The AU Review reporter, John Goodridge chats with Millencolin guitarist Erik Ohlsson and finds out why he’s looking forward to the Vans Warped tour later this year.
Hey Erik! How’s it going?
It’s going good. I’m called Erik Millencolin [according to the operator]. I like that. Haha. I’m gonna change my last name. You can’t go wrong with changing your last name to your band name, right?
Haha. Makes a lot of sense.
Yeah
So you guys have been together for twenty years now?
Yup. Correction, 21 years.
So how did you get together?
We were skateboarders and we were skating at our local skate-park. Mathais and Nikola are from a completely different part of the city so we met up in the local skate park and we loved the music and we formed a band pretty much. We just wanted to play skateboard music.
I was reading that you sponsored a skate competition in Örebro.
Yeah that was when we celebrated our ten-year anniversary, eleven years back. We wanted to give something back to skateboarding since we owe skateboarding a lot. So Örebro has an indoor skate park, which I also was helping build, and also we wanted to put on a really good skate competition and you know skaters from all around Sweden and outside Sweden and it was like a big skateboarding weekend in our home town. It was like really, really big. We had it for like seven years straight but then after a while we went on tour and stuff. It’s a lot of work getting that whole event working. I dunno, we missed one year touring and it kinda fell away somewhere. But I guess we gonna do it again sometime.
So how big is Örebro, as a city?
I guess it’s around sixth or seventh largest city, around 150,000 people or something like that. A little bit more maybe. It’s kinda like an average city right in the middle between Stockholm and Gothenburg. It’s located really well for putting on a skate contest because we’re in the demographic middle of Sweden. It’s a great city.
I have a friend that lives in Malmo and he hates the Stockholmers.
Yeah, you know there’s a triangle of hate in Sweden. Gothenburg, Malmo and Stockholm don’t like each other. We’re right in the middle and everybody likes us, actually.
So for your 20 anniversary, you released a CD/DVD, Meloncholy Connection. Can you tell us about that?
We just wanted to release something for our twenty-year anniversary, so ten years back or so in ‘99 we released a b-side compilation called the The Melancholy Collection. So we thought since then we had a lot of b-sides that added up to a new CD pretty much, so we thought it was a perfect time to put out another disc and also record two new songs for that. We didn’t do much marketing for it. It was more for the fans and 20 year anniversary, but I think it’s gone pretty well and I really like the first song, one of the new songs called “Carry You”, which is one we play live a lot.
So you guys do heaps of touring and you’ve been to Australia three times at least.
Oh I think eight.
Oh okay, so do you do a lot of songwriting on tour?
Oh no, never actually, we’ve never been a band that’s been creative in that sense on tour. When you’re on tour you’re focused on being on tour and the most important thing is the live performance but then after you perform you party and then you wake up hungover and focus on the next show. So the creativity is something that happens when you’re back home.
So what do you think of Australian audiences compared to other?
When you’re up on stage it’s kinda hard to tell one crowd apart from another but in general Australians are so nice like a really good vibe. For example South America is more like a violent vibe. People are going nuts and throwing things everywhere but in Australia you’re really friendly. That’s why we love going to Australia so much. It’s always a really good happy atmosphere. I can’t remember a bad show in Australia, ever. Always such great shows.
You’re coming here for the Vans Warped tour this year with Offspring and Amity Affliction. So you hang out with these guys after the shows and party?
I guess. We’ve toured a lot with Offspring before. Me and Noodles have been partying a lot. Also Dexter’s private jet. He’ll probably fly himself down there as well. He’s got his own plane and he’s a pilot. We’ll see if we can’t catch a ride with him. But of course we’ll be hanging out. We just confirmed Warped tour. First we got an offer one month ago and we had an Austrian show at the time, which we were in contract with. So it took some time to get out of that contract and the booking agent had to find a replacement act for us. So we finally got on board three weeks ago I think. So it’s really great. I never expected to be leaving this nasty cold November fall to be going to Australia. So it’s a pleasant surprise.
The Swedes always seem to like to escape the snow to come to Australia in summertime.
There’s a reason why our last three albums were released first in Australia and we released them in January. It’s so good to release in Australia to escape the Swedish winter and come to Australia to release an album.
And you’re the main person behind all the artwork for the band. Do you find that hard doing both the music and the artwork?
It’s fun. I’ve got my own graphic design company, which I do a lot of graphic design for other companies. Now I just did two new t-shirt designs for Millencolin so it’s really fun actually. It’s different to design stuff for yourself than for a client. You know, you’re doing a job for them and they expect something to look a certain way and for Millencolin I can do exactly what I want. It’s really fun.
The only criticism I’ve got is that your website is a little out of date.
I’m a graphic designer but I’m not a web guy. I don’t really like designing on the web. That’s why it looks like crap. It’s been like “Under Construction” ever since our 20 year anniversary pretty much. We need to get something going for Australia, change it to a WordPress site. Our goal is to film a bit and put up a YouTube clip so we need to look over the website as well.
So who does the filming? Do you have a guy following you around?
No. It’s just us. I mean otherwise it gets all serious. It feels like you’re living in that documentary type of thing. I’m just gonna bring one or two Go-Pro camera and film with our i-phones and nothing fancy. Just putting out some clips.
So you wouldn’t do a full on doco and have someone follow you around?
We thought about it but I’m kinda picky with everything, which means I would kinda be in charge of everything. Being a band member and being in charge of photography and shooting, I could do it, but it’s hard. You need a team of people who have the same ideas as me and bring them. It’s also a logistical issue. Fly down three guys from Sweden to make a documentary, which would cost a lot of money. Is it worth it or do you just party without having a camera in your face? I think I prefer our small home made footage actually.
Thanks Erik for having a chat to the AU review and we look forward to seeing you in Australia for the Vans Warped tour.
Awesome, looking forward to it too. Take care man and I’ll see you in a couple of weeks.
