Interview with The Moving Sounds, 7 July 2005

NB - Please tell me, in short, the story of Moving Sounds - when and how did you start, who are the members ...?
MS - The band was started in Stockholm as a trio back in year 2000, by bass guitarist Peter Rosén, drummer Per Wollbrand and guitarist Lars Nordin. The intention from the beginning was to play music inspired by the 60s, but not raw garage punk as a lot of other bands influenced by that great decade. Instead, the idea was to play music with more of a mod flavour - a combination of sixties rhythm 'n' blues and soul or The Creation mixed with Booker T & The MG's.

Quite soon after the start Fredrik Forsman, previously in Babysnakes and Jim-Jams, joined on organ and Jonas Lindholm started handling the vocals. In August 2000, Staffan Flodmark replaced Lars Nordin as guitarist. Apart from playing at the Stockholm mod club Snap, we were also invited to play at Lambretta Club Stockholm's club Soul Cave - the crowd went wild and word about us started to spread. This resulted in a number of other gigs.

With Staffan joining we started to write our own material. After extensive performing, song writing and rehearsals it was time to put the new songs on tape. Together with engineer Thomas Johansson we recorded four songs in our own rehearsal studio, during a weekend in May 2001.

These recordings resulted in a four-track vinyl EP - "Perfection EP", released in October 2001 on our own label MSSC Records, in 500 hand numbered copies. The EP received rave reviews by The Uppers Organization, New Untouchables and others. The record is now practically sold out. The year 2002 started out a bit slow for the band. The singer Jonas spent the first five months abroad, enjoying a round-the-world- vacation, leaving the rest of the guys rehearsing instrumentally. Fortunately we got booked to play at the Italian 60's festival Beatfever in Verona. After adding two other gigs in northern Italy, we went on a small but successful summer tour in July.

During the following autumn we played in Gothenburg at Run 'n' race scooter meeting, Club Uppers in Stockholm, the Sundsvall Maximum Garage festival, Purple Weekend mod festival in Spain and Club Pigall in Oslo.

In October we recorded three songs and in January 2003 a single called "Am I Good To You?" was released. During 2003 The Moving Sounds performed at the 1st sinful mod weekend in Gothenburg Sweden. In June 2003, the band toured Germany, including gigs at the "Men from U.N.K.E.L. Mod Weekender" in Kassel and at Club Unique in Düsseldorf. We also played together with De Stijl and Paris at a big one-off club night in Stockholm. Later that year we signed a deal with german based lable Copasediques and recorded our first LP, "Don't sleep on this". During the summer of 2004, we went on our biggest tour so far. London, Hamburg, Munich and Verona were some of the places we visited. A great experience all together and at the end of this years summer we will play a handful of gigs in Germany, including the Summer Safari festival in Leipzig. Hopefully we'll get some time to write new material for a second album.

NB - What are your biggest influences? You sound very 60s, but also a bit indie, brit pop? Or maybe you don't agree with me?
MS - We get our influences from all sorts of genres. Some of us have roots in the Manchester indie scene and others dig on acid jazz and brazilian folk music. But the common factor is of course the 60's r'n'b and soul.

NB - Sweden always had great garage scene. What are your favorite Swedish garage bands?
MS - we're not that keen on garage music actually though Sweden houses a lot of those bands, but our friends from Gothenburg De Stijl makes good noice!

NB - Do you play lot of gigs and do you play outside Sweden? Can we expect you in Holland?
MS - all in all we've done more than 30 gigs and about half of them outside of Sweden. If anybody in Holland wants us to play there, just book us and we will come!

NB - What is the craziest thing that happened on your gigs/tour?
MS - There's a lot of crazy stuff happening whenever The Moving Sounds is around. The whole tour thing is actually real hard work! Almost no spear time, always going somewhere, carrying instruments and amps, sound checks etc. On stage, anything can happen. Once at the Atomic Café in Munich, Jonas first unplugged Staffans guitar by hitting one of his wires with a kick. Later at the same gig Jonas threw his maracas at Staffans tuning box which made his guitar silent. One time in Gothenburg at a scooter rally, the crowd couldn't get enough and forced us to play almost 20 songs instead of the original 15. Last summer in Aachen minutes before the gig we were eating at a restaurant across the street from the club. A few of us had to wait a long time to get the food and there was no time left to eat it. When we got it we put it in a bag and ran straight up on stage. Part from incidents on stage, alot of weird stuff has happened on the road. Running naked in the rain along the autobahn, Jonas once laid in the trunk of an old Volvo between Verona and Bologna, we once slept in a ditch outside Stralsund and Fredrik woke up with a snail on his face. These sort of things occur when The Moving Sounds are on tour...

NB - How do you like to spend your free time? Do you have any hobbies?
MS - Well, both Per and Fredrik have recently become fathers so there's no question about how they will spend their free time from now on. Peter collects records and he's also a resident DJ at Club Target in Stockholm. Staffan likes to relax and spend time with loved ones. Jonas likes to stay fit.

NB - Anything you would like to say to No Brains readers?
MS - It's a mod mod world!