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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
Special Guest
Interviewer - Our Man In The Pub |