Utter Trash--The Hellacopters

Hella-Rockin’

An interview with Robert Eriksson of The Hellacopters

By Bob Ignizio

The Hellacopters’ debut album, 1994’s ‘Supershitty to the Max’, pretty much laid out the template that countless bands would follow by combining sixties garage and seventies punk and hard rock to deliver catchy tunes with a raw, ferocious attack. The band (Nick Royale – vocals/guitar, Boba Fett – piano, organ, and guitar, “Strings” – guitar, Kenny Håkansson – bass, and Robert Eriksson – drums) followed their debut with a seemingly endless output of singles, albums, and compilation tracks. Eventually the ‘Copters modified their full on assault to a more melodic but still rockin’ approach. By the time The Hives made Swedish garage rock the new hip thing, The Hellacopters had already been there, done that, and moved on. Although the band’s most recent album, ‘By the Grace of God’, has been out in Europe for 2 years, it just came out in the states on the Liquor & Poker label. That seemed like a good enough excuse for an interview, and drummer Robert Eriksson was kind enough to answer my questions by email.

Utter Trash: 'By the Grace of God' is a fantastic album, and with all the hype surrounding bands like The Hives, you would think a U.S. record company would have jumped on it. Why has it taken so long to come out here?
Robert Eriksson: Oh we’re too old...haha! Our worldwide deal with Universal means they have the option to put it out in the US within 6 months from the European release. And since they didn’t choose to do that, we have to make a new deal and that takes a little bit of time. Finally Liquor & Poker put it out, which we’re really happy about!

UT: The band's sound has evolved considerably from the raw debut album to the more melodic approach you have now. Do you see the band continuing more or less in this style, or are you guys always looking to try new things?
RE: Don’t really think about changing, it just comes naturally...oh what a cliché answer!

UT: Nick has been one of my favorite songwriters since he was in Entombed. That said I'm sure everyone in the band contributes to the end results. How much of a collaboration is your writing process, and what do you bring to the table?
RE: When Nick has a song, he’s made a demo already which is pretty much done. We all bring our style of playing, of course, but the arrangement is usually all there. Lyrics sometimes come later with the final touches in the studio.

UT: Are there any plans to push a specific single or video from the album?
RE: Not in the US. We did have two singles and videos off the album here in Europe. First one was “By the Grace of God”, and it went up the charts a fair bit here in Sweden (I think it was Top 20?). And the video was on high rotation for a while. Second was “Carry Me Home”, and that was also up the charts a bit, but the video wasn’t shown quite as much. Since we already know that the videos won’t get that much airplay in the US, we included them in the American CD package.

UT: It's been a while since you toured America. Now that the album is officially out here, do you plan to hit the States?
RE: We’re actually going into the studio first! We took some time off after doing around 120 shows for the Grace of God tour. After that, everybody started doing side projects and such. Then we booked the studio for the next album, and all of a sudden the record comes out in the U.S. Now we can’t change our other obligations, but we definitely WILL be back as soon as possible. But it won’t be until 2005, sorry.

UT: Do you want to try and get your next album released here quickly, or stagger it a bit so you can concentrate on promoting 'By the Grace of God'?
RE: We will record a new album in the beginning of 2005 that will be out before summer here in Europe. HOPEFULLY a U.S. release won’t take that long this time, but nothing is certain. ‘Cream of the Crap! Vol. 2’, our second singles compilation, will be released by Liquor & Poker in the U.S. this winter if I’m not misinformed. We’re also (in Europe) putting out a mini album in November, as yet untitled, containing 6 unreleased songs off the ‘Grace of God’ session.

UT: Some members of the band have side projects. What can you tell me about those?
RE: For this last year or so Nick has played and recorded with The Solution, a soul band in which he plays drums, together with Detroit-legend Scott Morgan. They’re doing a European tour in November. He has also played with Swedish singer/songwriter Stefan Sundström, which leads me to Strings...He’s currently playing with Stefan Sundström, and they are doing a Swedish 25-date tour in October. He’s also recorded his debut “solo album" under the band name Thunder Express, which will be out in October with some touring to follow. Boba has played with Diamond Dogs (together with Strings as well), but they have both recently quit cos there wasn´t enough time. Kenny is playing and recording with a band called Sofia Härdig & the Needles. I’m playing with a band called The Wild Kings which, among others, includes our producer Chips K on guitar/vocals. We´re doing one show a month at a club called Wild Kingdom run by Nick Royale, Henke Walse (our artguy), and Calle Schewen (former White Jazz Records-boss, now Wild Kingdom Records-boss). I’ll also be recording with Dregen (Backyard Babies, ex-Hellacopter) soon in a one-single-project called Urrke Thunman & the Thunderbirds, which also includes people from Maggots & Maryslim. Should be fun!

UT: The Hellacopters have already moved beyond the "garage rock revival" tag. After so many bands have followed in the footsteps of your early material, do you think that trend is running its course?
RE: Personally I’m a bit tired of it. "Everything should be distorted" sort of...but then again there are always people who think our early stuff is the best. I thought it was great at the time, and still do, but I can’t really see us doing it all over again.

UT: Are you happy with the level of success you've achieved? What's the one thing you'd like to see the band accomplish that you haven't done yet?
RE: I’m really happy since our original plan was to get a 7" out!!! But I’m not content. I still wanna record and go on tour, and right now I’m longing more than ever to get back together! I don’t really care about becoming famous and getting played on MTV all the time, cos to do that you have to play someone else’s game sort of, and none of us are willing to do that. It’s OUR music, OUR career and most important OUR lives, so we choose what we wanna do and sometimes people think we’re making stupid decisions by turning down compilations, lucrative TV commercials etc. But we’re only thinking what we want our favorite band to do. Does that make sense?

UT: Anything I didn't ask about you want to comment on?
RE: No, you nailed it pretty good! Cheers!