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Pressrelease for BABY COME ON - 1986
written by Willy B.
THE SHOUTLESS is probably the most unfamous band from Sweden today.
Hailing from Solna, the now semi-legendary place outside Stockholm, and maybe THE centre of todays so called garagemusic, they have been going for more than four
years now.
A few line-up changes has taken place as the years have passed by, but today the quartet is made up of the
following four:
Janne Liljekvist. Guitar and vocals. 23 years old, and a filmstudent when the music don´t claim all his daily hours. Loves The Hollies, would you believe that while listening
to to the frenzy leadguitar on "BABY COME ON"?
Lasse Gustafsson. Bass and vocals. 22 years old student. Have been a member of The Shoutless since the beginning. When he´s not on stage with the rest of the band, you might find him on the back of his horse somewhere in the backwoods outside of Stockholm.
Doctor Krause. Guitar and vocals. 24 years old and a student like the two above. Have played guitar for years and years, and although he really doesn´t enjoy any records, there is a possibility of making him speak quite nicely about artists like Ry Cooder and The Cramps.
Matte Rosén. Drums. 21 years old. Spends his daily hours as a truckdriver, while hitting the skins at night. Started his career many years ago as a drummer in several punk-bands, but plays anything from rockabilly to whereever THE SHOUTLESS might take him.
THE SHOUTLESS has been represented on vinyl before.
Their very first 45, called "INSANE", had just about everybody in ecstasy, both in Sweden and abroad, from the local "Solna-Sundbybergstidningen" to internationally known mags like "Bucketfull of Brains".
A mini-LP followed, where the titletrack "OUT OF REACH" is as highly regarded as "INSANE". Tracks on various compilations also exists, like the B-side of their first single that ended up on a ROIR garage-cassette sampler. Another track, "CHANGE MY WAYS" is on a Swedish Nuggets/Pebbles-compilation called "REAL COOL TIME".
And then the time is NOW!
On December 7, 8 and11th The Shoutless were busy recording and mixing in a studio in Stockholm, together with the two Norwegian producers Willy B. and Bitten F. This visit to the recording studio resulted in three songs, where of one is a flexi with the incredible Swedish mag "THE EYE", whose title is appropriately "BUY THE EYE". A blistering thunderstorm in Stooges-mood, if you ask me, but the two songs on their next single might be considered by many to be even better.
The titles: "BABY COME ON", a Beatlesque trasher complete with tremologuitar, feedback and maraccas, and then "STAY BY ME", a rockabilly-number which would have made Dave Edmunds proud (and make his hair turn grey if he heard it!!!).
This is probably the very best Swedish rock-single for many years, but The Shoutless have two problems right now. The first is how to get as many gigs as possible in Europe and the rest of the world, the second is: How are they gonna manage to make a follow up to this record??????
Interview in BUCKETFULL OF BRAINS #15 1986
by Willy B.
THE SHOUTLESS FROM SOLNA, SWEDEN,
HAVE GUITARS AND WILL TRAVEL
It´s been said by many that Solna, a small suburb just outside of Stockholm, is the centre of the world´s current garage boom. More or less legendary bands like The Nomads, The Bottle-Ups and, not forgetting The Shoutless, have given the place a certain reputation.
About five minutes walk from Solna Central Station lies a huge building and, in it´s cellar, in two medium sized rooms
is the location of Café Apromus.
Café Apromus isn´t exactly a café, it´s only open to the public for one evening a week, but it is an important place. Its main function is not so much to sell beer, coffee or food to customers but to be a rehearsal place for bands from Solna.
Rehearsal time is free, but the groups have to play there once or twice a year for the electricity etc. Idealism lives in Solna, Sweden, and thank God for that! If not for Café Apromus I doubt we would have any Shoutless, Nomads or whatever groups Sweden has brought us recently (at least
in the garage sector, that is!).
Café Apromus is where I met Janne Liljekvist, guitarplayer and lead singer of The Shoutless; a good looking young man of twenty-three years, his face framed by a mass of curly hair and Roger McGuinn glasses. Definately the main brain behind the band. He started The Shoutless nearly four years ago together with the fairheaded bassplayer Lasse Gustafsson. Then along came the drumplayer Adam Seipel. He soon changed over to guitar and through an ad they found drummer Matte Rosén.
That line-up lasted about four gigs, then Adam quit. The remaining members then continued as a trio, until another guitarist, named Joakim Tärnström, got sacked from The Nomads. He offered his services to The Shoutless, and in he went.
Joakim deserves credit for a couple of things. Firstly he plays the guitar of one of the best singles ever to come out of Sweden, The Shoutless debut-45 "INSANE".
Janne explains: "We got a recording contract with Rainbow Records, a local label who specialize in instrumental music from the 60´s, Swedish Shadows-clones and stuff like that. Anyway, we went into this small studio in Stockholm, cut "INSANE", "I TELL NO LIES" and "CHANGE MY WAYS" and thought they were fantastic, at least when we heard them played back in the studio. But when we got home, we found out that they sounded hopelessly tinny on our own stereos, so we had to re-mix it. We put some fuzz on the guitars to make it sound more live."
The second thing that Joakim deserves roses and golden vine for is that he managed to get the single´s B-side onto Goldmine´s "Garage Sale" cassette compilation.
Janne: "I think he just sent a tape along, and onto the cassette it went. The single and that tape really helped in spreading our name around."
However, things weren´t working out too well with Joakim and after returning after a holiday in Paris, in the summer of ´84, he discovered that his place in The Shoutless had been taken by a tall, slim, and talented guitarist called Kruse. With the arrival of Kruse The Shoutless line-up became as it is today: Janne, Lasse, Matte and Kruse. Poor Joakim had to wait another seven months before he got an offer to replace Tony Carlsson as The Nomads bass player, but that is another story.
Soon after Kruse´s arrival The Shoutless went into the studio once more, to cut another single - or so was the plan.....
Janne: "We were going to do "OUT OF REACH" and something else on the B-side, but we ended up recording eleven songs. We mixed seven of them and put out as a mini-album under the title "OUT OF REACH". Looking back we tried to eat more than we could swallow - it contains too many covers and the production is rather lousy. I think some of it good though, "OUT OF REACH", "SWEET YOUNG THING" and maybe "1-2-5".
This mini-album was released in the spring of ´85 and, since then, The Shoutless have been playing as many gigs as possible, trying to perfect their onstage performance.
Janne: "We´ve taken just about every gig we´ve been offered. We´ve had some horrible experiences here and there, especially up north where people are mostly out to get drunk and don´t care for the music. It´s better to play in the south of Sweden, people seem to be more interested there. Hopefully, we´ll be playing there during the spring and the summer. Most of all we´d like to get out of Sweden to Holland, France and England. I don´t think it´s impossible - look at The Nomads, they´ve managed to get out of Sweden, why shouldn´t we?"
The Shoutless have been in the studio recently and a new single is reported to be on the way.
Janne: "To describe it is hard, but if anything ever deserved to be called Garagepsychedelia, it´s the A-side of this single. It´s called "BABY COME ON" and have some sort of oriental-inspired fuzz guitar from Kruse, a feedback solo from me and a wall-to-wall sound. A friend of ours described it as late Beatles with Jeff Beck on guitar. The other side is called "STAY BY ME" and is a rockabilly number. We also recorded a third song called "BUY THE EYE" for our manager, at the same time. He has a fanzine called "The Eye" and wanted a song for a flexi-single. He´s a big Iggy-maniac and the song has a Stooges-feel."
To change the subject a little, who are The Shoutless´ main influences?
Janne: "Everybody in the group has different tastes in music. When Shoutless started we spent a lot of time playing "Pebbles" stuff and just copying The Standells and The Chocolate Watchband. The Ed Cobb garage school. Now, I don´t know. I grew up on The Beatles and The Hollies, because my sisters bought all that kinda stuff. I also heard a lot of jazz and classical music from my fathers records. I don´t like much on the US garage scene, well, Plasticland are quite good. Kruse is a big fan of Ry Cooder and The Fabulous Thunderbirds, but... I think that what we like is far from what we play ourselves, obviously bits and pieces from what we listen to sneak into our music. On stage now we only do about three covers, Otis Reddings´s "That´s how strong my love is", The Standells "Barracuda" and a Herb Alpbert instrumental called "The Raging Bull". That´s left, middle and extreme right of what The Shoutless are doing right now. Oh, I think that there are two bands that we all like: The Flamin´ Groovies and The Cramps."
At this point I discover that Janne and I have been talking for more than one hour and that the other three members of The Shoutless have just arrived for the rehearsal.
A final question: What are The Shoutless´ plans for 1986?
Janne: "We hope to play some gigs in Europe, outside of Sweden, so far we´ve only been to Norway and that doesn´t really count. The big dream is to play in the USA and Australia, and some day..... As far as records go we´re having our new single out and in late January we´ll also record a single with a friend of ours, using some other name, we don´t know what yet. Also we´ve been talking about doing an album in the autumn, or at least start working on one then."
As I started to get my things together before leaving, Janne added some final words:
"I don´t think we are really a garage-band anymore. I think the whole Swedish garage-scene is more or less dead. I mean, there are Swedish groups now doing cover versions of Nomads songs, what´s the use? The best bands who have their own style will survive anyway, but those groups who are based on covers, with no personal touch, will die."
I´d agree with that, but Janne can´t deny that there has been a lot of good music coming out of Solna? Janne:
" You´re right about that, to a certain extent, but I´ll tell you one thing: of the four members of The Shoutless there is only one who lives in Solna - and that´s me. The other three live between ten and fifteen miles away from here and my mother is Norwegian, did that shatter any illusions?"
I put a scarf around my neck, leave Café Apromus and wade through the snow down to Solna Central Station. |
