For someone who’s never heard your music before, how would you describe it, and what one song would you play them?
It's fast raw agressive music that is delivered without any fuzz. I think that "Spit on me" is one of the songs that really makes people that haven't heard us understand what Sister is all about. But you can pretty much say that about all the songs.
Who/what is your greatest inspiration?
We have so many different inspirations. We like everything from Misfits to Guns n Roses, Pantera to David Bowie and takes inspiration from everything that we love with music. I really think you can hear that on this album.
What is it about Scandinavia that produces the best metal acts in the world?
Haha I don't really know but as a Swedish band you seem to get that question a lot. Everybody over here is playing in a band and a lot of music has a pretty good standard. On the other hand it really makes it more important for the bands to stand out from the rest. One cool thing I saw not that long ago was that they asked Mötley Crüe at a press conference in Argentina about the upcoming Swedish bands like Hardcore Superstar, Crashdiet and Sister. That they ask a band like Mötley Crüe about us Swedish bands on the other side of the planet is pretty cool.
You’ve only recently received a worldwide record deal with Metal Blade in 2010, how has that changed things for you?
We noticed that of course we got more publicity when we made it official in the beginning of the year and after the release just a few weeks ago it really got started for real. With a label like Metal Blade a lot of doors pop open but it's really up to you as a band to take the chance. Nowadays you dont get much for free in the music business and you have to make it happen if you get the chance. But also you notice that the work you put into it all gives you more and more feedback. We have some real cool stuff happening tourwise at the moment! And that's just what we wanna do right now. Tour our fuckin' asses off and pretty much stay on tour forever!! Other than that it hasnt changed that much. We still do what we've always done. Damage our brains in different ways!
I love your attitude to life, something I find synonymous with the freedom and open mindedness that comes with true passion for music. Do you find a lot of your fans identify with this?
I hope so. There's too much bullshit about how everything is supposed to be. How you are supposed to look and all that. It's strange cause I've been talking to people that are older than us that had the exact same problem in the '70s and the '80s. It's just never changing. You would think people or society would get smarter with time but I guess it will always be the same. The majority of people are just really fucking narrow-minded. We in this band have always lived the way we wanted and it's the exactly the same with our music. We just do what we like and want and don't really care about all the rest. I think a lot of people that listen to us feel and do the same!
Do you get a lot of negativity from people because of this? Do you think it scares them?
Haha yeah it's funny because we named our record HATED just because we've always found what I mentioned earlier to be a funny behaviour. To really focus your life on talking shit about someone else. And the people they talk about probably in most cases just don't give a fuck about them. With this album and the way we are and look we seem to have really got under some people's skin haha. But its always been like that and we all in the band just love it.
Tell us more about ‘HATED’ (your Metal Blade debut).
The HATED album is just the starting point of it all. The timing in our whole career has been perfect regarding everything since the beginning of this band. A few months before Metal Blade contacted us we had already decided to make an album that very autumn regardless label or not. We had contact with some pretty big labels but it didnt feel right and we decided to wait. When Metal Blade contacted us it felt right from the start and they've given us the freedom to do whatever we want with this album. When HATED was in the making, as I said, it was a lot of chaos but it's amazing that it turned out just as planned from the start. It's a raw record with the essence of pretty much what we are doing at our shows. We wanted that kind of live sound and I think we got it perfect. We are a punk band in a lot of ways and we think that edge of it all is real important. It keeps it honest!
Any plans to head to Australia in the near future?
That would kick major fucking ass! What I've understood you have a really cool scene for hard rock music down there and of course we wanna be a part of it. A friend of mine that comes from Melbourne tells me the scene is crazy and that really got me interested in touring there. I've also heard that our friends Crashdiet has a pretty good fanbase in Australia.
What are you listening to now?
It really changes from day to day. This week I've been listening to Neil Young, Vains of Jenna (The art of telling lies), Rory Gallagher and Saxon. Haha Saxon is kind of unexpected but "Denim and leather" is a great record for sure. Guns n Roses always pop in for a visit in the headphones and has been doing that since I was a kid.
What three albums have influenced your life/work?
Guns n Roses - Appetite for destruction.
Mötley Crüe - Shout at the Devil.
Hanoi Rocks - Back to mystery city
How was it working with Tobias Lindell, Martin Sweet & Calle Fäldt?
The whole recording period was great from day one to the last if I would lie haha. No but the memories of the time pressure and fucking stress 24/7 are kinda long gone now but I remember it slightly hehe. When we were deciding which studio we would choose and the different possibilities we just realised you can do so much by yourself nowadays. We have worked with Calle Fäldt and Martin Sweet in their studios before with our EP so we knew that it would be a really good co-operation. It was constant chaos to make it all happen with the time pressure and deciding dates that worked for all and so on but good things can really come out of chaos. Both Martin and Calle are really good at what they are doing and did a hell of a job and this way of doing it all really gave us the opportunity to put most of the budget doing the mix with Tobias Lindell who knows his shit. He got it from the start and the result was fucking great!
What's next for Sister?
As I said earlier the next step is just tour tour tour and tour and tour. We want to get out to every corner of the world. We will start with Europe and have some cool things going right now that will be official soon. Why not Australia after or maybe the States? We'll see what happens. But you should all take the chance to see us if we stop by and have a look at the riot we create on stage haha.
Cheers to all you bastards!
