Dorlene Love is a band which I think about Levellers when I hear the group and when I see their clothes but I´m seems to be really alone about that. Anyway was the interview done in november 2008.

History?
K.Ming: It started as a mate-sideproject in 2002. Then it was me, the drummer Toro and the guitarist Flash which wanted to do anything funny on the side of our other serious bands and we wanted to play a little bit messier music. We got a gig on Tantogården I think it was and we needed a singer and called Ragnar , a mate which precisely have moved into town and he sang with British accent and on that way it is. In the beginning we played really hard 77-punk but with some Exploited and Dead Kennedys influences. We become a little bit of cult because of our really weird gigs. Here in Stockholm we managed to be kicked out from the place we  just have played at. But Dorlene Love was on ice for some years and ragnar have always have difficulties to be in Sweden too long. And so long as the rumour went on and we become a little bit more famous and got more gigs so did the folkmusicinfluences was developed more and more. And from 2006 we have the crew which we have now, because then we met Walter who plays the accordion and Felicia which do the percussion.

This type of music isn´t so ususal, how did it become this sort of music?  
Ragnar Mujahedin: I and many in the band have always liked different styles of folkmusic from Balkan and those things. And we have always had a dream about mixing that with raw punkenergy. So those influences have been more and more from 2004 and foreward and it was when Walter came in on accordion it became this good 2006. Many of us have been travelling in these countries and I have grown up in Turkey

Why in english and not in swedish?
K.Ming: We have actually tried to do it in Swedish for some years ago. It doesn´t sound so good. And after that have we been doing it in English. To write Swedish lyrics is really difficult, often they become so silly or maybe they can be horrible and too much. It´s very hard to do anything between, it´s easier to do them in english and come somewhere between these two ways

How have the reviews been on your music? What´s the most peculiar which have been written?

K.Ming We have almost got only odd reviews. It´s have been written a lot about our clothes , artistname or other shit and very little about the record or the music. But the most peculiar must have been the reviewer who thought that it was a problem that we was serious, that we should get us loose moustaches and become more like Dr Bombay. Many reviewers become very insecure and have their picture clear when they shall write about music which goes outside the western indierock-standard style

Ragnar: It sounds a little like a cliché but we were prepared to get the worst reviews which have beenw ritten in this country. And then we got better reviews than we ever thought we could get. And there was actually some reviews which was about the music and not only about us or the thing we do as a concept.  

Birdnest it became, why? I almost thought they have laid down all their recordreleasing?
Ragnar: Per Granberg owns except Birdnest also Swedens nicest musicbar, Ögir in Köping. We have played there a lot of times and when we told Granberg that we was recording a record, he thought that we should release it on Birdnest. We also thought so.

Where do play the most, is it in Sweden or is it abroad? It feels like your music could be big in other countries than Sweden?

Ragnar: Mostly in sweden but they like oss down in Europe also, especially in Holland so there we have been booked again and we will go down there on a tour in january. Yeah, this folkpunk thing is really big down in Europe.

There´s groups like Gogol Bordello, Flogging Molly and so on, is this some groups which have influenced you?  

K.Ming: Gogol haven¨t been so big influence as many people think. The first time I heard them was actually when I heard a mate that said that there was a band which sounded like Dorlene Love and that I must check this out. Some of our songs we wrote already in 2003, and then haven´t we or any one else didn´t hear Gogol. But it´s obvious that we noticed Gogol when we thought if it´s possible do this sort of music without going into some etnohippe-shit. Gogol showed us that it was more than possible to do folkpunk without being silly and they´re fucking good. Flogging Molly is it some people in the band who likes and some of us get allergic because we don´t like irish folkpunk.  

Ragnar: Yeah, Gogol is really good and cool, we have met them some times and we like their thing – gypsypunk as a style. But they haven´t been any direct musicsource, they do it more in another style with violin and things, we have more speeded triols with arabic influences, distguitar, contra and accordion.  

Punk, which relation do you have to it?
Ragnar: I started to play in a punkband when I was about 15-16 in the beginning of the 90´s in my hometown Köping. It have been formed my life since then. Then I wrote my first song with some simple distaccords and together with my band back then I feel the power , creativity and catharsis which I can feel when I play with Dorlene. It´s some sort of magic in it which is on the border to something bigger, almost unable to describe. That without penpoint, norms just to point your finger to all bastards and play and write messy music with your friends. And just because of that I become so angry sometimes , as when I saw Idol once upon a time on TV , that some grown up mob sits there and have a career to take this force and happiness expression away from teenagers.

How do you see on living in Sweden today, I mean politically?

Ragnar: I have some sort of hate/love to Sweden. I really love Sweden when I have been sick in amoeba-dysentery in Africa or have been forced to bribe people a whiole afternoon in India. And in the same time I got stomach ache and hard to breathe of the mental climat if I stay here too long and then I must go away for a while. The thing I love most with the country is out on the country and to fix my veterancar and snuff and to drink beer and those things.  What about national parliamentary politics isn´t I´m interested. To sit and throw shit on the right or left wing is under my dignity. I have a life to live , songs to sing, it´s bubbling in my body, I don´t give a damn about them.  

Much interview, is it boring?
K.Ming No, it´s really fun. It force you to think about a lot of things you never have a chance to think about otherwise.

The name Dorlene Love, whyr?
K.Ming It´s a long, odd and really boring histroy. In the beginning we didn´t care so much and we only wnated to party, have fun and play punk. It was a little bit so the name came foreward…why not be named Dorlene Love was it someone who said, she who sang on the Phil Spector records. We liked a lot everyone even if it´s very far away from the music we play. It´s really fun to be called so as a punkband. Of course someone managed to spell it wrong and it became Dorlene Love instead, but it was as good that. And then have the name been with us since that.  

Ragnar: We hadn´t any ambition to come to this niveau we are today as a band, it´s was more for fun. So if we have choosed a name today it have been another name, But it´s not so important , all bandname are really nerdy if you think about them.  

Is there any good bands in Sweden today?

K.Ming: We have a lot of really good musicians on our record as guests which have own bands which is really good. MOA who is doing a duet and members from the band  Den Flygande Bokrullen for example. The Other Flesh is another good band which we play live with sometimes. And then there is a lot of good punkbands which is good as Charta 77 and Asta Kask to Tysta Mari.

I think that whole your style reminds me a bout Levellers, everything from music to clothes, is it something you often hear?  

K.Ming No, not so often. I don´t know why.

Ragnar: It´s fun that you say so, me and some more in the group likes Levellers, but I don´t think that so many have hem as a reference nowadays, they´re a little bit forgotten part of the 90´s maybe.  

Downloading, how do you see on that?

K.Ming Hard question. It must come a good solution or maybe it is already here but noone dares to do it. Do the copyright to the song stronger and release the owning free. Instead that people must pay for a plasticrecord as they don´t want to have maybe so can they pay for the copyright instead.  

How does your audience look like?
K.Ming Our audience is among the coolest but it´s very hard to putt hem in some special style, it´s very different depending on where we are. We have had ages from 5-90 years and it can have been everything from trashpunks to families. The red line is that they´re independent people who loves music and liveconcerts.  

Is ther any type of people missing on your concerts?

K.Ming Anxious Hipsters and some sort of trendpeople maybe. But if we really kiss them I don´t know… . …

Futureplans for the band?
Ragnar: We will do a marvellous follower to ”Exile Deluxe”!