Interview with Johnossi-Drummer Oskar Bonde in Hamburg - English Version

(Johnossi)

17.05.2010 von Jessica Franke

The duo Johnossi, consisting of John Engelbert (vocals, guitar) and Oskar Bonde (drums), from Stockholm began playing together in 2004 and released their first self-titled debut just one year later via a small indie record label. After having toured with acts like The Soundtrack Of Our Lives, Mando Diao and Razorlight as well as having completed an own tour in Germany, their second album "All They Ever Wanted", produced by Jari Haapalainen (known for his work with The Concretes, Ed Harcourt and Camera Obscura, to name just a few), was released in March 2008. Apart from all the audience’s favourites, which could be found on their first two albums, the band gained an additional degree of awareness by contributing their "Execution Song" to the movie "The Wave". Their third, and in conformity with their homepage, most ambitious album "Mavericks" came out in April 2010. The duo is known for their brilliant live performances. A review of the concert at the Logo in Hamburg can be read here. It was a pleasure for me to meet Johnossi-Drummer Oskar "Ossi" Bonde before the show for an interview and to ask him about their new album, touring and his love for Stockholm.

Musicheadquarter-Editor Jessica Franke met Oskar Bonde in Hamburg

Did you enjoy your day in Hamburg?

Ossi: Yes, so far as been, I mean the most of the day we were at the store show and actually pretty slept very long.

Did you have a little bit time for sightseeing?

Ossi: Not really actually, we had just talking about that because every time we come to Hamburg we only hang around the Reeperbahn because that’s where the venues are. So we haven’t seen so much of the other, you know, I would call it the real Hamburg, but I would like to go sightseeing someday. It’s always like that when we come to the cities we are playing. We should focus on the show, it seems to just try to gather as much of energy as possibly you can and sometimes sightseeing is not a good idea because you get so tired especially in the summer sun.

But you bring a wonderful weather…

Ossi: Yes, I know, it’s fantastic. We came from a not so good weather in Sweden, so this is wonderful.

Your new album called "Mavericks" was released in Germany on 30th of April. On your homepage it says that "Discipline, hard work, insomnia, confusion on the verge of insanity and a strong insight into that evolution characterise your most ambitious album". Can you explain that?

Ossi: I think when we fit the assistant and were talking about making our third album we immediately start to figure out what kind of album we want to do and how we want to do it and for us we can almost immediate but we wanted not to make the album within a couple of weeks because we could probably do that, we pretty much do that than the last album, which we do very fast. And this time we really wanna to be deep and we had a very long time with singing and writing music and than when we went to the studio we had almost two months. That’s a very long time for us. A kind of what we wanna to do is not to leave anything behind. We want to try everything with every song so that every song just found his right place. And it was a kind of time making and kind of hard on us, psychologically, because we couldn’t much leaving the album for a half to a year. In the end the result is, it’s fantastic but it still was very hard for us to put this album together.

Where do you see the main differences to the two first albums?

Ossi: It’s kind of hard to say. I would say that every album - and this is our third album - every album has been very dated from the time when we were act, when we recorded that album and the songs. So of course a lot of things had happened to us through the years from we were playing together and this is, I mean this album is very much 2009 for us. The last album is very much 2006 or 2007. Yeah, and so I guess that would be the big difference in the way the albums can follow us in our life. And not that we think it’s important for other people to know that, for us it’s a very big thing when it comes creating the music and it should be a really honest to what you do at the very moment. I mean the first album was very naive and we just thought: "Oh, we got to write an album…" and we did not know so much about the studio work and how we arrange songs and stuff like that and that’s why I think that album is very naive and beautiful and fun. You can feel the energy and we were doing something we never tried before. The second album is due to the very much touring a kind of we wanted to catch the live sound on an album and the energy is very much and I think it succeeded very well with that. This album is more our reflection of, you know, very much thinking about life and a kind of the point of we are act right now. Now this is, I mean we are more or less in that established band, especially where you come from and you start thinking a lot of what you wanna do in your life. And of course this is a very big thing for us to be with, to play music for other people that love our music. But still other things are growing in our life as well as when it comes to founding families and stuff like that and it’s really important to have a good view of what really you think of your life. So it’s important to know yourself and that’s where we were start of thinking about the word "Maverick", a person who reflects on his life and his trying to move in his own path and not maybe just going with the flow, just really trying to find his own way. And that is what I guess we are trying to do. We are not perfect, in any way, but we try.

You decided to produce this album yourself, what was the reason for this decision?

Ossi: The reason I guess was that we wanna to have full control of the music of the volume. We have been working with producers before and it has been working very well but the fact that we had come to the time when we wanna to try something new as well and to get a new fresh point of view for our music and really, because we had so many ideas from the started to finish the songs what we wanted to do in the studio when we propel them. So it felt very natural for us to be producers and the thing is we don’t really have too big knowledge about technological stuff and it’s very natural for us to bring a third part with us, Lasse Mårtén, who is the owner of the studio, so he became a co-producer as well and that collaboration was fantastic.

And you produced it in Stockholm?

Ossi: Yeah, in Stockholm. Close to home, it was very nice. We were thinking about doing it somewhere else. There was no really reason because the studio about we wanna to working is located in Stockholm and it was really no reason for us to go away.

How do your fans react to the new songs?

Ossi: Fantastic I think. I mean we haven’t been doing that many live shows so far. We made like four in Sweden and the response has been fantastic because we were playing a kind of a lot of songs of the new album. I mean sometimes the audience don’t like when we are playing to many new songs but I think the reactions has been fantastic and as well the single "What’s The Point" has been over our expectations how the audience had taken it to them. So it’s fantastic.

This is Johnossi: Oskar Bonde (Drums) und John Engelbert (Guitar, Vocals)

Do you still like playing the older songs?

Ossi: Yeah, sure. We will always playing the older songs but now we have three albums to choose songs from and the last album we had two and the first one we had only one. So it’s a totally different thing now, we can choose so many different songs but of course we gonna play the older songs. Not only because people wants to hear them it’s because we wanna keeping them alive.

I saw that you supported The Hives in Japan last year. How was it?

Ossi: It was great fun. I mean I don’t think it was only four shows or something but we had a great time and we had always been big fans of the Hives and it was wonderful for us to be on the tour with them. You know they did all the crazy stuff you can do. We had fantastic shows. They are fantastic guys and we had so much fun together.

Where do you see most of the differences between concerts in Europe and in Japan?

Ossi: There is a very big difference especially in Japan. Most of the concerts in Europe you can see pretty much the same, there are some differences. But when you come to Japan there is totally different because the audience is dead quiet during the show and they… (Ossi shows how the Japanese applaud and makes us both laughing). They are kind of quiet during the songs. As long as you, you know, if you know that is how they react it’s ok but the first time we get really shocked and that’s the same thing with any band. They are very, you know, extreme. We never have been to Japan, we never released an album and they were always around us, coming out of the train the people waiting for us. This is crazy. It’s very nice but it’s very different. It’s a totally different culture and you are not allowed to carry anything before. You know we always had a lot of people around us carrying our stuff and opening doors and are so very polite. As long as you prepared for that you gonna have a good time but it sounds like a shock for some people. But the guys, the Hives, they told us: Go with the flow, be thankful and be polite and than you will be fine.

Do you plan more gigs outside Europe, like in Asia and maybe in the US?

Ossi: Yeah, we probably will but I mean now we are concentrating on Europe and Scandinavia but probably next year we will go back. We will probably be touring two maybe more than two years on this album so I think definitely we will come back to the US and also Japan.

In general: Do you like touring? And how much time do you have while touring to see the cities?

Ossi: I like touring in the sense that we get to play live. Otherwise there is a lot of waiting and there’s a lot travelling and I am not too fond of that travelling especially. I mean you turn to miss your family and your friends and there’s a lot of quiet time and when you feel that you could do something else and be with your family and your friends instead of sitting in the van. And it’s a kind of could be quiet to exhausting but not I mean when it comes to a live show. This is what we really love to do and so touring is a very big part of our lives.

Which city or country did you like the most?

Ossi: I don’t know. We always love coming to Germany. We are always stuck to Hamburg, Berlin and Munich and every city. But as I mentioned Japan was fantastic. I have to go back as a private tourist because there is so much to see and the country is fantastic. And we also toured throughout the whole America and Canada and that all was fantastic as well. You get to see so many countries in your life. I think it is very important for people to travel a lot because otherwise you get so narrow down to the place where you are staying at. I think it’s very healthy to see most of the world, to see how it looks on the other site of the globe, to see how people work and how different people can be and that gives you a lot of good thoughts about life.

You said before that you miss your family and friends during your tours. Can you tell me what is so special for you about Stockholm?

Ossi: Stockholm is our hometown. We travel so much when we are working and when we are home in Stockholm it means that we are free. We don’t have to work, we don’t have to do anything. We can only spend time with our families. So of course that’s why coming back to Stockholm is always fantastic. But I mean I love cities that are close to the water and are really depended on water. I am been able to see the sea of being close to the water and Stockholm is a very small town but I think it has most of that what I need. I will probably move one day, sooner or later at somewhere, in one or two years, but Stockholm will definitely always been my hometown.

Ossi thank you very much for the very nice interview. I wish you all the best for your tour and your album, and yeah, see you tonight.

Ossi: Yeah, see you tonight. It’s gonna to be a great show. We gathered some energy so it will be explosive and loud.

A very special thank to the people of Community Promotion in Dortmund, who made this interview possible.

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