Swedish group The Sounds have managed to bridge the gap between pop-punk and dance, proving yet again the Scandinavian country is one of the world’s musical hotspots. Good tunes, championed by Foo Fighters, and a hot frontwoman – Sounds good to me.
Have you had much time to look around?
Felix: We came to Sydney yesterday and I went down to the Opera House and had a few drinks at the Opera Bar. It was very nice, I might go back.
How have you found Parklife?
Felix: It’s fun to be part of Parklife. We’ve never played an electronic festival before so it’s really cool to take part in it.
Who has been your favourite so far?
Felix: It was cool to watch MSTRKRFT to DJ, and Justice, Digitalism.
Fredrik: I really liked DJ Craze as well.
You guys are on the road a lot, how much time does that give you at home?
Felix: Not much, 200 shows plus travel days doesn’t give you much. But we enjoy being on tour. That’s how we built our fanbase. We’re a good band live and I think we gain fans when they see us live.
What have been your favourite moments on the road?
Fredrick: I’m glad we did a video in Cuba. It’s something we had wanted to do for a long time so it was great to be able to do it.
Felix: Mexico was also cool. I’d been there as a kid with family but to go as a band, it’s a total different experience. We wanted to come to Australia for a long time and now we’re here and we’re really psyched.
Johan: But we want to see some kangaroos.
I was going to ask, are we meeting expectations?
Felix: We’ve been here four or five days and still no kangaroos…
Fredrik: I don’t think we’re going to see them in the city.
There’s a zoo across the harbour.
Johan: Yeah, we’re going to go tomorrow. But I want to see the real thing.
Felix: I live near a zoo in Malmo, it’s really small, they have two kangaroos so when you walk into the city you see them every day, but I want to see a kangaroo bouncing across the road, going into McDonald’s.
I’ve been speaking to a lot of bands from the Northern Hemisphere who say winter is the best time to go into the studio ‘cos it just locks you down…
Johan: We do most of our writing in the winter. I don’t think we’ve ever written a song in the summer – we’re always too distracted.
Would you sound different if you wrote in the summer?
Felix: I think that if we lived in Australia, where it’s nice weather all the time, it would be different.
Johan: We’d all be pro surfers.
What bands in the past have inspired you?
Johan: All the bands we’ve played with. Every time you play with a new band you go check them out and sometimes they’re really good, sometimes they’re pretty bad, but it all sticks to you.
Early on did you pin-point a couple of bands?
Fredrick: We all had a pretty wide area of music we like. That’s one of the good things about the band. We have a couple of bands we all love but the diversity is one of the good things about us.
Dying to Say This To You is out now on Warner.
