A cocky swagger, sexually vivacious attitudes and not a single still body in the house — this is what you’ll get with The Sounds. With the seductive Swede Maja Ivarsson belting out anthems of infectious rock ‘n’ roll, their new album, “Dying To Say This To You” picks up where their last dance-party left off and leaves no room for wallflowers. So hit the synthesizers, put on your tight pants and get your hips gyrating. Sexy struts are encouraged. —Travis Ferre’
Surfing Magazine: You guys come from a pretty tiny town in Sweden, now you’re kicking off this huge tour, how’s that change been for you guys?
Johan Bengtsson: We’re just so excited. We’ve been touring since the beginning of January in Sweden and in parts of Scandinavia--just small clubs—trying out the new stuff, but not to the extent of this tour. This is a much bigger tour now. I mean we’ve been in full tour mode, but this is like the big thing.
Felix Rodriguez: Yeah, it’s cool now because the album is out now and we just get to roll with it.
Is it strange to go from a tiny town in Sweden to having big time celebrity fans (Tarantino, Dave Grohl, and Pharrel Williams) and loads of hype all over the world?
Felix: I don’t think we think about that so much. We don’t have time to think about stuff like that. It’s more just go with the flow.
How does the vibe change as you travel from big towns like LA and New York, to these remote places on a big tour, that you don’t normally see?
Felix: Well, we’ve always had a bigger fan base here in California, so we’ve always done well here.
Johan: Yeah, New York and LA are bigger cities you know, but yeah the coasts, they’re so much different. Going through the middle towns is cool though because you see another side of America that you wouldn’t be exposed to otherwise. Like when you go on vacation you go to New York or LA, or maybe Chicago. But now we get to see places like Lawrence, Kansas. Places where you look at a map and there is just like…space, and you’re this little dot.
You guys are known for being really confident, and almost cocky, and the new album seems to step that up in a big way.
Johan: Thanks, well it’s more being more experienced. The first album was made over two weeks in a small studio in Sweden. We didn’t know we were going to hit the success level that we did, I mean we had the dreams, and we’re confident, but you don’t get the label sending you to California to record for two months; you can’t do that on the first album. So it worked out well, and now we could pretty much do whatever we wanted. Second album you see the benefits.
You guys still playing the Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” just before you come out?
Felix: Yeah! Yeah, it’s cool. It’s like a cheesy song and it sets the mood you know. It’s an awesome song to have as you come on. You’ll hear it tonight!
A lot of people seemed to get hooked on your music really quick. I’m constantly fielding, “Hey, can I get that Sounds disc?”--calls all week after friends hear your album.
Felix: I think it’s that we have really hooking melodies, and a lot of energetic songs too. It’s just how we write music. We don’t think about it, it’s just how it comes out—And no politics or religion. They’re just things we don’t want to write about. We’ll leave that to the people who do that.
What types of influences do you draw from?
Felix: I think mostly just things that we experience together, on tours and stuff, that’s all in there on this album.
Johan: It’s basically like everything from the day we recorded the first album to the day we started recording this one. It’s like everything in between has been inspirational to us. From meeting people, being in different cities, meeting new bands, and being exposed to all different kinds of music and really different tours, like Warped Tour and The Strokes tour. And also, if you’re talking about the lyrics and the music, they’re also about being in a band and everything that comes with it, like having relationships back home and being away from family; it’s all in this album.
Have any of you thought about surfing?
Felix: Well, I windsurfed! My dad and I would go and he would take me out. We don’t have that many big-waves in Sweden and it’s cold, but I’ve heard you can actually surf on the southeast coast. So maybe try it there. (laughing)
You guys do know how to have serious Done-off though.
Felix: Yeah, you have to have dance-offs with your band-mates sometimes.