Born 20 Years Too Late, Issue #4 August 2005. Interview by Jo.

1 who plays what in the band?

Ola: Norse plays the guitar and shouts (or, as we say in Sweden, hojtar). Ola plays the bass and screams (or, as we say in Sweden, ropar). Indy does the drums and shuts up. That's it, that's all we need.
Norse: Yep, we are a power-trio, just like Rush...

2 what do you do for a living?

Ola: We work for a living of course, that's the only way if you want to be an upright citizen. We're all white collar; Indy works in a library, Ola and Norse are office slaves.

3 have you been in other bands before?

Ola: Tons of bands but none have ever gotten close to the moderate fame and success of Massgrav so let's not embarrass you or ourselves by naming them.
Norse: Me and Ola have been playing together in different bands since 1994, so I guess you can call us “The Glimmer Twins of Power Violence”.

4 your lyrics are in Swedish; not to many bands these days sing in thier native language.why do you choose swedish over English?

Ola: A) because it's our native language and we can say exactly what we want said without having to battle the language barrier and B) because every phrase sounds old and worn when you try to write songs about hatred and anger in English, you've heard it all a thousand times before and C) because Swedish is a much more brutal language and D) it keeps us from getting too famous for our own good.

5 so would you saw english is an imperial language?

Norse: You got that right, punk!
Ola: It's a language that is spoken in countries where the governments have or have had imperialistic beliefs and wishes, but you can't really blame the language for that, can you? No, I'd say it's a great language, it's so extremely vast that if you speak it well, you can convey your thoughts perfectly, there's so many similar words with just a fine difference in meaning between them. It's like a very professional and exact surgical tool. Also, it's easy to learn the basics, which I suppose has helped it. If the people of the US and the UK had spoken French (which is a fucking nightmare to learn), I don't think it would have been as widespread as English is today.

6 thoughts on neo liberalism?

Ola: No, not really. Our political view seems to be a bit more naïve, concentrating more on whether people are nice or assholes. What banner the assholes march under matters less to us, I think.

7 what themes do you sing about in your lyrics?

Ola: Mostly the usual stuff you'd expect from a punk band but maybe with a bit of a different twist and a lot of humor (which some people seem to have a huge problem with). We don't do any war songs and not a lot of general directionless whining and complaining - it's usually about something we're pissed off with; be it bosses, religion, corporations, mass consumption or something else. Lately we've started writing a lot of songs about ourselves and our views on other bands, their music and the punk scene in general, which doesn't seem to be the most popular thing to do (probably because we only write about what we don't like about them).
We've recently written one of very few slow songs, which is about how boring it is when bands play slow songs and that our goal is to annihilate slow and boring music. Anyway, the short answer to this question would have been "hate and humour".

8 you guys are known to be abrasive, mean, honest and unapolegetic... is this true or your all a bunch of softies inside!?

Ola: We're nice people, I think, but we'll speak our minds and our opinions don't always seem to go down too well with other people.
Norse: Oh, we’re probably the biggest softies around. But you know, one thing doesn’t exclude the other. The punk-scene today consists of way too many idiots who claim that you’re only allowed to be into punk if you have spikes, patches all over, dreads, tattoos etc. Let’s face it - Punk has become a trend. If you don’t look like everyone else you’re not welcome to join the club. Well, we don’t care about that shit and that seems to annoy a lot of them “true” punks over here in Stockholm.

9 your definition of a poser?

Ola: A person who can only afford the CD or the patch and buys the patch.
Norse: A punk.

10 with the new release on Sound Pollution Records,do you think this will open doors for touring and such?

Ola: Yes and no. It will because since we've released the CD on a good label that people respect and know of and which also has good distribution in parts of the world, they know about us more now than they did before and that will make it easier to tour, but then again it won't since Sound Pollutions main area is the US and maybe Japan and I don't see us going there anytime soon unless we decide it would be a fun vacation and pay for it ourselves. We'd love to go though, get in touch if you want to pay our plane tickets!

11 top 5 punk releases?

Norse:
Krigshot – “Örebromangel”
Dead Kennedys - “Fresh fruit...”
New Bomb Turks – “Destroy Oh boy!”
Infest – “No mans slave”
Zeke – “Death Alley”

Indy:
Poison Idea – “Feel the darkness”
Turbonegro – “Ass cobra”
G-Anx – “Flashbacks”
Arsedestroyer – “Teen ass revolt”
Amebix – “Arise”

12 top 5 metal releases?

Norse:
Iron Maiden – “Live after death”
Kreator – “Extreme Aggressions”
Anthrax – “Among the living”
Entombed – “Left hand path”
Municipal Waste – “Waste ‘em all”

Indy:
Iron Maiden – “Iron Maiden”
Mayhem – “De mysteriis dom Sathanas”
Guns ’N Roses – ”Appetite for destruction”
Funeral Mist – “Salvation”
Iron Maiden – “Piece of mind”

13 best new band?

Norse: I just discovered Poser Disposer. They’ve released a CD, “Waiting to inhale”, on Regurgitated Semen Records. And I love them! Easily one of the top 5 releases this year. Check them out! Great Power Violence.

14 play fast or die?

Ola: We like fast music, as you can probably tell. Slow music usually equals boring music. But as for dying... I think Otto's got it right, he organizes a festival we're playin next month and it's called Play Fast or Don't!
Norse: Yeah, fuck Amebix, all hail Yacopsae!