After the release of their storming debut album
'Metal Will Stand Tall' The Poodles have done it again and released the
outstanding follow-up 'Sweet Trade'. Two albums that are sure to feature
strongly in the Top 10 releases of 2007. Eight months have passed
since we last caught up with the band, so today we take the opportunity to catch up with lead
singer Jakob Samuel and find out more about the new album and the bands touring
plans in support of this latest release.
MM - Jakob, can I just start by saying what a great job you’ve done with the
new album guys, I thought ‘MWST’ was the dog’s wotsits but this latest
release is even bigger and better than that release!
What's the feeling in the band camp at the moment
and are you getting to grips with the phenomenal success the band have had
in such a short period of time?
Jakob – Well we are all happy campers
right now because this is something that we really wanted. It’s been a full
time job for us for almost two years now so everybody is really happy
about this situation. This is really a dream come true for us.
MM - There were a few critics out there who said
‘MWST’ was a fluke and regarded the band as a one album wonder. Do you
see this new album ‘Sweet Trade’ as a bit of a two
fingered salute to these folks?
Jakob – Yes well there’s always a risk in
doing something like that, but everybody who knows our history knows that
we’ve been doing what we’re doing for 15 years. We were never actually
worried about being a one hit wonder since we had so much music to write
and gigs to do. We had always thought of this situation as a long
term commitment, we had a schedule for many years ahead and where we
wanted to go. Who knows if we will ever get there but this is the
direction we are heading. It was never our ambition to have a quick thing
and then be out of it.
MM - I like many others were bitterly disappointed
about the cancellation of the Thunderground festival earlier this year and
was really looking forward to seeing the band live once more. Are there
any plans to bring the band over to the UK sometime soon?
Jakob – I was really sad when I got the news
about the cancellation of Thunderground. I don’t know
what exactly was behind that but I know we definitely want to get back to
Britain to play and we will.
MM - I’ve read quite a few reviews of the new
album and all of them have praised it no end, what are your initial
reactions to the feedback from both press and fans to date?
Jakob – Well the general reaction back home
was of surprise that we follow up with another strong album. Our management
just thumbed out some of the reviews for us because we haven’t had that
much time to look at the reviews yet and because a lot of them are just coming in
now. They seem to be saying that even though the first album was good, the
second one is even better. We’ve really had a lot of good reviews and it feels
really good.
On the other hand the first album back home was really
given a hard
critic, they went hard on that one. The main thing this time is that it’s much
better back home and from the European and the Spanish and Latin American
countries have been really really good. We’re really happy and it feels
like we’re heading in the right direction. On the other hand with the
reviews it’s kinda like the good reviews are good things to keep with you
and the rest you should just leave behind you, that’s my
philosophy. There’s always some bad critics and that can be good,
but if someone
is very positive about what you are doing then you should take that with
you.
MM - A couple of my particular favourite tracks
from the new album have to be ‘Seven Seas’ and ‘Thunderball’, what tracks
are you particularly proud of and why?
Jakob – Well
‘Seven Seas’ probably has the most story behind it of all the songs on
the album. I went through a period last Summer where I read a lot
about pirates. Lots of different pirate stories. It’s a
very romantic form of entertainment now but maybe it wasn’t actually
that romantic when it
happened.
I went through this period where I went through a
lot of those stories and there was one in particular about this character Black Sam and
how when he was finally captured, his head
was cut off and his body was thrown into the water. The story goes that
before he sank, he swam eight times around the boat before he sank! These
types of stories have so many great myths surrounding them.
When I wrote
‘Seven Seas’ together with Jonas Reingold and Peter Stomare (the actor
from Prison Break, Jurassic Park and Fargo), he’s really into rock music.
I wanted to have a duet on this song, but I didn’t want a classically
trained singer on this song because it was about pirates and I wanted a
rough singer.
I got struck between all the similarities between being a
rock musician and touring. We go from place to place and we steal people’s
time and their attention from time to time and hopefully for a little
while we give good music and we give a great experience back. Then we
take all our stuff and leave for the next one. I got struck by the two
similarities. I really wanted a kind of Black Sam character written into
this, instead of having a Black Sam we had a Black Pete!
'Thunderball’ is
the only song written from outside. I really like that song and I
think it’s a fantastic album song. I really didn’t go particularly
through the roof the first time I heard it but it’s grown on me and I
really like it now.
‘Kiss Goodbye’ is one of my favourites. Pontus and me
worked on that song for quite a while. It means that you have to do your
own thing and you can’t live your life through somebody else. Everybody
has to do what they have to do. You can live on a parallel road but you
have to leave a little space in any relationship to make it a happy one.
You have to do your own thing and you have to let your partner do their
own thing also. It’s all about that. I can’t live my life through
you, I have to do my own thing and you have to do yours, so give yourself
the chance that you deserve.
MM - You’re quoted as saying that you had 35 songs
to choose from and picked 12 for the new album, will any of the remaining
see light of day on the next album or have they been shelved for perhaps
additions to future special edition digi-packs or different releases in
other territories?
Jakob – Well some of the songs that feature on this album were
actually written originally for ‘Metal Will Stand Tall’ but didn’t
make it on that album, simply because they didn’t fit in and we had so
many songs to choose from. It wasn’t that they weren’t good
songs, it
was
just they didn’t work with other songs on the album or had the same
purpose on that album.
One of those songs is ‘Band Of Brothers’, we wrote
that for ‘Metal Will Stand Tall’ but it fitted perfectly on ‘Sweet
Trade’. So I guess all the songs left over, some of them will be used as
bonus material in different areas and some of them will be released on the
compilations with stuff later on. Some may be re-recorded again for a
forthcoming album and some may be recorded by other artists. We work for
one of the bigger record companies now and there’s a lot of artists who
need songs written.
MM - The band will shortly be supporting Gotthard
on tour, how are the preparations for that tour going?
Jakob –
We’ve just finished the pre-rehearsals for the
tour. We’ve been locked in for a couple of days now with all the
production and the new songs and the new setlist. It’s been quite a long
day and it’s been really good. It’s very enjoyable to play the new
songs.
Well we’ve toured back home quite a
bit since we were in Europe the last time. We got home the 1st
March and we toured quite a bit back home, but this is the first tour on
the full album now. We only released that just before the Summer so we’re
feeling really really good about this. Firstly because we are special
guests on the Gotthard tour and that gives us about 15 more minutes to
play. That feels really good to have an extra 15-20 minutes on the set
time, which makes it about 45-50 minutes in total. Secondly we can bring
more of our show out on the road.
Last time we didn’t even have our own
drum kit in many cases. Especially when we played over there in England
where we played smaller clubs than we did here in Germany for example. So
that feels really good, what doesn’t feel really good is that we can’t
cover Britain and we can’t cover Spain and Italy. We’ll do Germany now
and then we’ll see things work out. Frank the promoter for Gotthard is
really into bringing us out on the road. We’re looking to start a long
term project with him. This is the first step on the European tour then
we will go out and definitely cover the whole thing.
MM - Have you had a chance to consider the content
of the setlist for this tour yet and if so will you be concentrating
mainly on the new album, or will their be an even mix of songs from ‘MWST’
and ‘ST’ in the mix?
Jakob - I think the new setlist will be really
really good. On this tour we do five songs from the ‘Metal Will Stand
Tall’ album and five songs from ‘Sweet Trade’. The setlist will include
the new single ‘Streets Of Fire’, also ‘Seven Seas’ and ‘Thunderball’.
MM - We caught the band
earlier this year playing in support of Hammerfall, how did that tour go
and did you feel you attracted the interest of a lot of new fans towards
the band that would not have normally taken an interest?
Jakob
– The Hammerfall tour was great for me, it was one big highlight to be
able to present your thing on new ground. We are a rock n’ roll band like
any other you know, we’ve had the same opportunities as everybody else.
It turned out so good, it was really nice.
MM – When the
Thunderground Festival was cancelled there was quite a backlash from
people on some of the forums saying that the scene was in a decline and
people weren't coming out and supporting live shows any more. How do you feel about this
and what do you think of the current music scene, either in Sweden or on
the larger scale?
Jakob
– I didn’t really recognise myself in that view of it, that the scene was
in a decline. I really feel that people do attend and I haven’t
experienced anything like that. Obviously there could be hundreds of reasons why people didn’t attend to
this particular show.
MM – Basically
it was a problem with people not wanting to buy their tickets in advance. What
tends to happen quite a bit over here is people turn up on the day, or
maybe buy their tickets in the last couple of weeks before the show. The promoter hung on for as long as possible but apparently from
his press release there were so few tickets sold in advance that he just
couldn’t take the risk of going ahead with it.
Jakob
– Well I have no opinion of it as I have always found that people do tend
to support this kind of music so I didn’t really recognise this kind of
criticism.
MM – What do you feel
the current Swedish music scene has to offer you as a band in particular?
I read a review a few days ago from one reviewer who said that Sweden is
now the home of Glam Rock again.
Jakob -
Well I don’t know, I don’t see The Poodles as a glam rock band even though
we’re glamorous. Maybe we have a glamorous image, but we have a more
classic rock/hard rock star image. We look more like Rex did
in the 70’s than Hanoi Rocks. On the other hand it doesn’t bother me
if people think that we are glamorous or more like a glam rock band
because our
music
says it all any way.
CrashDiet
are releasing a new album and I see a lot of new musicians looking a lot
like we did in the early 80’s, it’s kind of funny to see that. The
young musicians are much more conservative. We really want to bring
back all the things that went on in the late 80’s and the beginning of the
90’s. Obviously we were around at that point in time and we’ve
brought on a lot of things since that time, but it’s funny you know that
everything goes around in circles.
MM - A band with such a
strong visual as well as musical image is bound to draw in some extreme
fans at some point. Have the band experienced any crazy fan related
incidents yet, or is it still
early days?
Jakob
– Well whatever you hear and whatever they say, it’s all true!
MM - Following on from
that what would you say the media’s biggest misconception of the band has
been to date?
Jakob
– I think we’ve been very obvious in what we are. There’s the one thing
we maybe had to work towards was the fact that we are a band and we are
here for the long haul, we’re not here for the one hit and then we’ll
go away. One of the things that people might think is that we were just
the one album and then we’d be off, but as I said earlier, we have a long term commitment to this, we want to stick
around and do many albums and tours and build something big. In Sweden
we’ve succeeded in that.
MM - Finally do you have
any messages you would like to add for all our readers out there? Jakob
– We’d just like to say that we have a great tour ahead of us and please
attend if you can. You can also follow us on our website which we update every
day and you can follow the tour on there if you are not able to attend the
gigs.
MM - We'd like to thank Jakob for taking the time out of his very
hectic rehearsal schedule to chat with us today and look forward to seeing
him and the rest of the guys return to these shores again before too long.
