Normally when bands disappear from view it means that they're actually doing very little – using their royalties to buy a cabin in the woods, some box sets, and a nice sofa. Netflix & Chill? Some of your favourite bands are doing that right now, gleefully re-charging their creative batteries in the process.
But when the three members of Peter, Bjorn and John decided to take a step back from their day job, it actually means they want to work on other projects. And they work hard.
Clash sits down with the band at their HQ in Stockholm, the office/studio space where the INGRID collective (of which they are a member) was founded. It's a label, and a meeting point – an excuse for the varied members to release everything from skronk jazz to left field electronics, whenever their heart may so desire.
One thing that their heart has never ceased to desire, however, is fresh material from Peter, Bjorn and John. New album 'Breakin' Point' is incoming, and it might well be the group's broadest, most creative statement to date.
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“We never stopped, really,” insists singer Peter Moren. “I mean, we stopped for almost a year after the last tour but then we started writing again, started recording. And of course, it's been a bit on and off, but basically we've been working on this record for four years. So it hasn't been like we got together a half year ago, like: 'oh, let's meet up again'. We've been working constantly.”
Initial sessions with Patrick Berger, though, stalled the band's process. Deciding to write “the classic way, with guitars” the three-piece almost immediately came unstuck – clearly, something would have to change.
Taking a step back, Peter, Bjorn & John withdrew to their record collections. Through the course of our conversation it's clear that the Swedes are great hoarders – broken down bits of kit, instruments, and records, especially – and it's immense depth of pop knowledge that underpins their progress.
John Eriksson, drummer, explains: “We knew we wanted to make like a big movie, like a blockbuster, almost. We referenced Michael Jackson's 'Thriller'– something like that. But it's very loose dogma, to making this big movie. It's not like: who's going to be in it, what is it about... Before, we had really clear rules: it's going to be a power pop – bass, guitar, drums – record. Just us in a room. Or we'd experiment. We had very specific rules. And this time...”
Peter looks up, smiling: “Anything goes!”
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We knew we wanted to make like a big movie, like a blockbuster, almost...
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'Breakin' Point' is certainly an “anything goes” record. Overtly pop, it veers from disco sheen to Motown stomp, from the glamorous melancholy of Pet Shop Boys to something rather more palatial, rather more acoustic. “We wanted the best possible pop songs,” Peter explains. “That was the dogma, rather than any production dogma.”
“And we wanted to have a disco edge on it, like you should be able to dance to it. But also a bit mature... not like kids music, but still current. So it was a lot of rules, but it was a lot to do with the writing, so we had to get the writing right. And of course, with a lot of modern pop music they start with the production, and they start with the loop, or some cool sounds. And that probably works great for a lot of people, but it didn't work for us. We need to get the song the classic way, with the guitar first, and then we can make the cool production happen.”
The 'maturity' the band talk about is definitely there in the record, though you'd struggle to define it. There's the odd melodic touch that reeks of experience, perhaps, and lyrics that hint at a life already lived. “Lyrics are maybe the most important thing, I think, in pop music,” John insists. “You can leave them, you can sit like R.E.M. and just do it, or you can sit like Bruce Springsteen and get it right. But this time we needed to know that we had it, because otherwise when you record a lot of stuff you get fond of it, and you don't finish it properly.”
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Lyrics are maybe the most important thing, I think, in pop music...
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With this dogmatic approach in mind Peter, Bjorn & John began sourcing appropriate producers. Looking for voices that would compliment the colours of their songwriting, the Swedish band worked with some revered figures, each of whom added something new. “The process before was like building a cake,” smiles John. “The base we got in the beginning, but then we began adding new layers to it. We had all this, but we felt the cake was not done, and we needed a topping, and all this stuff but we couldn't do that ourselves. Before, we done it ourselves, and it worked, but this time we needed something different.”
Work took some time, with each member continuing to progress with their own solo endeavours. It must be refreshing, I offer, to move between a collective project, and something so singular. “Yes and no,” demurs Peter. “It's good, but sometimes it's also bad. It's good to have a deadline, and have someone telling you that you have to be finished now because if you don't then you can always go back and change it.”
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It's good to have a deadline...
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After all those weeks, months, and years, then, it will come as sweet relief when 'Breakin' Point' is finally released. It's a wonderful pop statement – each track clocks in under four minutes – and feels remarkably fresh, the work of a much younger, more innocent group. Yet this atmosphere sits rather at odds with a cute, self-referential moment: the whistling that introduces the title track.
“It was funny, it was the same thing as on 'Young Folks', it was a coincidence. It was just something we did on the studio and then it ended up on the record, because it sounded nice. It wasn't something like, let's do whistling!” he laughs. “It was 10 years ago this year. And rather than the big deluxe package and do an anniversary tour, we'd rather put out the new record, that is even better. But stick some whistling on it, you know?”
After more than two decades together, the past is something that begins to weigh down on Peter, Bjorn & John. “We think about it,” the singer admits. “It doesn't matter of you come back after five years, or one year, but we always want to make something different than the last time. But still keep our identity, somehow.”
This question of identity occurs again and again while speaking to the band – it's clear that they're still as keen as ever to pin down exactly what it is that Peter, Bjorn and John stand for. Looking back on their catalogue, it's remarkable how broad it is – from punk jams to cosmic Krautrock moments, an indie disco staple and eve a Drake co-write. “When you go see a retrospective of an artist, like Roy Lichtenstein, you see from his first day of doing art, to the last art before he died, there is always a dot that you can connect,” John says. “You can connect all the art together, so it creates a pattern. So if you zoom out from our soundworld you can find some very typical... there will always be some stuff that comes back, even if we make an avant garde record there's always stuff we love, and reference.”
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There's always stuff we love, and reference...
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There's something innate within these three musicians, it seems, that keeps Peter, Bjorn & John sounding as they do. It's something Peter mulls over, looking back on his own early love of music. “It's funny with melodies, because I feel like I sort of do similar melodies now as when I was 10. Like, the melodies are always the same but then you get better at everything else. Like, arranging, and form. Maybe the order of putting the melodies in you get better at, but the actual melodic content hasn't really changed that much. Kids like good melodies, so...”
But it's more than the melodies, I offer. A track like 'Love Is What You Want' is wonderfully down tempo, and down played – the delivery is subtle, but the words cut deep as a result. It's a technique the three-piece admit is inspired by classic British pop music, name-checking everyone from Pet Shop Boys to New Order.
Bjorn Yttling takes the reins: “That song has a great Factory vibe to it. Sometimes when you're too good – Adele! - it's not... it gets too powerful. If you find that sort of melancholy in the vocal...”
Peter starts to laugh, adding: “British music was at the best in the 80s and early 90s – before Oasis ruined it!”
It's a funny remark, but there's a sense of real love in there – an appreciation for pop at its most human, at its most frail. “I think that's something that people – they don't know what it is – but it creates our flavour,” says John. “Our reference bank is so huge... but there must be something that when you boil it down, and maybe it's those human fails. We leave the fails in the music.”
Looking around the studio, it's mesh of wiring and computers, hand-repaired guitars and antique amplifiers, it's clear to see where these 'fails' have come from. Yet there's a taste of passion in the air, that this place – and these musicians – couldn't succeed in any other way. Leaving, I'm reminded of Samuel Beckett's oft-quoted, never bettered, phrase: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.”
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'Breakin' Point' will be released on June 10th.