Snowboarding and music go together like camel and toes. Even if you are not a musician of some sort you can't deny the fact that music plays an extremely influential part in snowboarding. It can literally make or break a rider's shred part. A full season of filming can be decimated by a shitty song, that's how important music is to snowboarding.
Yet there is a flipside to this coin and many riders' parts have been eternalized for their choice of a rad jam. We know you can't please everyone these days and with so many varied types of music out there, but there are just some tracks that feel like they were written just so they could be used in a video part. Graveyard is a new Swedish rock band with a 70's psychedelic sound mixed with a dash of Sabbath, a pinch of Slayer and sprinkle of the blues whose roots lie deep in the skate/snow/punk scene. They've had a few of their tunes featured in some of the best shred flicks of late, including D.O.P.E. II and KBR's SnakeBite. We caught up with Graveyard backstage in Stockholm after their concert supporting their latest album, "Lights Out". Pack your bongs or roll up a fat one, dim the lights and read on as we dig 6 feet deep into the minds of frontman Joakim Nilsson and drummer Axel Sjöberg.
Hey guys, firstly tell us where you are from?
Joakim: Me and Axel are from Orebro but actually the band is from all over Sweden and now we all live in Gothenburg.
Your music is pretty raw and dark, a bit like the Swedish weather at the moment, does the environment where one lives affect the outcome of one's music?
Axel: Haha, yeah I guess so, I don't think the environment affects us as much as the people do, though. Swedes are pretty introverted, melancholic people. A lot of Swedish musicians, even going back to old Swedish folk music, you can always hear plenty of mellow, melancholy melodies, I just think it's a Swedish characteristic.
You also have a very definitve, pyschedelic, rock sound. What bands did you grow up listening to and where do you draw influences from?
Joakim: You know man, I have been playing music for such a long time I don't really think about influences anymore. But the first time I heard Black Sabbath I was hooked and I wanted to hear every type of music from that era, I guess our music is a mixture of everything we have been listening to for our whole lives. But the biggest influence we have in Graveyard is the blues, both American and English blues have had a big impact on us. Bands like Fleetwood Mac, for example.
What do you think about your music being intergrated into the snowboard scene?
Joakim: Perfect!
Axel: I think both the skate and snowboard scene have a kind of punk mentality and a lot of DIY spirit, people don't wait around for something to happen or for someone to do it for you, you build your own jumps, hike up a mountain. It's something we can relate to as well, from the beginning as a band we didn't wait around for venues to ask us to play, we made our own parties, smuggled beer in from Germany, invited people, played wherever. We used to play on skate ramps between sessions. I think snowboarding has the same attitude or is very similar to some music styles, you know, like you want to have fun, you don't give a fuck, anti-authority shit.
Your new Album Lights Out is awesome. It's really diverse, ranging from really heavy songs to some pretty mellow tracks.
Joakim: That's what we always try to do, make our music as diverse as possible. I think it gets kind of boring listening to records that go to the same beat the whole time. That's what we try to do with our live shows as well. It should be like listening to little journey or something.
Axel: We like dynamics a lot, picking it up, slowing it down, going fast, going slow, sort of like life in general. You can even compare it to snowboaridng, when you go up the lift, it's slow and mellow, you're looking around and taking in the scenery and then it is fucking fast forward down the hill, fucking straight line, jumping off cliffs, the adrenaline.
This is the 2nd time I have seen you guys live and you sound exactly like you do on your albums, is this something you think about before recording songs?
Joakim: Actually, no, we just try to record the best songs possible and hope they come out the same onstage.
Axel: We have been using the same gear on all our albums, also the same producer and it's all analog. I mean, I hope you like our albums and we hope you're not disappointed seeing us live. But I really hope you get a better experience seeing us live, it should feel like that there is a bit more energy, that the live show will add something.
Joakim: We actually have had a lot of comments saying the live shows kind of destroys the album for them, but it should be better live, right?
Axel: It would be terrible if it was the other way around.
Have you ever gone snowboarding before?
Joakim: I have tried it a few times, I used to skate a lot when I was younger but it was too much pain. Haha.
Axel: I used to snowboard a lot, especially from when I was 13 to 16. I would say I was decent, then I did a few seasons and ended up breaking my collarbone in the beginning of both seasons, so that pretty much ended it for me. I used to ride in Salen a lot and there was quite a big scene back then, a few of the boys went on to become pros.
You guys are starting to blow up right now, has this added more fuel to the fire to keep progressing?
Axel: I hope so, it would be a sad thing if we were in regression or something. It's hard for me to judge that and I let other people be the judge of that. Of course our goal is to keep evolving, not do the same thing over and over again and I don't mean we're getting into Euro-techno. Ha. On a personal level we try to stay the same. We are humble and thankful for all the opportunities we get.
Joakim: And also, we have been around for a couple of years and we are learning more about the music industry so in some way we are growing into more of a, I don't know what you call it, but I guess more of a "professional" band or something.
Is it important ot keep experimenting with new sounds?
Joakim: Yeah, for sure, our experimenting comes with us just jamming, just playing, not thinking about it too much.
Axel: There is a lot of shooting from the hip, you know, if it sounds good, it sounds good, and then it doesn't matter what kind of influence it is. We've never had a plan, we just go for the gut feeling, if it feels good or fun to play and it sounds good then we roll with it. Sometimes when I have an influence which is very obvious to me and then goes through the band filter it can come out as something totally different and when people hear it they won't really know where the influence comes from.