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Swedish metal crew Bombus are back with their latest opus ‘Vulture Culture’. New album, new guitarist, longer songs – same bombastic Bombus. Allow guitarist/vocalist and co-founder Fredrik ‘Feffe’ Berglund to fill you in on all things going down in the Bombus universe.
‘Vulture Culture’ is set to be released very soon, the album cover is very striking, what’s the concept behind it?
We wanted something to fit with the album title, so we wanted something post apocalyptic, a near-future vibe. The symbols in the monitors are from the four horsemen of the apocalypse, famine, war, conquest and death, and then the fifth one is just a smiley face, and that represents humanity. Just a bit of a joke the last one! We’re not super-serious, it has to be a bit of fun, humanity you know, maybe earth is going under but we can still smile!
It works really well..
It’s actually a painting, the artist used brushes and everything, it’s really cool, I have it on my wall!
Oh cool! Was it an original piece that he created especially for the album sleeve?
Yeah, he painted it, in some way a cover is just a cover, but it can also be a piece of art, it’s part of the album. We’ve always had artists that we really like doing our covers, it can’t be a quick fix like..here’s your cover, it has to be something physical. We like vinyl as a format, so it has to look good on a large format.
‘Vulture Culture’ is your first album as a five piece, you’ve added Simon Solomon as a third guitarist, was there a particular reason for this?
Mainly because on this album, I do all the vocals, the last album, ‘Repeat Until Death’, maybe 70% of the lead vocals, me and Mattias (Mattias ‘Matte’ Jacobsson – guitarist and co-founder) used to share the vocals, but now I do all of them. I wanted to get away from the guitar a bit, focus on the vocals, and then we wanted to add something to the band, when you’ve been doing this for a while you can get stuck in the same process, so we wanted to change that and see what we could do with the music. When we recorded this album, we recorded it for three guitarists, the solo, an arpeggio under the solo, then the rhythm guitar. And you can do that in the studio, but then you go out and play live and you can’t do it, we just wanted to record this one, then go out and play it almost exactly as it is.
You originally formed the band as a two-piece yeah?
Yeah we just started out that way, me and Mattias were old friends and had been hanging out for a while. We had wanted to start something but sometimes it’s hard to find band members, so we started just the two of us, I was on the drums back then! I liked the idea of a two-piece but when you listen to it, there’s something missing, there’s no layers to it. It’s like eating potatoes and meatballs everyday, you’re limited to that, no gravy! So we did that for a while and then we got a drummer in, a bass player, and I moved to guitar.
There is a great deal of hidden depth to the album, on ‘Mama’ for instance the guitar sound is huge, there is so much going on underneath it. It must be an undertaking to perform it live, exactly as it is on the album?
I see the album as the book, then playing live is the play. It doesn’t have to be exact, but if you can take it without rearranging it, it kind of makes it more true.
Over the touring cycle, you would imagine that songs develop over time, maybe expand into something different from what they began as?
Exactly yeah, you can’t play it exactly the same because after a while everyone starts doing different bits and pieces. Different stuff that they weren’t doing previously. You have to have a live groove, a feeling of what the song should be about live.
Especially since the songs on ‘Vulture Culture’ do seem quite longer?
Yes, we wanted to do that because on the last album we had shorter songs, mid-tempo songs, and on the previous one to that we had more longer songs. We wanted to get longer songs in the set and on the album, but we also wanted the catchiness and directness that we had on ‘Repeat After Death’. I kind of like those longer songs as well, it makes the album more diverse when you listen to it. You can almost do what you want with metal, pop music or even classic rock you are quite restricted to a standard running time, with metal you could have a 15 minute long song and people would still enjoy it. You can be more creative, if you listen to an old Black Sabbath song they skip between parts, there’s no logic, it’s more creative.
A couple of moments really stand out for me, ‘It’s All Over’ is one of my favourites at the minute, what’s the background on that one?
I actually started writing that 10 years ago, it was just an idea that I had when we started Bombus. In the beginning it was like The Melvins in a Pink Floyd-ish way! That’s what I heard in my ears when I wrote it, we wanted almost like a ballad, but leaning more towards a British influence. We wanted the guitar solo to be more like a Brian May solo, like a classic Brian May touch to it, and we wanted the song to have a Pink Floyd feel, but still make it like a ballad. I really like this song! Perhaps because it took so long to make!
There is a strong ‘The Wall’ era Pink Floyd vibe to it, your vocals especially.
Oh cool! ‘The Wall’ era was constantly in the back of our heads when we wrote this album, we don’t want to compare ourselves to Pink Floyd but we wanted some of their vibe. It’s magical, even with Queen, the arrangements and composing, it was like it never got any better after that!
Another one that really stands out is ‘We Lost A Lot Of Blood Today’, the arrangements are epic sounding!
Thank you, I think that has an Alice Cooper ‘70’s vibe to it, a bit horror-ish. That’s actually one of my favourites as well!
Yeah? Nice!
That was supposed to be on the last album, but it didn’t make it so we re-arranged it, it took us three more years to finish it. It’s another one that’s been around for a long time.
Did you think that ten years after your debut album, you would still be releasing albums and the band would still be going strong?
I don’t know really?! Time flies, it is kind of weird that this band has been around for ten years, and it’s weird that I’m forty years old and I’m still in the same band! But it gets easier with each album you do, you have all these ideas lying around and you don’t have to reinvent the wheel on every album. We really enjoy it, and we really enjoy each others company. Adding a new guitarist to the band after ten years, maybe we need stuff like that, just to keep us on our toes.
You’ve got the Copenhell Cruise coming up very soon, have you packed your sea legs?!
Yeah, we actually have another cruise the following weekend as well, we’re going on the Turbonegro 30th anniversary cruise. It’s a big thing with these metal cruises nowadays.
Megadeth have just had their one recently, sold out I believe? Someone has realised that a captive audience will drink more, so more profits then!
Yeah because you are stuck in one place for two days! The day after can be horrible, we have done a few of those and people get up and start drinking beer in the morning, and by the time the band goes on it’s like…holy shit! It is fun though.
How is 2020 shaping up for Bombus?
We start out at the end of January I think? A few Scandinavian shows, after that I think maybe a support tour in the Spring, and then the festival season which is a big thing. The festival season is the main thing nowadays, the festival circuit is the centre of the whole circus nowadays. It can be crazy, say you fly to Italy, play 30 minutes then fly home, then another festival then back home. It chops the summer up, but it’s fun.
Any plans for UK dates?
Yeah, we really want to go back to the UK, it’s been about a year now since we were there with Graveyard, so yeah, we will be back for sure.
So I suppose it all depends on Brexit then?!
Yeah! How is that going for you?!
Oh don’t fucking ask! It’s not even a day-to-day thing, it changes from minute-to-minute, hour by hour.
It’s a circus! There are the Brussels guys, and the UK guys, and I don’t know what they are doing?
It would seem that neither do they!
I can be a European sceptic at times, but as a touring band, it might not make it easy going to the UK. It might be more of a hassle, nobody really knows. We have the Nordic passport union that makes it easy for us to cross into each Scandinavian country, Europe is usually not much of a hassle. But I would imagine that it also might make it harder for British bands to tour? They would need visas for each country now?
I think the band Therapy? said it best when they said..”The world is fucked, and so am I”..
I saw Therapy? About 20 years ago in Gothenburg, they were great!
Still going strong, still releasing albums, with the same line-up.
The older you get, you appreciate these bands more, the ones that have never split up. They’re like a falling star and the hype is gone, but they still keep on doing it. They do it because they want to, they always deliver.
So there you have it, the lowdown on what you can expect on ‘Vulture Culture’, pick a copy up from November 15th on Century Media, and look out for Bombus coming to a town near you from late November onwards.
Interview – Dave
