StreetBeat Canada
-Experience Pearls –This is Pamela Blair on StreetBeat 108, on a Moody Monday and I'm here with Ace of Base. How are you doing?
Li: Fine thank you!
It is a moody Monday, what is your mood like?
Linn: It's very good, we're going to Mexico and after that we're going home, so it couldn't be better.
Oh, can I come with you?
Linn: (laughs) You can try.
Ulf: Come with us and work there in Mexico City. Mexico City itself for me is not so funny, but around Mexico, the west and east coast is really beautiful. But I really like.. Toronto, I think this is one of the cleanest cities I've been in in my whole life, very beautiful.
We have 3 of the 4 band members, we have Jenny, Linn and Ulf. We're missing Joker or Jonas.. so where's he gone?
Linn: He's taking care of a boat he's bought, a ship, that is.
A ship? And this is what he does on the side?
Linn: He's somewhere in States taking care of that, because he's gonna be at home in Sweden this summer.
I was wondering where the name AOB comes from?
Ulf: I came up with it on New Year's Eve.
Jenny: New Year's Eve, day after.
Ulf: Maybe, I started to think about it at New Year's Eve and then especially day after. It comes from..
Je: A hangover.
Ulf: Ace of Spades, actually, I think I got the first idea from AOS, the Motörhead song. And I thought it was a good name for me and Jonas to have as a producer team, because we were working producing groups. And then we had to change our name that was TechNoir at´the time, because two other groups had that name. So we changed it to Ace Of base.
-BL remix –
We're actually broadcasting live from Joker nightclub, and it's ironic because one of the band members' nickname is Joker, and he's actually not here.
Ulf: So he is here, in the nightclub.
He's actually here in the presence of the walls of the nightclub. Do you get a chance to do much clubbing and DJ'ing at all in your home country?
U: Trying to go out in the evenings when we have time. Wherever we are, when we have time off, it's nice to go out to a night club and check out the music, check out the audience, check out the.. Sometimes just go out and get the feeling of the city or the crowd. You get to know them in a differnet way than maybe if you go out shopping, you see how they act, what kind of people they are. It's very nice to get to know the city throughout.
Now you've come to Canada, have you had any time to see what Toronto is all about?
U: Maybe tonight we'll have time, we hope. Maybe tonight.
Je: We came so very late last night, really. So there was just..no chance.
And it's been a long day I guess?
Je: Oh, not that long.
U: As usual.
Are you going out tonight?
Je: Maybe. Tell us what to do.
U: Maybe.. We'll try to go out and see the audience, to see how you react on the dancefloor. I don't know which day is the best to go out?
The weekend. Friday, Saturday, Thursday night..
U: Thursday is usually best everywhere.
So will you be here that long?
U: No. We're leaving to Mexico City tomorrow. Big Grammy Award over there..
We're just gonna see the nice city, Mexico City, biggest in the world..
Li: Most dangerous in the world
U: Most polluted in the world.
So stay out of the water maybe?
U: Yeah…
At least don't drink it. –Your albums have done very very well. Prob the first was a big surprise, how well it did?
U: Of course it was a big surprise, we didn't even in our wildest dreams think that we could reach the US or America, it was too far away from us to believe that. We could maybe imagine to be something in Germany and around Europe, but never ever so big that it was. And here in Canada, it's been amazing, we just sold diamond with the first album.
It is remarkable. When I told people I was gonna interview Ace Of Base, they all said
"All that She Wants".. but really it was the Sign, wasn't it, that sold more than ATSW…
Li: The Sign is the third most sold single ever in modern pop history since the 60's.
And do you think it's the better track or ATSW or do you think it's because ATSW sold so much..?
Li: I think so, I think ATSW is so.. it's our flagship, it's really the song, I guess for all four of us. And The Sign is like.. we're moving on in the same track, you know?
-The Sign –
-ATSW –
ATSW, The Sign before that, you're listening to streetbeat on Moody Monday, I'm Pamela Blair and I have AOB in front of me. You said you'd actually have a chance to get out maybe 5-10 minutes today to walk the block?
U: One block.. Just around the corner maybe.
We're really having a wonderful weather for February. What's a day in February like in Sweden?
U: Should be the same in Sweden, but it's actually much colder now. The last five years…
Je: Rainy, rainy, rainy.
Li: …Snow.
U: It is snow, snowing in Sweden.
We actually covered all the weather cycles here.
(Li&Je laughing)
U: I think we have the same weather. You have more extreme, you have colder winters and hotter summers here.
TS has just done diamond, done very well here in Canada and all around the world. Has it changed your life?
Linn: Sort of, because you can afford to do more things than before, like..suddenly you go to Greece, take some time off and get sun-tanned. Or you go skiing in Chaumonix, as if it were for free.. But at the same time when you do it, you must hide, covering your name and guards.. you can do more, but you have to hide when you do it.. It's just like before, but the other way around. You couldn't do anything, but you didn't have to hide when you did the little things you did.
So as a woman then, do you not feel as safe as you used to feel?
Linn: I feel safe, but that's because we have people around us all the time. We're never alone.
Always protected.. We're talking about the second album, we have heard off the top of the show Experience Pearls, one of my favourite tracks. Where does this come from?
Je: Now they gave the mic to me. Well, I'm Jenny, I've been.. I am Jenny and I wrote it because I.. was really very much in love with.. a guy I'm together with now, and.. I knew that I had to dare to go out and grab him, sort of..Cos I really put..betting it all on one card. So I simply.. (?) for the album as well.
Important to take that risk I think.
Je: Yes, I've only done it twice. It was quitting school for Ace Of Base and then it was for him. But honestly, I didn't do it for him, just that he asked me, so I was the coward there so… (mumbles something, laughs) It sounds very good, doesn't it? The song's also about.. you don't have to look upon all your bad times as mistakes, or like.. Life is full of bad things as well. And luckily enough we have a pearl called tears, so we can handle these situations.
We're gonna move on to Ravine, and who's track is that?
Jenny: That's mine as well.
I like your style. (they laugh)
Li: It's your day today.
Je: This is my day, it's my interview.. Thank you very much.
-Ravine-
What is your favourite part of being AOB?
Li: The.. the work..(coughs) Sorry, take two… The work we do in the studio, we are creating music, it's really special. It's like writing a book or doing a painting. But you do it with people. Everything else that you're creating, you're doing alone. This is like creating something from your very own ? with some people. It's like you're moving a ship slowly forward, it's really heavy, but it works.
Do you feel the same?
U: I think my favourite part to be famous is you can do so many things, you have so many keys now, so many doors opening up to you. From film to maybe.. do nothing. People listen to what you're saying, you change people's minds, and feeling like when you're down in Brazil and you see all these poor kids, they don't even have shoes, and you talk to them and see how happy they can be, just take five minutes of your life and you can make 50 people so happy. When you're on stage, take 1,5 hours of your life and make 55 000 people happy, maybe even more, maybe millions of people. And that feeling is most.. it's the biggest feeling for me, to deliver this happiness to people, to give this hope.
That's pretty amazing. And you Jenny?
Je: I think that one mportant thing is that.. that has changed very much is that before AOB, people did not listen to me, and now they do. I've also been training with interviews..That's what I've been doing now for three years, I've been training very much to talk to people, to talk to a crowd, and now I feel I can say what I want. I'm a youth leader at the same time at a Christian camp and people there are like small candles listening to me. Before they wouldn't do that, because I was just, like, Jenny. Now..
You must find that a huge responsibility then, it's very important to say the right thing.
Je: Yes, this is a huge responsibility, and sometimes it gets on your nerves that everybody's listening to what you're saying all the time. That is.. like, sometimes it is too much as well. But.. A huge responsibility, yes.
As a band and as artists you're obviously very closely linked. Have you had any creative differences or fights?
Je: Yes.
(Li & Je laugh)
Ulf: We have a brother-sister-situation here, so we have this normally brothers and sisters chattering(?), not the whole time but sometimes. But the best part is, it doesn't matter what they say or think or do, five minutes after they're still friends and they still love each other and.. It's very good, it makes the band very strong. We have so much pressure on us the whole time, wherever we go, everybody wants us to do everything at the same time. Maybe if we'd been just four friends, we may actually be enemies today. But now we are like a big family and it makes us much, much stronger.
Blood is thicker than water, I suppose.
Ulf: Yeah, exactly.
Now I've asked you some of your favourite tracks that are currently out there. Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise", you like..
Je: Yeah, it's (?).. Also Duran Duran, "Come Undone".
-Duran Duran-
Duran Duran ironically though, I'm here with Ace Of Base. This is a song you all like, why is that?
Ulf: A very good band, we've been listening to Duran Duran the whole 80's, I have anyway. The last albm they did was a great album. And wel, this I s asong that all four of us love very much, it's a very very good pop song, well produced.
It's a Moody Monday, so has your mood changed at all since a few minutes ago or..since we started?
U: I think it's the same as a few minutes ago.
Je: I've been eating some sugar, so I have energy now.
U: The only difference is, now it's dark, and it was light outside when we came here. Now it's changed, the whole club changed lighting, feeling.
The atmosphere's a little different for you.
U: Yeah.
[Boring question about if they feel the pressure of doing well after the first album did so well. I don't remember how she worded it.]
U: I think when you've done the best you could you can't do better. I think we did our best on this album. When we went in the studio, we worked on the some proceudre that we did on the first album, the same team, the same studio, same producers.. We wrote the songs from our souls, our heart. We also had time to produce them too. I think we all feel very pleased with the result of the album. And when we did that, you can't really listen to what everybody says, because everybody have their own opinion and everybody want to do this and that, so they can tell people, "I did this with Ace Of Base, I was the guy that changed that and this." So you have ot really try to think in our point fo view. So I don't think we had so much pressure.
It's far more diverse than the first album. LL is the next single, what is that about?
Je: It's about, sort of.. The song is about lucky love, I think. When.. cos you easily fall in love when you're young, but when you grow up it's not that easy anymore. And it's very strange, because you're more open-minded when you're young, but when you're older you get stuck with certain ideas. It's our brother that wrote it, but that is like.. my opinion about it. How I interpret it to my soul, osrt of, yes.
Ulf: We did 2 videos. First one was for the first single release in Europe this autumn was actually Lucky Love and first single here was actually Beautiful Life, so now we changed it, and we had to do a new video for America. And it's just finished maybe one week ago, so it's very fresh.
-LL Amadin –
We just have a few minutes left to wrap this up. LL comes from.. it is the next single?
Je: Yes.
And who wrote that one?
Je& U: Jonas.
Ah, of course, he isn't here to tell us about it.
Je: Ah, no.
U: it's a nice teenage love thing like Je said before, and I think a lot of people can feel they did this, had this feelings when they were young and naïve and the first thing here and here(?).
We played both versions, the acoustic one and the remix. Are you in control of all the remixes?
U: We are saying yes and no to the remixers. These days it's so many remixers in each territory that you don't have time to hear them all, but we're trying to be involved. We're saying yes or no to who's doing it, cos we know who is good or not doing it. And we also do some remixes ourselves. So we are involved, as much as we have time to be.
An particular favourite concerts or tours that have been very memorable?
U: Oh. I have a few .. very good memories of concerts. I must say Kraftwerk in Copenhagen in the beginning of 80's was one of the biggest things, because they never perform. To see the extasy feeling the audience had when they came on stage, it was unbelieveable, the adrenaline kick you got, it was great. And also one of the first Depeche Mode concert in Sweden, 1982, was also great, we were 200 people before they were real big, was also great. And I will always remember U2 at Wembley on the ZooTV tour.
So you would say that a lot of this type of music has inspired you with your own music?
U: Um…Yes and no. Of course, music inspires you, otherwise we would't do music if we wouldn't like music, but I won't say something specific inspired. I think it's more life and friends .. AND music and places and new ideas, feelings inspires you mostly.
Jenny, you're trying to say something.
Je: Yes, I'm trying to get the mic..Ahem.. Well, I won anyway. One thing, I think is, that Ulf has been listening to this synth music, and we all have been of course, but I mean, I think me and Linn and Jonas were more into hit list music when we were young. So I'm not a Kraftwerk fan at all, I haven't heard their music. I mean, I have when others have listened to them, but I haven't put the record in myself.
So listening to hit list music has given you a knack of knowing what makes a good hit?
Li: Yeah, I guess. Maybe. The thing is, because I was haunting my sister and my brother with reggae music. I was into Peter Tosh and Bob Marley and those things, when I was a teenager. So that's where the reggae comes from.
Will we be able to see you perform live in Toronto, because I know there are all kinds of Torontonians who are just dying to see you live on stage.
Je: (amused) Torontonians?
Li: Torontonians!
Je: I'm sorry to disappoint you right now, because we're not going to make a tour this spring or this autumn I think. But we're going to make a decision on that, if we're gonna.. Cos either we go in and do another album, or we go out on tour. The decision's made like this spring, after we've been out.. We're going to Asia and a little more Europe, on promotion. So I hope to see you quite soon but I don't know exactly when.
Well, I hope to see you soon and I hope you get the recognition you deserve in your home country.
Je: You can never become a prophet in your home country, so..
It's the same here in Canada too, you have to go somewhere else.
Je: Well, good luck to you as well then.
[Thank you very much for your time, it's been great to have you here. Or something like that.]
Je: Thank you.
U: Thank you.
Li: Thank you very much. Take care.