FREAK KITCHENBy Nicky Baldrian
FREAK KITCHEN
By
Nicky Baldrian
Sweden's FREAK
KITCHEN have so far have released three critically acclaimed
studio albums that are quite bizarre and musically influential,
1994's "Appetizer", 1996's "Spanking Hour"
and 1998's self titled opus, the band will release their much
anticipated fourth studio album (as yet untitled), in August.
Freak Kitchen are a Swedish three piece unit featuring Mattias
"IA" Eklundh - vocals, electric and accoustic guitars,
keys, and er- Chinese lady's finger dildo, Christian Gronlund -
bass, vocals, harmonica and Joakim Sjoberg on drums. They all got
involved with music at an early age " I started out on the
drums" remembers Christian "I used to joke around in my
mother's dining room with my friends, and it sounded horrible, we
used to put on the first ten seconds of KISS "Alive 2"
record, you know where the crowd roars, and then we just hammered
our instruments to the core.
It sounded like some kind of
bomb raid over the neighborhood" he laughs. "When I was
16 I formed my first real band which later on morphed into Major
N.A, a band that I played with for some years." Major N.A.
was inspired by bands like Guns 'n' Roses, The Cult and AC/DC
"I left the band after a few years which was a pitty since
they shortly after that got a record deal and released a
self-titled full length album on the Swedish label MNW. The
reason I left Major N.A was that I was also in a band called Lazy
Bonez, a real sleaze-glam-rockīnīroll-circus attitude kind of
band, we got a great bunch of gigs all over Sweden and thatīs
where I really got familiar with the stage."
The band had big musical pretensions and often disagreed with
each other, so Christian decided to leave " Were still
friends though and some of the guys are now climbing the charts
in the Nordic countries as Hardcore Superstar (Music For
Nations)."
It was at the last Lazy Bones gig in their hometown of Gotheburg,
Sweden where fate would pair Christian and Mattias "IA"
Eklundh together. "I heard afterwards that one of the guys
in the audience was Mattias "IA" Eklundh. For some
strange reason he liked what he saw, I say strange since I recall
that everyone in the band were always totally wasted when
performing. But as a matter of fact Mattias was eager to find a
cig.smoking, stage-wrecking bass player."
Mattias played for a number of years with Danish mob FATE and
released their best album "Scratch And Sniff". "I
got tired of the whole deal with FATE for a number of
reasons" says Mattias. The first thing Mattias did after
FATE was calling his old mate Joakim Sjoberg "Joakim was
living in LA at the time, working and studying for his hero and
friend, drummer Marc Craney (Jethro Tull, Tower of Power, Gino
Vanneli). Joakim packed his bags and returned to Sweden."
For many years Joakim and Mattias had played in a band together
called FROZEN EYES, they released one album on a Danish label.
Christian continues "All of a sudden there was a three-piece
band. We all moved into a huge apartment and started rehearsing,
we met our manager Torben Schmidt (SKAGARACK) and the rest is
history.
The bands music shows many different musical styles in all shapes
forms and sizes, musically Christian is inspired by his daughter
Amanda "Amanda who was born on the first day of the new
millenium. Sheīs an absolutely wonderful little girl and she
makes me very happy and hopeful every morning when we wake
up!" he says proudly "Musicwise we stand light-years
from each other in Freak Kitchen, and I hope thatīs why our
audience think weīre so dynamic."
Mattias is inspired by Frank Zappa "I'm a huge Zappa-freak
and that has become some kind of a red thread through our albums,
above all lyricwise."
Christian is a sucker for seventies hard rock "I am a sucker
for bands like Thin Lizzy, Kiss, Black Sabbath etc. but I almost
never listen to their records these days. I try to refill my
inspirational sources every once in a while by grabbing some cdīs
in the store. I just discovered The Mahavischnu Orchestra, some
decades after everyone else. I was melting to one of their
records at a friends yesterday, so my mission right now is to get
their whole back-catalouge.
But I try to listen to new harder bands as well, for example Rage
Against The Machine, Monster Magnet, Foo Fighters etc. Iīm not
one of these persons who believes that everything has to break
absolutely new grounds. Iīm satisfied if I just can chill out
listening to a good song, I donīt give a damn if itīs performed
by Hanson or Oasis. But right now Iīm trying to listen to as
less music as possible. Weīre in the middle of a recording
process and I always get my brain stuffed up with to much strange
reflections if I listen to other bands while recording."
The new record is going to be harder and faster "This record
is going to be very different from the last one. The last one was
mellow, well-produced, orchestrated and, in my opinion,
sophisticated. Weīre darnn proud of that record but now that weīve
proved that we are three adults we are ready to kick some serious
butt again. This new yet untitled record is hard, groovy and
fast, quite complex but definitely easier to categorize as hard
rock or metal than the last one, and that is somewhat important
when it comes to dealing with distributors, they get totally
confused if they donīt know how to categorize an album. But I
have to point out that thatīs not the reason why we decided to
make a heavier album. We just felt that the hard riffing and
grooving was in our veins right now, and thatīs why the songs
came out that way.
We are aware that many of our fans are longing for some hard
stuff and that is what theyīre going to get. There will be a
heavy songs for each and everyone out there. Shithead, Black
Spider Flag, Thereīs Something Wrong With Your Car, Gone, Slap
Me In The Face & Silence are some of the titles.
One brand new thing on this record is that me and Mattias have
been co-laborating on some of the songs, for example the mighty
groovy "Black Spider Flag". I made the music and
Mattias wrote the lyrics. To most bands this is the most natural
thing in the world but weīve never tried it in Freak Kitchen
before. We are used to carrying our own fine little bags of
pre-packed songs down to the rehearsal-room, but since Iīm not
to fond of the lyric part I decided to give that away to Mattias.
He is the lyric-maestro in the band. And as I mentioned above his
lyrics has become one of our trademarks."
Freak Kitchen plan are readt to take over the planet "We
want to conquer the world, sell millions and retire..., just
kidding, but just as any other band out there weīre waiting for
the big one.
I donīt think that our main ambition is to sell millions and
millions of albums but you can always try to keep up your spirits
up by hoping that stardom and big success will come your way.
Making your albums available in the stores all over the world is
definitely a more reasonable goal and I guess that is one of our
main goals right now."
As for this year they all ready have tons of activities lined up
"We have club gigs, work-shops and summer festivals coming
up, for example the mighty popular "Sweden Rock
Festival", where we are performing for the sixth year in a
row, this year together with ZZ Top, Alice Cooper, Lynyrd Skynyrd
and more."
For Freak Kitchen touring is a luxury "Touring as often as
possible is one of the things we aim for all the time coz that is
what we really enjoy doing, and itīs also the best way to
promote the band and the albums."
The band are trying to arrange a longer European tour early 2001
as well as heading out to Japan for some shows.
Christian concludes "Since thereīs no possibilities for any
extensive promotional operations in our production chain, we hope
to release the new album as well as our back-catalouge in as many
countries as possible. We have had some good interests in the
States and that is something that we really hope for, it would
also be a lot of fun if we could go for some shows over there. Iīm
actually the only one in the band who never been to America"
Freak Kitchen will release their fourth as yet untitled studio
album in August and will also be heading over to the UK for a
series of shows shortly afterwards. Tonight the band are on their
way to Denmark for a Gig and Work-shop tour for a week, so if you
can go see them live as they are spectacular. Until then keep
checking our studio reports page for details and track
descriptions of da Freaks new album. World domination awaits
them!!!
Contact the band via their website at: HTTP://WWW.FREAKKITCHEN.NU and tell 'em Strutterzine sent ya!!!