This interview took some time and it almost felt like a tour. We started it on MSN in the middle of august 2010 and did the last on it the 21th of September. We did it in three pieces precisely as Misconduct did with their tour but it become really good in the end. Fredrik who are the singer and the one who writes the songs was so kind that he took three hours of his life and gave them to me.
When we´re talking the first time is he in Berlin to meet sponsors and to prepare for the gig the day after with Bad Religion. Other bands which they have played with during the tour is Civet, Adicts, Agnostic Front and Strike Anywhere. The guys in Misconduct lives on their music . –I only work with music, I have Side by side Records and Side By Side Booking,
And then I have an own rockclub in Karlskoga where I have many things to do right now.
Danne who plays drums in MISCONDUCT is doing only this
Erik who plays guitar and Simon who plays bass work a little bit in a music store.
He have the own record label Side By Side records and you can wonder why not the new record comes out there instead of being released on I Scream Records. But this time have Fredrik decided to only be an artist and focus on that and don’t have to do advertisement etc for the record and they got some proposals from different labels but I scream came with the best deal and they have good plan for the band.
It seems like if they’re bigger in Europe than in Sweden and that is something that Fredrik agree about but they noticed a difference in Sweden to the better on the tour April/May and they got good response and full house on the gigs. They got invited to play together with Rise Against on Sticky Fingers as a foreplay before west Coast Riot and it was a marvellous experience he thinks. And he also think that it is very fun to play in different places and in different countries and have no favourite place to play but Germany is the country where they have done most concerts. – And so is Canada fucking fun to play in too, says Fredrik.
Rise Against is a band which I think a little about when I hear Misconducts new record One Step Closer and I wonder how Fredrik thinks their music have developed the latest years. Het hinks that he have become so much better as songwriter and that they have found their own sound and he thinks that you can hear that it is Misconduct when you hear song. This wasn´t I thinking when I heard their first demo some years ago. When they released the record before One Step Closer United as one so wasn´t Spotify around and not Itunes either , not in the size it is now anyway and it was sold more records so just because of that have Fredrik difficulties to say how many records they sell now but the record label says that it is good. – Before it was 50000 record to sell gold in Sweden but nowadays it is only 10000 and if we sell 5000 records so is it very good to be a punkband.
That people download music for free is a problem as Fredrik is a little bit split into because in the same time as Fredrik have a record label and wants people to buy records and he wants that people buys his records so have it been fucking good as he says. It comes a lot of people to the concerts and they don´t care so much about if the record is downloaded or bought because many people buys the record on a liveconcert just to support them and they sells a lot of merch on their concerts too. T-shirts, hoods goes really well and pins, stickers, baseballcaps, poloshirts and basket-shirts too. Just to go back to the record again so do I think it´s a fucking good record and it´s their best one and I wonder if there´s anything they could have done better on it but Fredrik don´t think so. -Yes it´s fucking good and we´re proud and satisfied. I don´t think we could done a better record than this and it feels like a dreamrecord for us. You know a record which you always have been dreaming about to do.
This day when I interviewed him the first time so was Fredrik in Berlin as we said before and I was there for the first time last year and I`m in love with that city. Fredrik likes Berlin too and think it´s always fun there. You have never boring there and it´s a lot of historical things there and history is one of his biggest interests. One other poistive thing with Berlin is all the recordshops and a visit to Coretex in Kreuzberg is a must. His historyinterest is sometimes shown in his lyrics and he think it´s important to learn things from the history and he likes to mix historical and personal things in the lyrics and on the new record it´s mixed between these two things. – On this record is really mixed, it depends on which phase you’re in and in which mood you´re in. it became some really personal songs but in the same time I try to write in a way so everyone can identify with the lyrics I write.
After many doubts and but and doubts and but so does the interview continue some weeks later and we continue where we have stopped the last time and just this day it´s the big electionday , the 19th of September. Fredrik starts to tell me that Danne precisely came home from London and it´s a lot of gigs going on there and it becomes on the spring 20111 because on the latest Europetour they didn´t do any Great Britain-gigs and in the end of November-.december will they be playing in Sweden and the 19th of November they comes to Sticky Fingers and Gothenburg. Just because of the fact that it was an election today I was forced to ask Fredrik if he have voted and we have both of us voted left but it seems that it will be the Allaince (the right wing) will win and they did and also the extreme right wing party Sverigedemokraterna came in. Fredrik says that he have voted and that always red-always the right thing. Me myself I was and looked at the redgreen last things before the election and there was a lot of bands playing there and I wonder if there any chance for a group like Misconduct to do such a thing or if it is to paint theirselves into a corner politically. – We could absolutely do that, says Fredrik and continues but it can surely be a way to paint yourself into a corner but you must have an opinion and nowdays Sweden seems to be very lame. I have doing my voting and do you read my lyrics so isn´t it so difficult to see which side I am politically.
So now it seems like if we get four more years with the rightwing but Fredrik becomes anyway the one with the same name as your Prime Minister and I wonder what he have changed if he would be the primeminister. He should be a lot of money to the school and raise the status for our teachers which is very important for our youth. Sweden is already really far foreward when we give money to music and bands but if sports can be a mainthing in school so can music be the also in the gymnasial school thinks Fredrik. – We often do comparisons when we´re out on tour with mates from Germany, England, France etc and they haven´t the possibilities to rehearse and have rockbands in the same style as we can have in Sweden.
Now we give a damn about politics and goes over to the music again. I wonder how the short tour with Misconduct have been and I get a laugh as an answer. Short? Wonders Fredrik and he tells me that they started their summertour the 2nd of June and they did the last gig on the 6th of september and that they did their tour in three parts. I thought it started in august when I started this interview so I was totally wrong. – No we started the 2nd of June with the first part of Europe and then home to Sweden for a festival and then a gig with Rise Against as a warmup to West Coast Riot. And then Holland to play with IGNITE and then we went direct to France and then Spain, France again, Italy, Slovenia, Germany and then we ended in Holland again. So was the first part look like. The gig with Bad religion was really magic. It happened a whole lot of funny things but the gig with Rise Against on Sticky in Gothenburg was a really good one.
Back in time a little now and on my question if there have been many lineup changes through the years so is it the most solid lineup right now thinks Fredrik. And the lineup which is now is better and more hungry than any other lineup they have had and their latest record One Step Closer is as he said earlier a dreamrecord.- And I think we found our sound on “United as One” record which came out in Sweden 2004.
I understand that the music have changed the members life but can a listeners life be changed so dramatically and just of Misconducts music. If you shall believe their fans so can it actually be that way because they met a guy in Berlin which came up to them after a gig and showed them his back and he have tattooed No Boundaries with Misconducts fonts. He explained that that song have been helped him through a very hard time and have been inspiring him positive – It is fantastic if Misconduct can be a positive force for our fans and that is what you want to do with the music. Inspire people.
Fredrik believes that they will be playing together as 65 years old guys and they do that if they think it´s fun to do that so he cannot see that as any other things that the jumps becomes lower on stage maybe and he means that their music have no agelimits and it´s lucky for me because I´m 47. They´re only 19+ but I don´t know if I believe them all the way. The word punk have never been only a word for him and it´s more an attitude more than it is to have a mohawk and a broken Gibson-guitar. – Through meet life with open minds and have attention on the world around you and everyone can do something good every day. att de kommer att spela ihop som 65-åringar , bara de tycker det är roligt att spela så ser han
To describe their own music isn´t maybe so easy with only three words but Fredrik tries with the words, positive, honest and meaningful and that´s the way I want punk anyway. They have a song which is called Peace, love & Unity and that is something they strive for. Exactly that it was punk is about and all the other guys in Misconduct. It´s really hard for him to say only five records which have meant a lot to him and he think there is over 100 records which is important bu the chooses anyway these five with an explanation after everyone- Wow there´s so many record which have meant a lot but I take 5 most important.
Ebba Grön "1978-1982" They got me into punk
Gorilla Biscuits - "Start Today" They got me into melodic hardcore
Bad Religion - Against The Grain – They get me to start an own punkband
Minor Threat - Complete Discography Make me understand how good punklyrics can be
Social Distortion - "White Light, White Heat, White Trash" Inspired my rocking side and we haven´t been here without bands like Sex Pistols, Ramones, Kiss etc but you get it.
Now it´s the time for the second break in this interview but we continue the third part of the interview the Tuesday after the election and precisely when we should start the interview Fredrik got a phone call from LA and an agency there who wanted them to come over and play there and that Fredrik thinks sounds cool and when I ask Fredrik if they have been in USA before I got the cryptic answer… both…he explains:- We have toured Canada a lot of times but we have only done some gig in USA when we have toured Canada.
Earlier in the interview Fredrik speaked about sponsors and they have a whole lot of them and it really makes things easier when they´re out so much and play thinks Fredrik. They cooperate with a lot of brands so when it´s about clothes they have an exclusive deal with KOPPARTRANS, Shoes and apparels so is VANS, Drums PEARLThey have ESP Guitars and LTD. Guitar and bassamplifier they have MESA BOOGIE, ZILDJIAN cymbals, Drumsticks they haveWINCENT, Plectrum, Pedals and strings they have DUNLOP, drumskin they have REMO and then they cooperate with SHURE who does their wireless mics. But they don´t get sponserd by ICA because then they have got free food and ICA-Stig could have been in their group;-)
But when we talk about cooperation so is it something they will be better on to cooperate with other bands and they work with some bands overseas and in Europe. – But this autumn we will cooperate more with swedish acts, There´s a band from Falkenberg called A Silent Escape(Ex Union Square) which we will tour together this autumn. They sounds fucking good I think, good punkrock with much melodies and feelings and modern but good sound. We will take them with us on our ”One Step Closer” Sweden tour in november and december.
They played on a rockfestival in Germany this summer and then they came in contact woth Sonic Syndicate and that´s a band that Fredrik likes and that het hinks sounds good and they´re very nice people. And then they have a really good bands from their neighbourhood which is called Same Old Story and that´s a band which he could and want to release on his own label but right now he gives band to other labels. He have so much to do with Misconduct so he don´t have the time. – And then I´m more on with Misconduct than ever before and I give everything on the group now.
It´s very mixed with people on the concerts and many people thinks that it maybe only punks on their concerts but they have everything from streetpunks, Hc-kids, metalpeople, skalovers and popnerds, girls, guys, young,old…I think of going to see the group on Sticky when they comes because I have never seen them live and Fredrik promises to give the people who comes there a really good journey as he express it. When we talk about journey(how the fuck did I do with association) so do they play a song in Swedish on the latest album and I wonder if there is something which will happen again. – Ah, I believe that and I have started to like Swedish more and more and I work on a faster song in Swedish. We will see if it´s going to be on the next album and there have I already chosen 3 songs to be on the new record.
Ulf Lundell, Neil Young etc releases boxes with unreleased material and you can wonder when Misconducts box is coming and Fredrik tells me that they have a lot of songs which isn´t released and some covers. They have done a lot of covers and then it´s of bands like 7 seconds, Gorilla Bisquits, Youth of Today, Skäms, Arabens Anus, Ebba Grön, Blå Tåget, Alice Cooper, Ramones, Misfits, Bob Marley, Blink 182 and among the songs they have done we have Staten och Kapitalet, 800 grader, We´re only in it for the drugs, Blommor och Bajonetter. They have done videos to their songs to and to the songs No Boundaries, New Beginning, Side By Side och Iron Lion Zion and they have been shown on ZTV andMTV but there they don´t show so much of this stuff anymore and I thought it was unmodern to do videos but Fredrik think it is the opposite way. –I think it is more modern now with videos than ever before. Just so that ZTV and MTV have been changed to You Tube there the kids are VJ´s themselves.
I got the new record some months ago but I want a new one agaian but the next record will be released 2012 in the spring as the earliest and now it´s USA/Canada, Japan and Australia which is the main thing for the group. The last thing Fredrik wants to say all my readers is -Yes to everyone out there. Get our new record "One Step Closer", Check out our new video/single "Closer" on YOUTUBE and keep your eyes open for a gig near you!!! See ya in the PIT!