have a good time. There’s one song that sounds like Status Quo, and you have some psychedelic Beatles stuff. It’s a bit schizophrenic maybe, but I enjoy it.

“We’re quite heavily influenced by the Stooges, so if we do a pop song we might wanna have a huge solo so your ears just explode, but I enjoy a melodic calm song as well, it’s just that rock’n’roll is more fun to play”.

The refreshing thing about SOOL is just how much they seem to enjoy doing what they are doing. This is especially evident when they play live.

“Yeah, I love that more than being in a studio. In a studio you have to... you’re with six people, and you want your own mind to be the one that everybody listens to. It’s difficult. But onstage you can do almost anything you want because they don’t have the time to disagree”.

So, with a six piece band there are probably a few arguments.

“Yeah, about arrangements, but it’s good for the music. It’s not like we kill each other. We have a nice producer who’s like a daddy, or a psychologist, for solving problems”.

Soundtrack Of Our Lives. They’re a bit nuts.

Ian Persson from SOOL was talking to Ben, in September 1997.