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The Perishers. Ola Klüft - vocals, guitar
Martin Gustafson - keyboards, backing vocals
Pehr Åström - bass
Thomas Hedlund - drums
Slow down. And get lost in the world of The Perishers.
"It's very hard to write immediate songs," says the band's vocalist/ guitarist Ola Klüft. "We write songs that creep into you and stay there."
The Swedish band's American debut, Let There Be Morning, is a blend of emotional wandering, poetic insight and stark, yet inspirational surroundings. The twentysomething band members were raised in Umeå, Sweden, where the dark, snowcapped winters stretch from October to April. Surprisingly, the harsh weather has helped -- or rather, forced the band -- to find their collective muse.
“We live in a small town in Sweden, far away from where everything happens. In the north the winters are very, very long and cold and dark. It affects me a lot," says Klüft. "When you're happy, you don't have the time to write music because you're doing something else. When you're a little bit low and it's cold outside, that's when the inspiration comes.”
Let There Be Morning reflects the surroundings perfectly. Swelling piano and delicate melodies cradle Klüft's soft, disarming vocals. His graceful interpretation of the world infiltrate listeners' hearts by tapping into everything from the desperate hope for the end of the workweek ("Weekends”) to addressing the great beyond ("Let There Be Morning"), and of course, a few testaments to love.
Looking toward great, often gloomy, lyricists such as Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Neil Young for inspiration, Klüft nails universal themes on the lovelorn standouts "Sway," "My Heart" and "Trouble Sleeping." A bleak duet with Sarah Isaksson (Klüft's former vocal teacher) "Pills" is as raw and painful as it gets. And album-closer "Let There Be Morning" plays out like an epic farewell. But even with a melancholic outlook, there's always a glimmer of hope.
"We want people to ultimately find comfort in the songs," says Gustafson. "Even a song like 'Let There Be Morning,' which is about somebody who is about to die, is very hopeful because something better is waiting.”
Klüft is also able to stir up intense emotions in a rather unique way. Since English isn't his first language, he's able to connect his music with listeners without fully putting his own heart on the line.
"I spend a lot of time writing lyrics," he says. “But it would be even harder for me to write in Swedish than English. It's so much easier to say 'I love you' than it is to say 'jag älskar dig,' which is 'I love you' in Swedish. I can't really explain it, but a lot of Swedish people feel that way. I can hide behind the English words in a way that I can't hide behind Swedish words.”
Like anything worth enjoying, though, it took time to get to this point. And it hasn't been quick.
Klüft and Gustafson are lifelong friends, while the rest have been playing together in one form or another since 1997. But after years of recording demos and playing shows in their hometown -- and going to school and working to get by -- some members left their rural surroundings for various cities.
A record deal with Swedish label MNW/Nons in 2001 revitalized the band. Even though they hadn't rehearsed for months, they regrouped and recorded their debut disc, From Nothing To One. The album received solid reviews and the band successfully toured outside of Sweden, with stops in Norway, Holland and Taiwan. The Perishers then got to work on Let There Be Morning. But again time stepped in.
“We had more confidence with the second album, but we are a band that needs to have time. Since we know each other so well, making music comes fairly natural to us. But it still takes awhile for the songs to settle for us," says Klüft. "We try to be fast, but it's hard when you're not fast.”
The praise for Let There Be Morning (released in their homeland in 2003) brought The Perishers to a new level. Major papers put band members on their "hip" lists, the "Let There Be Morning" video climbed the MTV charts and crowds at shows swelled. Now they hope to share their rekindled passion with the rest of the world.
"It will be great to finally get our music out everywhere, in the US, Asia, Europe," says Gustafson. “We just want everyone in the whole world to hear it."
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