Hate To Say I Told You So

There's a couple of rock 'n' roll bands from across the Atlantic who like to proclaim in the press that they are the greatest rock band in the world. Both feature brothers, both have been doused with awards and critical praise and both have hit the festival circuits across the Continent kicking out the jams for throngs of screaming Europeans. But while Oasis descends into a quagmire of sibling rivalry, Sweden's the Hives are rocketing toward punk rock superstardom. Aided by their friends in The (International) Noise Conspiracy, they are now set to take over America.
In 1993, a group of young teenagers got together in Fagersta, Sweden and, led by a mutual love of punk, began work on what would become the Hives. The boys picked up instruments and decided immediately that they would drop their native tongue and sing in English. "It always sounded better listening to rock 'n' roll that was in English," said guitarist Nicholaus Arson on the phone as the band made their way to a show in New Jersey a couple of weeks ago. "It's sort of harder to sing in Swedish. When we were 14 or 15, English was sort of a make-up language. It was like you could sing whatever. You could scream, 'Yeah baby!' and it sounded like you really knew what you were doing so that's pretty much the reason I think. It was a lot easier. It sounds better pretty much. We still think it's a funny language."
Funny language or not, the Hives have a gift for spitting out beautifully simple lyrics. Nicholaus' brother Howlin' Pelle has a classic garage voice, strained and cracking into highs at times. Their lyrics are fun and are open to much interpretation. "Do what I please, gonna spread the disease, because I wanna / Gonna call all the shots for the 'Nos' and the Nots, because I wanna / Yeahhhhh!"
And though the band's live energy and adolescent vigor led to a few out of control sessions at shows in the early day ("The shows could like fall apart, just arguments, not really fights all the time. When you really want something and you're 14, you really don't know what to do."), the brothers have managed to avoid any Kinks or Oasis-style brotherly fistfights. "I think it pretty much got better," said Nicholaus. "We sort of fought all the way up to 15, pretty much until we joined the same band. Then we had to get along at least sometimes. The other members of the band might get along with each other the same way as we do. We've been around for so long with the other members, we sort of fight anyway."
The band channels most of their pent up aggression into their raucous live show.
"Our live show is really important for what we're doing because when we started out we thought that we wouldn't sell any records ever, even when we started releasing records we didn't really think that anyone was gonna buy them," said Nicholaus. "We were just trying to have fun by playing live. We always have that and we've always really liked playing live. If you're gonna record something that's gonna sound like garage rock, you might as well be able to play it live. There's no point in just standing around and looking scared. You might as well just go for it."
The Hives have been going for it from the very beginning and the music scene in their native country helped foster their sound. They toured with Noise Conspiracy frontman Dennis Lyxzen's, former, legendary hardcore-band, Refused and have played numerous shows with Sweden's other big rock 'n' roll export, the Hellacopters.
"I think it's a pretty good music scene," said Nicholaus. "There's tons of bands playing and there's loads of shows, but there's not any real rock clubs. There are rock clubs in the bigger cities but mostly you put up a show anywhere. There are loads of bands and pretty much all the bands know each other because Sweden is not really a big country. So if you go to the Grammy awards people will still know each other. Bands mostly tour Europe if they sing in English and they release a record in Sweden and then they probably go to Europe. There's so much more people [in Europe] so you can get enough economically by selling t-shirts and stuff."
But what do other Swedish bands think about the Hives proclamation of their own greatness?
"They're pretty up for it, you know," he said. "It's just one of those things you say. If you say something and then repeat it enough times people are eventually gonna buy it. A lot of the bands that we know in Sweden that we like to play with, like the Hellacopters and stuff, if we see them playing a really good show we can pretty much think that they're the best band in the world. They can probably think that we're the best band in the world like any day if we do a good show. The feeling's pretty much mutual, but we're the ones that say it."
And it's a feeling that is spreading amongst those who have witnessed the band in person. From small, sweaty clubs in front of a couple of hundred people to gargantuan festivals in front of thousands, the band is blowing away crowds.
"It sounds strange to say it, but it is more intimate with the crowd in a small crowd than it is in a festival," said Nicholaus. "Cause sometimes you can have a fence and then it's like 10 meters to the crowd at a festival and in between there's photographers who…they're not really into the show. They're just there to take pictures. Obviously for us it's more fun to play in a small club, although we enjoy playing festivals, as well. It's like a totally different thing. It sort of compares with if there's like 17,000 at a festival there might be like 300 at a club, but you can still have as fun in both. I wouldn't like though to just play festivals, so I think I could live with just playing clubs."
Blasting away on stage, the well dressed young men give a defintion of rock 'n' roll. And as a band that exudes youth, the Hives decided long ago to cut the band's life short.
"We've always said that we were gonna release three records and that was gonna be it. We've released two now, so we have one left, pretty much. You sort of chicken out, sort of lose your head in the end anyway. You might go on forever, but… I saw AC/DC this summer in Finland and I still think that they're, if you watch live videos from 1978, they're still doing pretty much exactly the same thing. And I still love to watch AC/DC. The [Rolling] Stones are sort of more trendy, like the way they looked in the '80s - it was like a joke sometimes. It gets sung in a different way. I don't think the Rolling Stones have become the worst band just because they might have released a couple of worse records than the ones they cut in '66. I think you can judge a band from their best material pretty much. I haven't seen the Stones live, but I still think I would find it amusing to watch them live. It wouldn't be the same as when they were in their 20s and playing clubs in England and America, but it would still be something to look forward to and something to watch."
Sharing the stage with Noise Conspiracy and Rival Schools, the band is having a blast on their US tour. For their set list they've stuck with the songs that have been working with them for the last couple of years. "It's mostly like the material from the latest record. It depends. We sort of changed it from every now and then. We released some new songs on singles. There's like two new songs, and we usually play at least one of them. We've been trying to tour the record to death for two years now, but it seems impossible. The songs on the record were so good, so we can't stop playing them. They sort of grow on you, you know."

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