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THE STORY OF THE CRIMSON SHADOWS INTERVIEW WITH JENS LINDBERG
The following interview
took place in March 1995. In fact I sent some questions to Jens Lindberg and he
kindly answered them. It was supposed to be published in some fanzine back
then but the whole project failed. Now, after all these years, I feel happy
that I have it here. I hope Jens feels the same too. v On the backside of the
Mystery ‘s Scene 45 is written that the Crimson Shadows split in March 1986.
Although on the LP is written that the Crimson Shadows recorded it in
4/2/1988. Is there been a mistake? Yes, we did split in
March 1986, that’s true. When Marc Richter of Mystery Scene wanted to release
an LP with Crimson Shadows, he offered us money to pay for the studio costs.
We had only made two studio demos during our career, you see. The first in
March 1985 contained the two songs for our first 7” and four others. And we
made our second demo in September 1985 where we had two songs for the second
7” and two others (More of these songs later). So, we went to a studio
4.2.1988 and made some original songs of us, which we used to play back in
1985, and Marc payed for it. v Tell us about the
Crimson Shadows first days. In the early days back
in 1979/1980 Peter and me were mods but we weren’t close friends. In 1982, I
quit the mod stuff turned into punk/hardcore then to psychedelia in 1983.
Peter experienced the same development. On a party in September
1984, I met Peter. (I knew him vaguely at that time) and we discussed to
start a garage band. He told me he had some songs already. Next week I went to his
home, he lived on the other side of the town with his parents and his brother
Johan. I was 19 years old, Peter 20 and Johan, the old guy, was 24. At that time I learned
how to play bass cause I‘ve been in a college group called “Les Enfants
Terrible”, which was completely awful. Peter played guitar and Johan drums.
We soon realized we needed another guitar. I knew Mans vaguely and he played
guitar in a mod/psych group called “ Lord Chamberkins Players”. He quitted
that group and joined us but we didn’t have a name yet. Three weeks after we had
started, we were offered to do a gig in November 1984 at a big party. We only
had 4 songs ready but no singer. Nor Peter, Mans or I wanted to sing. A friend of mine, called Fredrik
Sandstrom, joined the group to sing. This was our first gig and we had a
name. We called ourselves “Shake Some Action”. We did 2 originals “I’m
Coming” and “Out Of My Mind”, but Fredrik was so drunk, so I was forced to
sing instead of him! We also played 2 covers, “Cinderella” and “Cadillac”.
This first gig was no success but people liked us for our ultra cool clothing
and haircuts, I guess. In December 1984, Peter changed from guitar to organ.
He bought a Vox Continental and a Farfisa Compact De Luxe. v
And
what about the Crimson Shadows split? There were 3 reasons:
First we didn’t seem to get attraction from fans., no one really cared about
our music. We looked at Nomads, Stomachmouths who had a bigger reputation.
Second, Mans and Peter didn’t get on very well. Mans thought he was the
leader but Peter should play that role. Third, both Peter and I wanted to
play R’n’B instead. As a result” Highspeed V and Wylde Mammoths. v
Do
you remember the bands that the members of The Crimson Shadows played before
joining the band? Peter had played in a
lot of various groups since 1977. No names worth mentioning. Johan had a
skinhead group that once played on radio (Johan was a skinhead 1978-1982).
Mans played in the Lord Chamberkins Players, maybe some other, I don’t know.
I had played with the group I mentioned above. Henrik was also in that
college group. v
How
come you picked that name, The Crimson Shadows, for the band? On the first album of
The Chesterfield Kings there is a poem on the back sleeve that goes “…from
the Mystic Tides, through the Crimson Shadows…” or something. Peter had
bought it and came up with the name. I think there was an American group
called Mystic Tides?! v
Do
you remember how did you release your first 45? I mean did you sent any demos
to labels, were there any interest into your music? About the first 45! In
March 1985, 10.3 to be exact, we went into Siljan studios to make a demo. We
recorded 5 songs and mixed it in 8 hours and we had a lot of beers with us. I
was the only one who had been in a studio before. We did: Out Of My Mind – Peter
Maniette It’s Cold – Mans
Mansson Night Of The Maniacs - Mans
Mansson I Know Nothing - Mans
Mansson When I’m Going Away - Mans
Mansson We sent the demo to
Tracks On Wax (they released 1st Backdoor Men, 1st
Cornflake Zoo, 1st Wayward Souls 45 etc.). He was very interested
and promised us that he would make a 7” but he changed his mind and released
Backdoor Men instead. Amigo Records who had
the Nomads thought that we sounded too much 60s. He didn’t like us. Anyway, Peter
was rich cause he was working, so he payed for 350 copies and sleeves. We did
the sleeves ourselves and went to various record dealers who would take 5 –
10 copies on commission. They sold it for like 4$ and we got 2$. When we were
in clubs, we used to trade one single for a beer! Yeah, those were the times! |
v Which were
your musical influences? Mans was
heavily influenced of good old garage rock and so was I. Peter being a very “serious”
song writer was influenced by garage of course but also country, Beatles etc.
I remember listening a lot of Pebbles, Fuzztones, Chesterfield Kings etc. But
also to 60s Sweden/Holland. But we didn’t do any covers really. v Where were
you rehearsing? We were
rehearsing in Peter’s basement. His parent’s house was quite big. v Where did you
play live? I
think we made nine gigs. In the beginning out in the suburbs on youth clubs.
That was really a drag. No money no alcohol. Played some private parties but
mostly on club Kaos in Stockholm City. But we had a lot of private gigs in
Peter’s basement for friends. v Is it true that you didn’t play any
covers on stage? As I said, on our first gig
we played 2 covers. Later we did only “Blue’s Theme” on stage. We did only
our own material. v Were there
enough people in Sweden back then to come to the gigs and listen to The
Crimson Shadows? Yes, the garage thing
was quite big in 1985. A strange thing was that we were very popular among
the skinheads. There were always a lot of skinheads when we played. Kaos is a
small club and I think we still have the record of people there. Over 300
came when we and The Stomachmouths played there!
v What other
bands did you know back then? Did the Crimson Shadows play live with any of
them at any gig? We played live together
with The Stomachmouths, Cornflake Zoo and Hijackers. We were good friends
with The Stomachmouths. We didn’t really like Cornflake Zoo, though we were
friends. They weren’t really garage. We also didn’t like groups as Nomads,
Shoutless and all those Solna (a suburb of Stockholm, famous for their
“garage bands”) groups. v Do you
remember anything weird, worth or not worth mentioning from these days? We were a wild bunch of
friends in the Shadows. One good thing was that we had 5 – 6 very young
groupies that always were hanging around us and came to our rehearsals. We often got in trouble
with the police cause of our clothes and drinking habits. Henrik was badly
beaten after our last gig. Once the police forced me to leave the subway when
I pissed in the escalator. We also used to sing
stupid songs on the buses while Henrik was playing his harp. Well, I have a million
stories but the basic element was always alcohol, music and sex. v What do you
personally prefer more: The fact that the two first The Crimson Shadows 45s are
now extremely rare and nearly impossible to find or you rather like to be
easy for everyone to find them? Well, I prefer that the
2 original 45s are hard to find. But Darren Ross on Weed Records will make a
compilation album with all The Crimson Shadows stuff including the first 2
45s. (NOTE: That album finally didn’t come out but Weed Recs released the
4th 45. Some years later Inbetween Recs released the stuff on CD
only format) Then everyone can listen to the songs. But you have to know
that I haven’t made a single cent on any of my records. I have given away all
my extra copies to friends, fans and ex girlfriends. I now have only one copy
of each record I made. I even asked some copies back from ex girlfriends but
they refused. v The “dialogue”
plus the “aaah-uungh” sounds among the songs of the Mystery Scene LP were
taken from any documentary about dentists or is it something else??? This is very funny!! I
laughed for 5 minutes. Do you really think it’s dentists? No, it’s
PORNOGRAPHIC! A rough translation as it appears on the album: (Man) “Ah, you
make me crazy, oh it’s like heaven, that’s right, put the whole cock in your
mouth aaah aaah Christ…This is how you like it…No no. Down on your knees,
back like dog. Louder Louder! This is how you want it”. |
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