Before I go into your stunning debut album "Dansa Tokjävelens vals" I would like you to fill the readers of Hand of doom in how Abramis Brama came together?

(Dennis Berg) I got a tape with November in -94 from a friend who listened to them when they first were around. I got totally sold. I knew Jansson (the drummer) were into this sort of music aswell but to my surprise he´d never heard them, so i fixed him a copy. He was sort of sceptic when he first got it in his hands and i told him "dont even dream about playing this sort of music without me being involved".  2 days later the phone rang with Jansson yelling "we gotta play this man, we HAVE to!".

The original idea was that i would play guitar and sing and Jansson would handle the bassguitar. Since we couldnt find a drummer, and Jansson being a drummer originally, we decieded that i would do the bass and we should find a
guitarist. Since i at the time worked with Peo (the guitarist) i asked him, and he was interested. We played an average of 4-5 new covers everytime we played ranging from (of course) November to Sabbath, via King Crimson and Deep
Purple. 3 months later, me and Peo worked with Christian (the original singer). When he heard what sort of songs we played, he said he wanted to come along and sing and all of a sudden there were 4 of us.

The first recording you did was it must have been one of the most stunning demos a Swedish band produced in a long time, according to some people that heard it, I havent heard the demo but how much response did you receive with
that demo?

Well actually, you have heard it! The demo Håkan played on P3 Rock(Swedish Nationwide Radio) is the very same version as on the album! The response was incredible. People mailed, and phoned and wanted the demos.

Janne Stark (Locomotive Breath) and Marcus Pehrson (Last Laugh) who both heard us on radio mailed Micke Ivarsson of Record Heaven. He (Micke) finally got around to call us up and here we are!

Now to your debut album "Dansa Tokjävelens Vals" reviewed earlier on this pages, you recorded the album in 2 different stages spring 98 and spring last year in a studio outside of Stockholm. Have you already started the work with the album before the deal with Record heaven or did you started the recordings after the deal?

Yes the studiotime was already booked and Record Heaven called us just a week before we recorded the "other" 6 songs of the album.

"Dansa Tokjävelens Vals" have beside the magic 70s vibe a great and very much lively production, during the recordings with the album can you fill us in on the recordings of the album, did you record everything live or did you
tracking?

Every song was recorded live with drums, bass and guitar straight into the machine. No click, no nuthing. On top of that, sometimes a second guitar and the voice. All done on an 8 track machine. The total cost of the recording of "Dansa tokjävelns vals" was under 10.000 kr wich is very funny when you consider the fact that we recently got rewieved in a serious guitarmagazine (Fuzz) alongside megabands with production cost of about the bnp of a small African country!

You are very influenced by November the great Swedish legendary band that released 3 magnificent albums from 1970-1972 and were Swedens first hard rock band before the members went their seperate ways, how much affection
does November have on you considering the musical and lyrical direction?

A lot. They where the first with doing this sort of "Cream blues heavy groove" sung in Swedish. The simpleness of the songs and the ways to arrange them have had a great effect on us. Lyricswise ive been very influenced by their
writing. No rules. That is the one and only rule.

Speaking about the past of the great Swedish progressive heavy rock scene, there was Vatten, Mecki Mark Men, Bluesette, Råg I Ryggen, White, Neon Rose, November, TrettioÅriga Kriget, Shaggy to name just a few, when I play
your album I feel that you refined the ideas of the early bands into your debut album cause you have a strong Swedish vibe as well, what is your opinion about the magic sound that Abramis Brama have?

To be perfectly honest with you, the only bands of those you mentioned we´ve heard is November, Neon Rose and TrettioÅriga kriget. And i can honestly say that the only one we´ve been influenced by of them is November. We´re all real old school hard rockers with original vinyl copies of "Deep Purple in rock","Paranoid", "Zeppelin 2", that magic period from around 69 to 72 where live Sabbath sounded like live Zeppelin sounded like live Jethro Tull sounded like
live Who sounded like live Purple and so on and so forth.
    Live Sweden rock fest.2000
Go in more of the lyrics on the album, even though they are heavily 70s inspired some of them sound up to date just take the track Motala Boogie I guess the inspiration came from the Politician scandal that happened there a few years back, am I right?

Yes you are. Its aimed at those that cold blooded make profit from being a politician and forgetting why they are there in the first place, verymuch like the politicians in the Motala scandal who went to a pornclub on the taxpayers expence. Dont get me wrong on this one, there is just a few that are this way. I think most politicians start out trying to help and have ideas on how to improve society. When some of them find out you can actually make good money on this, it makes them numb, they are not working for us, they are working against us, profiting on us. Those should be flogged in public.

Now to the question about the unique thing that you do compare to a lot of other heavyrock bands that are out there today, you sing in Swedish while most bands at least overhere in Sweden decides on English you go against the flow,
do you feel that you are able to express yourself much better by writing the lyrics in Swedish cause most bands I have spoken with over the years says that writing lyrics in Swedish is very very hard but for you it seems to be very easy?

Yes it is very easy. I dont think to much when i write, i write what comes to mind. When you start thinking to much about what your actually writing you sort of tend to get "naa, this is not good, what will people think?". Who cares about
what people think about the lyrics? Actually, have you ever read the lyrics to a Kyuss song? I think its exactly the same thing -no thinking just writing. Thats creative. Polishing and refinding lyrics is not creative in my opinion. It works for lots of other people but not for me, i put more energy into the music and the vocalline, thats more important.

More of your musical influences, in my opinion your sound is very much bluesbased early 70s heavyrock riffbased in the same area as the early great bands such as Dust, Budgie, Black Sabbath, Grand Funk to the more unknown cult bands that were around back then, beside the strong early 70s overdose is it anything else that is inspirational to your sound do you feel?

Well, there is a sort of "Swedish roots vibe" going on here and there much thanks to Peo. Altough i know he hasnt studied Swedish folkmusic, you can hear that its in his veins. Just listen to the last track "Parentesvals", its so Swedish. All we did to his original idea was to rearrange it. We inspire each other. Peo does something Swedishvibed and i make something of a spinoff off that and Jansson brings in some Cathedral/Fu Manchu/Kyuss over that.

Now to the deal with Record Heaven now have the album been out for quite a while, how much response has it been from the press and how much have the fanbase grown since the release of the album?

The response has been good considering the fact its a lowbudget product, pressed in 1000 copies wich as far as i know are almost finished. For every gig we do i see new people singing our songs in the audience. The press has been ok i guess, you have to remember that what we do is a very "small" thing being Swedish hardrock sung in swedish. So there is a very small market abroad for us (but we´ve actually sold 250 copies abroad!), and that is not really interesting for the big press, but the music press like Close Up and Fuzz magazine has given us some real good reviews.

After I checked your website I found a few reviews from outside of Sweden that was quite interesting how much response have you recieved outside of Sweden so far and what is the reaction to your Swedish lyrics?

Actually its been sort of positive. Of course most of them cant understand what we´re singing about but in my mind that isnt all that important. Like i said before, i think the music and vocalline is much more important than the lyrics,
but then again thats my opinion. But since i wrote most of the lyrics to the album and i dont really care so much about the lyrics, does it really matter if you can understand them? The vibe of the music is far more important, infact i just bought 2 demos from Argentina with bands that had RA files on their homepages. I cant understand a word theyre singing nor do i understand the titles but the vibe and the groove is good and thats about all you need.

When November toured around Europe in the early 70s they decided to keep the Swedish language even live but they also re-recorded some of their material with English lyrics songs like Nobodys Hand to Hold(Ta ett steg in i sagans
land) and Mount Everest, what is the plans for Abramis Brama are you into the same ideas for a possible single release later on?

The Label has constantly been asking if wouldnt be interested in doing something in english but we´ve declined. The whole idea behind Abramis is that it is in swedish. Altough i think we´re onto something special musically with what we are doing, i have no doubt that if we did it in english we´d be nr 13 on a dozen. Everyone else is doing that, why should we?

Speaking of the liveshows you have done so far, has it been just local shows around Stockholm or have you come out and played shows in other areas of Sweden as well?

We´ve done very few shows in total actually, but outside of Stockholm we´ve played Malmöfestivalen last year and up in our "new" singer Ulf Torkelssons hometown Sollefteå(North of Sweden). The plan is to play where people want to hear us even if its in Uzbecistan.

Abramis Brama Dist Fest Swe 2000
More on the liveshows you have done so far, how has the reaction been live to Abramis Brama from the audience with your combination of grooving heavyrock and Swedish lyrics?

Very good. As it happens i think we´ve surprised a few people with our swedish lyrics. Its not what you expect when you see a bunch of long haired hippie types with Ampeg speakers the size of a normal car. Many have said after the gigs "we didnt know you could do that in swedish"!

Speaking of the Swedish heavyrock scene of today, a scene that keeps getting stronger and stronger with a lot of great bands such as Terrafirma, Norrsken,Qoph, Spiritual Beggars, Half Man, yourself, The Quill just to name a few of the great names, unfortuneatly there isnt many places to play overhere that could be a lot better but how do you feel about the scene is it going in the right direction?

Always. Its moving onwards all the time and there is always going to be bands that produce good stuff no matter what the flavour of today is. Of those bands that you mentioned Qoph is the one and only band who has absolutely no "Stoner" vibe in them. That is one of the things that make them stick out, infact they are my absolute favourite swedish band today. Theyre trying roads no one else tries. I wish more bands would do that, including us. Norrsken is a
very good band, i look forward to see them on the distfestival and Terra Firma with my old friend Nico is another very good band. Their singer is exremely carismatic, good fun to watch.

Speaking of the name Abramis Brama, the latin word for a famous Swedish fish. How did you find the name and do you feel the name goes along with the music that you create?

I worked in a place for teenagers in 92/93. We had a few reharsal locals that the kids could use, this was during the deathmetal era. When the bands took breaks they would come up to have a chat and a glas of water. One evening
this band were looking for a new name to their black/deathmetal outfit and threw one discusting occult/autopsy name after the other. Being a fisherman myself i knew most of the latin names of the coursefish in Sweden. So i said;
what about Abramis Brama? Abramis sounded sort of abracadabra macig blabla and that was good and Brama sounded sort of Brahma Puhttra religious stuff, and they liked it. When i told them its the latin name for the fish bream
(brax) they changed their minds a bit. You cant call a serious death/blackmetal band a fishname.

I had such a laugh about it and the idea stuck in my mind. When this band came together i suggested it as a fun/projectname and before anyone opposed it had gotten established. It is a hard name to remember but we are doing hard music with a twist and what could be more fitting than a name that suggests something serious but actually is an ugly fish?

I understand that you have songs ready to the recorded for the next album, how much difference is it going to be with the new songs compare to this first album?

Well, first off we´ve got a new singer since october -99. He´s brought a new instrument in the band, -his incredible voice. So now we all sound alike, -heavy music with a heavy voice on top of that.

We have about half of the next album recorded and we´re going to Sollefteå in the beginning of june to record the rest. In the beginning we thought it was a lot darker and heavier than the "tokjävel" album, but in the past 4-5 months we´ve
written a few more straightforward songs so in my humble opinion its going to be the same but a lot better, heavier, melodic, jazzier and so on and so forth. In one word -more.

About your future plans, I recently got the info that you will play at the Dist Fest. mid-Sweden this summer and also a chance to play at the giant Sweden rock festival on the demostage, have you anything more lined up beside these shows, is it any possibilities for a Swedish tour later on, whatelse is in the plans beside the new album are you planning to release a single fill the readers of Hand of Doom in what the future will hold for Abramis Brama?

No singles as far as we know. We´ll play almost anywhere just for the sake of playing, but there is no tour planned or anything like that. We´d like to tour with a bigger name such as Terra Firma. We will see what the future holds for
Abramis Brama, by the time the next album is out we will have recorded more songs than what is on the album, so there is always a b-side up the sleeve, we will see what happens. We´ve played a lot with Qoph and we get on extremely well, i´d like to see us doing a tour with them and ending the show with a 15 minute AbraQoph version of the old Solar Plexus chestnut "Det är inte båten som gungar -det är havet som rör sig". (its not the boat that rocks it the sea that moves) That would be something to see!

Finally I would thank you ever so much for answering my questions, all the best wishes with this debut and all the up coming shows that you are going to do. Hope to see you live here later up here in the deep forests of Sweden.

Thank you and we too hope to see you somewhere on tour.

For more info on Abramis Brama Check out the Abramis Brama Webpage