GIRLFRENDO Girlfrendo is the best example to prove pop music doesn't understand any frontiers but creativity and personality: originally from sweden but formed in London scene, after recording some singles for the ultra-hip PIAO!, have issued their debut Lp for a new japanese label called Bambini records. Besides, if their songs are a great mix of enjoyable words, yummy sounds and heaps of fun... what are you waiting to be a frendo?

Were the ideas of labels like K or bands like Huggy Bear an inspiration to form Girlfrendo?

J. Pepita Frendo: Yes, when girlfrendo was formed two years ago it was very much thanks to inspiration from groups like huggy bear and others... nowadays though we tend to get inspiration from the wierdest places... today we are writing on a musical about an outer space family planning to move to gothenburg... so at this now we are much more into doing our own thing, and musically wise we are hoping to do a kind of ambitious, but mad thing with the same futuristic feelings that seemed to attract people in the sixties... mixing tin foil with childrens nursery rhymes, carpenters with skinned teen and hoping for it to end up in a unique new way. Well, on the paper anyway, while making songs we just can't help but playing around and end up with something we'd never even been thinking about. everybody in girlfrendo have their own way of wishing how it should sound, and most of the time we end up just surprising ourselves.

You are from Sweden but don't you think people take you as an UK band? Do you get press/attention from your own country?

J. Pepita Frendo: Yeah, a lot of the time people seem to think of us as a very brittish band... but then,  whenever we play in the u.k. people come up to us and say that we sound nothing like an act that could possibly come from england...and in sweden people say the opposite, which is only nice and should hopefully indicate that we speak the international language of popmusic...
In sweden there has been loads of press lately, something like nine interviews in less than two weeks, plus being interviewed live and getting played pretty regularly on the national radio, so things seem to happen... I think there is a kind of myth surrounding girlfrendo in Sweden, very few people have actually heard any of the records, since they are almost impossible to get hold of over here. We played for the first time ever in our hometown gothenburg the other week and there was over 200 people there in a club that holds 130. So now we are somewhat famous in our small city, with people coming up to you everytime you go to a party of some kind.

Tell us how is your audience

J. Pepita Frendo: hum... what is our audience like? It varies a lot to where we are playing. In England there is always a little clique of indie boys and girls with lot of glitter in their faces, and too much plastic things attached to them... a strange thing though is that as much as stereotypism like this can annoy you, you do get very nervous and unsecure when you get on stage and realise that there is none of them around. People tend to dance around a lot at our shows which is always nice... girlfrendo fans across the english nation generally have one big fault to them; they always shout for wee wee song in between every song!

Do you think there is some affinity(attitude/image) to the late 80s girl fronted bands like Would Be Goods or Bad Dream Fancy Dress from the "él" label?

J. Pepita Frendo: I did, and sort of still do, love these groups dearly and sincerly... and I take it as a big compliment being compared to them, though, due to very personal reasons, I rather not think about them. it's really a big shame, but I could never play any of their records again... it would bring up too many memories. when I was younger I used to listen to bad dream fancy dress and dream about singing with them... but they were all manufactured by mister Mike Alway and girlfrendo is manufactured by no one but our selves. Actually I had succeeded pretty well in forgetting about their existance. Shame on you for bringing it all up...

Girlfrendo have a wonderful collection of record covers, who is the responsible for that?

J. Pepita Frendo: The ideas for the first four single sleeves were all thought up by me and more or less made by me and my wonderful father. The "air" single was designed by the same person peron who runs our beautiful girlfrendo homepage: Per Nilsson... and the japaneese records are done by Kazuo Yata who runs bambini. Kazuo seems to be able to read my mind and come up with sleeves that are just the way I wish for them to be only a hundred times more beautiful... I have total trust in his creativness and taste. He's a true genius.

Is the Lp a logical musical progression/deaparture from the previous singles?

J. Pepita Frendo: Yes, in the same way as our new singles are a logical departure from the lp... girlfrendo is always about finding new ways. It's about playing around and constantly surprise everybody including ourselves... the day when we wake up without new ideas or visions we'll stop straight away, but since I can't see myself running out of madness in the near future this is far away from happening. We keep on adding new angles to ourselves all the time, I think girlfrendo's thing is that we are so many things...
I often get fed up with being in the group and bored when things aren't done just the way I want it to be done but then, with the final result in my ears, I'm always so dead proud and as excited  as a child on christmas day (eve here in sweden, but anyway) that I want to continue straight away. I'm in love with girlfrendo.

How did you meet Kazuo from Bambini/Popsy Rock magazine? Will your debut Lp be released in Europe/US soon?

J. Pepita Frendo: I was introduced to the fantastic Kazuo Yata thru a former friend of mine...we started to write each other frequently and sort of discussed our way up to working with oneanother. He's been brilliantly supportive and generous, plus he really belives in girlfrendo musically... we met up with him and Nao, his equally fantastic girlfriend in England this summer, and had a wonderful time together going to bars, drinking wine, smoking too many  cigarettes and just enjoying each others company... the lp will be released in Europe hopefully during the autumn and in America january next year, we are working on all that at this very now.

Hadn't had any major label offers to sign? Is compatible to record for a major label with your postulates?

J. Pepita Frendo: uhm... I think that where we are today we have the ideal relationships with the labels we are working with thruout the world, they are all independent and very much doing things they and we belive in. we have the possibilities to demand certain things and they are always open and supportive to our ideas. We release all the songs we like, and we have compleate influence on the final product... as far as i belive something like this is not quite possible while recording for a major. I have no wish to go bigger in any sense.

Do you get bored be labeled as a post riot-grrl or teen-c band everytime when someone talks/writes about you?

J. Pepita Frendo: Yes, definitly, I don't see what they are getting at... it's all due to lazyness. especially something like teen-c which to me stands more for ripping of good ideas and turning them into something deeply annoying. Girlfrendo has much intelligence to itself...
I don't see the clever bits in groups who keep on repeating themselves. Really all kind of labeling is annoying and all based on journalists who can't be arsed to open their minds. hell yeah, it bores me! to bits...

You also are a zine publisher, Tell us about your zines "I wish I was a Berrikin" and "Swing if you're glad to be a girlie"

J. Pepita Frendo: My zines have never been regularly published... they are more written to stimulate myself than anything else. i tend to write them and then photocopy a few copies and then just having them laying around my flat until someone asks for a copy...
"I wish I..." could be a little more ambitious when it comes to getting them out to people. anyway, "I wish I was a Berrykin" was the fanzines I wrote when I was around 18, (five years ago) I did them toghether with my then boyfriend Andreas... reading them now it strikes me how easily impressed  I seemed to be when young. I can't quite relate to them any longer, but they are sweet as a reminder of my early day as an enthusiastic..
"Swing if you're glad to be girlie" was only a one off, mostly to prove to myself that I could actually do something myself... I still quite like it, but then again, it is very much the thoughts of me at a certain time in life. But that's the way it should be, isn't it?
This summer I did the first issue of "Philosophy of the World", which I'm still thinking of as relative. I've hardly given away any copies of it, but if anyone would wants one, just get in touch. "philosophy of the world" is more the thoughts on my mind about everyday life than strictly musical.

Which are your musical heros?

J. Pepita Frendo: Heroes, I don't know... stuff I've been listening to the last couple of weeks though; comet gain, chet baker, carpenters, neutral milk hotel, shaggs, the subway sect, marine girls, yummy fur, tim hardin, 5th dimension, stereo total, peechees, sukpatch, pluxus, velvet underground, jonathan richman and apples in stereo...
And also one group that really are my musical heroes; plouf!, they are the coolest kids of leeds, and only play songs that last for something like twenty seconds each. I loved seing them, and i think every group on earth should grab a slice of inspiration off them... and of avocado baby, who's records I just can't put on without wanting to form my own act.
The thing that sounds better than all conventional music though is my nine weeks old kitten: harmony... her purring on my tummy. wow.

Tell us funny things about your city (Gothenburg)

J. Pepita Frendo: A funny thing... I don't know much funny things about Gothenburg, there is one pretty amusing thing though. We have this parade street in the middle of the city and it's leading up to an enourmous and incredibly ugly statue of Poseidon, the God of the sea or something. Standing in front of him the first thing that is going to strike you is how incredibly tiny his penis is, it's smaller than his little toe... well, the trick is to go and stand on the right hand side of him, back off a bit and then it all soon appear... young poseidon is extremly well equipped. Cus the huge fish he is holding in his hand, the one where water keep flushing from, is the best shaped fallacious symbols i've ever come across...
Something nice about Gothenburg, I live half a minute from the most beautiful park I've ever visited... I go for hour long walks there everyday. And on my side I have pink flamingoes and sheep and colourful flowers and big lakes; feels like walking in a fairytale...

Which is your spanish connection? Do you know some interesting spanish band?

J. Pepita Frendo: Spain is my favourite country ever... I have my parents living there in Altea, which is a beautiful small village in the south east, with a nice little plaza and a a fantastically shaped church, with the most brilliant blue colour on the roof... I went down there for three weeks in march or april something, and I had a wonderful and peaceful time, eating lovely food and drinking the local wine every night with my family. I love the smell of the lemon and orange trees, I love going up in the mountains... the language sounds amazing. I just love Spain. My sister left sweden yesterday to go and live in Valencia to study spanish. I'm sure she'll have a wonderful time and I'm very jealous of her. But i miss her deeply already since she is my closest friend... I'm going down for two weeks in november to visit her in Valencia and to see my parents in Altea, to go and see the wonderful miau! girls of murcia, and to travel to Madrid or Barcelona for a day. i can't wait...
Unfortunatly I don't know much about spanish music, I love hello cuca, especially since I know them as people... but there must be quite a lot of things going on there, with good festivals, good record labels and some good magazines...am i right or?

You have a great and lovely website, How much do you use the Net? Are you a bit net-addicts?

J. Pepita Frendo: Yeah the girlfrendo web-site really does look good, all thanks to Per Nilsson, I keep on getting surprised myself everytime I have a look... I'm not much of a web-addict at all, a lot of the time internet just annoys me. I'm using my e-mail a lot more frequently than I'm actually using the net... but my computer was just fixed the other day after four months of brokeness, so I have no contact with anyone any more. Being without internet was easy, no abstinence here. I'm not anti internet at all, a lot of the time it is really useful... it's just something there that annoys me, especially when it comes to like indie people chatting and stuff. huh...

Tell us your future plans: recordings, shows...

J. Pepita Frendo: We are beginning to rehearse a bit more this autumn I think, I used to be totally against everything that had anything to do with rehearsals... but now I've changed my mind. Taking part in creating something, making songs in the studio, to play around makes me high as a kite. I walk around with a stupid smile on my face every time I leave the studio after we've been recording or mixing or something. Apart from whenever we've had any fights... then I just want to kill.
And we are writing on this musical i mentioned earlier, we are going to have a dialogue and a special dance to come with it. It should hopefully be available on the cd-single as a cd-rom thing (whatever that means) or to get on video...  the other week we shot our first ever video, for the song "cat heaven", which will be our next single in japan. That was loads of fun, just letting your  ideas flow and thinking up stuff while on set. We have just recorded two new songs that will be b-sides for that japaneese single and another song that will be put on a japaneese compilation.
We have no shows planned right now, Sara still lives in london, so that always makes things a little harder. But we have been asked to play at a "happening" kind of night at the Gothenburg theatre, which would be so scary, cos it's such an enourmous place... we were thinking of maybe perform our musical there and then. Oh and there has also been some talking of us going to japan early next year, which would be amazing. And then there is all that stuff about the record being relesed in Europe soon, as I mentioned earlier. my godness, we sound like a real busy group...