TLOBF Interview :: The Mary Onettes

The Swede shall inherit the Earth. Seemingly on a mission to make the rest of the world kneel before their musical prowess, Sweden is home to many of TLOBF’s favourite recording artists. Concieved as an album of “small islands in different shapes and forms where every song is like a record of it’s very own”, Islands is the second full-length to be released by Jönköping based The Mary Onettes.

Set for release via the self-proclaimed “world’s finest purveyor of pop music” Labrador on February 1st, the album is grandiose and dreamy. I fired off some questions about it and the rest of the bands endeavours to frontman Philip Ekström.

Happy New Year! There’s a line in “Puzzles”, the first track from your newest album that goes “I know it hasn’t been the best year”. Looking back, how was 2009 for The Mary Onettes?
2009 was a good year. I’m very glad we were able to finish the album. I was worried there for a while. The release was great and Labrador have done a great job. And we did some really good live shows as well. Especially in the US, Spain and Sweden. I feel that we developed as a group of people as well. We became a better live band also I think.

The songs for Islands were lost, forcing you to re-record the album – what happened exactly? How did you all cope with it?
I had a burglary in my car the same day we came home from our US tour. They stole my bag with my disc which contained the songs. Also, my back-up disc crashed because of a power failure in my apartment – I guess it was meant to be! It was uphill for quite a while after that. I had a period when I didn’t want to make that second album at all. But after some time off I started to pick the songs up again and realized that I liked them too much to let them go. The other guys were really eager to make this album. They did support me a lot.

How difficult was it to go through the process of having to re-record Islands?
In the beginning it was really difficult. We didn’t have a producer that could give us guidelines and such. I worked a lot alone in the studio and it was hard to recreate a sound that I had once already done. But Johan (Angergård) at Labrador was a big help when I was insecure about the direction of the sound.

How do you feel about the album now?
I think the album is great! I always feel that I could’ve done things better. But this time i feel that the album has great importance in other perspectives. The whole period when i was working on album was turbulent, so the album was a great help. To me it is a very personal album.

We at TLOBF know that Sweden is a big centre for great music, but specifically there seem to be lots of other successful bands from Jönköping – yourselves, The Cardigans, I’m From Barcelona, Loney Dear…. how do you think this has come about? Is there something in the water?
I really can’t say why! Maybe it goes way back with a whole lot of understanding parents and things like that… the city of Jönköping is quite boring so there was not much of a choice.

It’s often said that you’re influenced by Echo & The Bunnymen. How true is that? What are your other influences?
I like Echo & The Bunnymen. But I’ve never been a huge fan. I’m more of a Cure guy. Been listening to them since forever. But I like a lot of other artists. My absolute favorites are Kate Bush, Prefab Sprout, Beach Boys, John Lennon, The Band, The Sound, New Order, Magnetic Fields and on and on…

What is your proudest musical achievement so far?
One song I’ve done that is an instrumental song, and yet unreleased. I’m very proud of that one. Because it’s a feeling translated into music, like an experiment for me actually. But I’m very proud of the two albums we’ve done! Really proud!

What’s next for the band?
I’m writing new music at the moment. I didn’t think I was going to be able to do that so early after the latest release. But It’s been an easy process so I just have to do it. And it’s fun again! But we are gonna tour soon again also. We’re going to the States and France in March and April.

What are your personal and musical ambitions for 2010?
Finish the new album and hopefully record it. And I will try to be more of a nice person. And kind to my band.

Finally, is there any great music you’ve heard recently that you could recommend to TLOBF’s readers?
Hmm… Radio Dept will be a very great release, I can tell.

The Mary Onettes on MySpace