Peter Bjorn And John Get Therapy

05/13/09 11:21am

by Scott Bryson (CHARTattack)

Sweden's Peter Bjorn And John — Peter Moren (vocals, guitar), Bjorn Yttling (bass, keyboards, vocals) and John Eriksson (drums, percussion, vocals) — just hit their 10-year mark as a band. They also just released their most controversial full-length, Living Thing.

Moren talked to CHARTattack about the new album, its Seaside Rock instrumental predecessor, and the perils of being in a band with your friends. It isn't all hotels and high-fives.

CHARTattack: It's the name of one of the songs on the album, but why Living Thing as the album title?
Peter Moren: A couple of reasons. First of all, the song's lyrics are essentially about the band. We are kind of a living thing — a creature. When the three of us get together, you never really know what's going to happen. It has a life of its own...

The other most obvious reason is that all of our albums are two words... It's a concept.

After the success of the song "Young Folks," were you worried that nothing you made afterwards would measure up in people's eyes?
Not really. The only thing that we really care about is what measures up in our own eyes. We tried to make the best possible music and the music that we felt like making at this point. I think this new record is really great. I think it's our best album. That's the only thing you really try to do.

Did your Seaside Rock album somehow pave the way for Living Thing?
Yeah, but it's a very different record. I would say that obviously Living Thing is more similar to our other pop records, like Writer's Block and Falling Out, but it was important for us to get away from the pop format a bit and do something different.

With Seaside Rock, we played around with everything. We played instruments that we can't play — like violin and saxophone — and just had a really fun time in the studio after touring for Writer's Block. So it was important for us, for relaxation — sort of like group therapy.

I've been reading a lot of reviews of Living Thing and it seems as though people either love it or hate it, with no in-between. Why do you think it's so divisive?
I don't know, but in a way, I think it's a good thing because if you get people to be upset, then you move people in some way. I think that's better than just getting mediocre reviews.

I can't really see what's so upsetting. To me, this is really a pop album in the purest sense. I think Writer's Block was more indie rock.

On your website, you mention that in 2009 you'll be celebrating 10 years as a trio and two-and-a-half years of being successful. Before success came knocking, did you ever think about giving up?
Not give up as a band, no. When Writer's Block came out in 2005... we had released two albums before that — mainly in Sweden — and we did some touring, but we never made any money.

Nothing much happened, even though we thought the records were good. We did everything ourselves. We recorded with our own money and we did a lot of work with the records, too, because the record labels were one-man indie labels, so they didn't have any power behind them.

After a while, you don't want to send out records to booking agents and do all that work, so we said, "OK, let's make another record, but we're not going to do all of the other stuff. We're just going to make the music and if nobody wants it, well, whatever. We don't care."

But then of course a lot of international labels picked it up.

Do you think you'll still be doing this 10 years from now?
We'll definitely all be doing music, I'm sure. If the group will be around for 10 years... I don't know, it's hard to tell... One second, you want to be with these guys for the rest of your life, and the next, you don't want to see them ever again — until after the gig or something. It always goes back and forth. We argue a lot, which I think is creative, too.