Scared Earth is a band I fell head over heels for when I got the latest record. So fucking good hardcore and a group which mixes several different hard styles. Here, Dahlberg and Max have answered the questions. April 2024

Please tell me about how you came up with the idea that you would play together and when was this?

M: (Pe)Dahlberg contacted me a couple of years ago and wondered if I was interested. I had to think for a while because punk was really indate in my life at that time. It was so long since I played punk. Maybe that's why I took the bait. And I haven't regretted it. It ́s so fun to play punk again after all these years!

D: I played in Dissober a few years ago and felt that I wanted to play more and a little bit different than what Dissober did.  I had talked to Peter a few times at different gigs about starting something, so I made a list of people who lived within 10 miles that it would be fun to play with and who had made music I liked before, and could conceivably have time to join. I saw that Max lived in Stockholm and had been in Dom Där so I wrote on Facebook and asked if he wanted to play some raw punk, and without knowing me he said yes, he was good friends with Poppe so then we had got a singer too! Micke who sings now I had asked before we started but he didn ́t have the opportunity then, but when Poppe quit it was good for him to jump in!

Please tell me a little about every member, age, bands on the side, interests and tell me something "horrible or embarrassing" about every person"?

M: Well, my name is Max, I'm very old and I spend a lot of my free time skateboarding. Pete is even older and my first thought is that he snores like hell when he's been drinking beer, haha! Mike is probably best known as a long-haired protester in the first episode of Rederiet. Big!

D: Dahlberg 57 years, no other bands, interests is to play bass and guitar, have designed the covers so far and that is also fun, embarrassing is maybe that I have started to listen to country in recent years! (M: Country bosses!)

Micke 56 years, no other bands, is interested in football.

Were you surprised when no band was called Scared Earth before? Or is there any other band. How did the discussions go when you took the name or was it just done right away?

M: Band names are always very difficult. Especially nowadays, when all the good band names are taken. I knew that Sacred Earth existed and it's pretty close, but completely different music. But I've also googled and googled and found nothing else.

D: I had a list of group names and song titles, I usually save it when I come up with something that can be used. So we looked through the list and Scared Earth felt the best and didn't find anything when I googled, checked youtube and Spotify, so then we went for it

I think you have mixed many punk styles in a great way on the latest record? Do you have many different favouritebands in different styles of punk?

M: I think that only within the band we have quite different musical tastes, which I see as a clear advantage. Personally, I love a lot of old punk bands, but to be honest, I listen more to metal and heavy metal nowadays.

D: My vision when we started was not yet another Discharge-band, but more to Swedish bands which had unique and fun stuff in their music such as Disarm, Headcleaners, Krunch, No Security, Svart Parad. Bands that listened to English raw punk, American hardcore and Swedish and Finnish bands and got their own unique style even though it was raw punk at heart! And then you can surely hear that we listen to for example Conflict, Motörhead, Sacrilege, Anticimex and sometimes spice up our music with such influences!

The first record is out of stock you said, how many copies was it made in?

M: Oh, shall we guess at 500? Krister, you probably know better?

D: 500 or maybe 493 because it wasn't exactly 100 colored vinyls. I'll probably have a couple of copies left if someone wants to buy them.

You have been in many good old bands like Martial Mosh, Dissober, Dom Där, Furbowl and Svart Parad? Do you play anything from these groups live?

M: When we started we did covers from Disaccord and Svart Parad. And then we did more and more own songs and then all covers fell away. But who knows, it's not impossible that we'll do one into the future. We also did an old Iconoclast song in the beginning.

D: We have done a Svart Parad and a Disaccord-song when Poppe was in the band, I like to do some cover that people recognize, it ́s really appreciated on gigs.

Do you care about reviews?

M: Usually I think it's pretty fun to read reviews. But now that I'm "back" in the punk scene, I can't really keep up, haha! I don't know if I've even read any reviews of Scared Earth. Right now it just feels fun to mangle again, which means that I don't really care that much about what other people think. This is a pure ego project on my part.

D: Not really, we do our thing as we want, but it's fun to hear what someone thinks about what you've done, you make music for someone to listen and think it's good!

You release the records on vinyl, is it important to get out records physically and not only digitally?

M: Yes, that's pretty old-fashioned, I feel. I think it's more "for real" if you have a physical record. And it's more fun with a whole concept with a record, cover and inserts etc. And there´s a lot of nostalgia in the vinyl. It was a hell of a feeling to stand in a record store and browse through the records.

D: It's more real to hold a vinyl record and drop down the tonearm and hear the crackle before it breaks loose!

You sing in English, but you take in some Swedish titles here and there, why not only in Swedish?

M: We fight every rehearsal about it, haha! Some people think we should shout more in Swedish. Personally, I think it tends to be quite cheesy in Swedish. Then the lyrics must be fucking good if they are going to work. And then I want to add that I think Krister is good at this with lyrics. But in English, you get away with it in a different way.

D: It's more difficult to write good lyrics in Swedish, so it's a little bit of everything, depending on what ideas you get for lyrics.

So it's easier to make texts in English? Who does the songs?

M: The songs are mostly Krister and Peter which comes up with. I think they do it well. I usually tuck in one here and there as well. I also play guitar and do songs all the time that are piled up and portioned out here and there. A lot of what I do may not really fit in SE, but when it works, it works.

D: I do almost all the lyrics, mostly because the others hardly do any, and then everyone usually comes up with song ideas except Micke. Sometimes it's completely finished song ideas, sometimes just a verse part where you help each other. To come up with the intro, then we rehearse the songs and test the ideas that come up until we are done with the song.

Tell us a little about the following songs...

-Napalm sticks like Glue
-In and out(of jail)
-Live vs exist

D: -Napalm sticks like Glue is from the beginning a song I did which sounded a little bit in the Iggy And the Stooges-style, thought the lyrics was good and it worked to do in a punkier version.

-In and out(of jail) the lyrics are inspired by the movie "The Thirteenth Amendment" which has been on Netflix, the movie and the song is about the American prison system with private prisons which is also manufacturing industry and therefore needs manpower, so after serving the sentence the system makes it difficult for the released so they will fail and go in again and continue to work at the prison. 
-Live vs exist: Max have done the music and I have done the lyrics, it's about that you should do what you like, live your life and do the things you like and not just work, sleep, eat and just exist, you can play in a band, skateboarding or whatever you want!

Is it important to get into politics in the music when you play this sort of music?

M: I thought so in my teens. Then they began... Maybe not change your opinions, but nuance them a little bit and then some of the "punk message" felt a little bit naïve. I think in many ways the same way today as I did then, but I see more and more in shades of grey today and not just black and white.

D: I think it's important that the lyrics have something to say, both when I'm writing lyrics or listening, then I can also listen to funlyrics if the music is good, but a good song is even better with a good lyrics!

Are you politically active yourselves?

M: Depends on what you put into the term "politically active". But I try to be reasonably aware of both domestic politics and world politics. I write a number of letters to the editor and often participate in the political debate online. And well, being vegan is political if anything. I'm both a vegan, a teacher and a feminist. Three of the most hated phenomena on the Internet, haha! On the other hand, maybe I don't block Shell gas stations anymore, like I did in my youth, haha.

Which is your favourite band when it comes to political music?

M: If we're talking punk bands, Conflict have always appealed to me. Angry as hell and milelong lyrics. A lot about animal rights, which I'm interested in. And then I like Crass... as a concept. I've never been so fond of the music though, haha! Subhumans must also be mentioned. I'll add MDC as well.

D: Then I say Crass and Svart Parad.

How would you describe your music to someone who haven´t heard you?

M: Wow, that's hard. But fast punk with some metallic elements here and there maybe.

D: Swedish raw punk as it sounded in the middle of the 80 ́s with influences from both England and USA. So traces of hardcore, anarchopunk and punk metal.

Punk, what does it mean to you, is it only a word or is it a lifestyle?

M: Sometime back in the 80's I started to see punk as a big limitation. You weren't allowed to do that and you weren't allowed to do that. You would hate it and you would hate it. It didn't suit me very well. I wanted the freedom to think and feel as I wanted. I felt, as I said, that punk became a limitation rather than the freedom I wanted it to be. Punk have influenced me in many ways of course. But I would never let punk control me in any way.

D: Punk is a lifestyle and a community made up of music, clothes, hairstyle, opinions! And then of course you don ́t have to fulfill every point to be a part of punk, everyone can do their own thing! 

Is there any really good bands in Sweden that you want to highlight?

M: Oh, I don ́t know much about bands nowadays. But I think Smierc is really cool!

D: ?  Most of the bands Bandit is involved in is good! (Svaveldioxid, Panikattack, Bödel)

Is it any of your old groups which is still playing?

M: Well, Furbowl have never really split up and we talk sometimes about just doing a single or so. Me and the singer did five records with the band Hearse which must be seen as a continuation of Furbowl. Anyway, the old Furbowl records are still released every now and then, both on vinyl, cassette and CD.

D: No

Tell us a little about the following...

-The record that made you want to play music yourself?

M: I would say it was KISS Alive. When I heard Peter Criss' drum solo there, I just knew that I wanted to play drums. When I listen to it now, that drum solo is pretty cocky, haha! But there and then it really affected the five-year-old me.

D: I don´t remember but maybe Beatles, Runaways, Kiss Or Clash, they were the first 4 records I bought.

-First record you bought?

M: Probably something with KISS. I remember that I got money in my fist and went to EPA and bought the Rock ́n Roll Over record when it just arrived. It felt great and I can still remember the feeling.

D: The first thing I bought myself was an LP with Beatles: Live at the Hollywood Bowl, at an Ica Store. (M: Good buy!)

-Most embarrassing record in your collection?

M: I can't think of any embarrassing record. And then there are surely records there that others would find embarrassing. But I listen to pretty much everything from Enya to Napalm Death.

D: It's hard to say there are a lot of things, but things I like that might be embarrassing: Thor, Anna-Lena Lövgren(Lyckliga gatan).

-The record that makes Scared Earth sound the way you do?

M: Hmmm... I don ́t think it ´s possible to mention only one record there. But of course Discharge is there at the bottom and sloshing.

D: There isn´t a record which I have mentioned in other questions, but Anticimex: Raped Ass likes everybody!

-The record you would like to have been on in some way?

M: Well, I wouldn ́t have been dissatisfied with myself if it was me who played on the Rush record 2112, or Napalm Deaths From Enslavement record. Both of them have drummers which I love. Extremely different, but both of them are really tough!

D: It should be a record where I can add something, the ones that are good you don ́t want to change but I would love to write songs for the next Anticimex-record!

Many different labels have helped out to release the record, how come?

M: I think there are many reasons. It is good economically to split the costs, and then it is also easier to get it out in different countries.

D: It ´s a lot of money for a label to put out, if you share the cost you get both more distribution on the records and the labels can release more different records

Do you have any plans for new releases?

M: Oh yes, we're working on record three right now. I'm going to put together a few more songs. It always feels good to record a few extra so you can thin out a bit.

D: yes, I have a bunch of songs for the next record.

Five favoriterecords right now?

M: Unfortunately, very little new stuff that gets past my wall. I wish I was more interested in new bands and new releases... But now it is what it is. So well, here are a couple of albums that I keep coming back to:

*Napalm Death -From Enslavement...

*Rush – 2112

*Black Sabbath -Sabotage

*Dio -Holy Diver

*Rudimentary Peni -Death Church But tomorrow the list will certainly look completely different.

D: I'm really happy with our latest one so I've listened to it a lot lately. Otherwise, the First Cimex 12, India Ramey: Shallow Graves, Cocksparrer's new.

Is it many livegigs, where have been the best so far?

M: I think we don ́t play enough live. Would love to play more often. Otherwise, I think that all the gigs went pretty well and been really fun.

D: Unfortunately not, we would like to play a little more often!

What is your strength live?

M: Oh, hard to say. But I think Mike works well as a frontman. It happens a little bit when he's on stage!

D: I think we have so many songs now that we can choose 

What kind of audience do you draw, young/old, punks/crust punks or how is it?

M: I haven't really thought about it. We have always played together with a bunch of other bands, so which ones are pulling which is hard to sort out.

Which is the biggest band you have played together with?

M: Hmmm... I don't think we've played with any big bands... well? On the other hand, we have played with many bands that we like both on a musical and on a personal level.

D: Mob 47, Asocial, we have played on some festivals but there you hardly meet all the bands!

If you could choose five bands to have a concert together with Scared Earth, both dead and living bands, which would the five dream bands be then?

M: Oh, that's hard. Scared Earth wouldn´t be suitable for five cents, but sure it would be top class to play with KISS, Rush, Black Sabbath, Faith no More and... punk band....hmmm... Let's go for Crucifix!

D: I like to play with bands I want to see in a context where we fit in, so it will be Headcleaners, Iconoclast, Disarm, Crudity, Sacrilege!

Futureplans for the band?

M: There's a new album in the pipeline. We're starting to get the songs together. It usually lands about 12 songs on our records and then it feels good to have at least 15 songs so that in the end you can sift a little.

D: We write new songs for the next record, we have recently released the second record so it's fun to come out and do those songs live and sell some records and shirts!

Futureplans for yourself?

M: Skateboard pro and punk icon before 60!

D: Band related stuff is finding the pedal that gives me the sound I'm looking for! I want an effect that you can put on sometimes that makes the bass sound a little different but that you still hear what you play, then maybe learn something new you can use in some song, some good bassline!

Wisdomword?

M: Be kind -to every kind!

D: Go ahead and go on and be yourself!

Something to add?

M: Not really more than thank you for your interest!

D: Please let me know if you want us to come and play, or if you want to buy a record, a shirt or a patch!