Freak When Spoken To

by Anastasia Jonsen

  Finding a bass player seemed a whole lot trickier. IA knew what he wanted – a steady bass player who could handle the technical parts, but also the groove – and most importantly, he didn’t want a Billy Sheehan clone. The musicians he had auditioned were good, but once again IA had his heart set on a badass bassist with attitude rather than super-fast fingering technique. As he still tried to keep the whole affair a secret, he couldn’t advertise openly. He rang some of his old friends to ask for help. He had known the singer in Road Ratt, Christer Örtefors, since they were both teenagers, and he had also played guest solos on their album. Perhaps he knew of someone suitable?

  “IA asked me if I knew any good bassists, and it felt like I had been trapped in a pungent, dark, old attic and suddenly someone opened all the windows and doors and I could breathe again. Some things are just meant to be. After Road Ratt called it quits, I was the lead singer of a cover band just to pay the rent, and I hated it. The audiences were drunk; they were people who just needed an excuse to scream and shout and it didn’t really matter what you played or how well you played it. I was getting tired of entertaining as a frontman, and I guess it happened around the time I realised I didn’t need the same recognition and affirmation as I did when I was younger.”

  Even before IA contacted him, Christer had contemplated taking up the bass. Playing the bass in a band means that you have a choice to be seen and communicate with the audience or you can just as well hide by the bass amp and hammer away. Christer was on his way to one of those cover gigs he had accepted because he needed money to feed his kids when he got that phone call.

  “I don’t know where I found the courage to say, ‘Me! I’m going to be your bassist!’, and IA replied, ‘But you’re a singer?’ But I was persistent, ‘It’s going to be me, don’t audition anyone else until I get to prove I can do it!’ I didn’t have a bass, so I had to borrow one, and I met up with him. He told me to give ‘Taste My Fist’ and ‘Silence!’ my best shot. IA has told me he took a walk with his dog, and then decided to give it a go. I got the job around Christmas 2000 and we had a gig coming up in the end of January, so I had to learn 17 Freak Kitchen songs in a month. But I did it.”

  Christer was disciplined and shut the rest of the world out. He walked his children to school and got to work. He took the songs apart and learned them bit by bit, systematically. When the eve of the gig came, he was incredibly nervous. Not only did he have to prove himself as a bassist, but also as the new bassist in Freak Kitchen.

  “There would be fans there, with arms folded and they would subject me to intense scrutiny. I probably didn’t play flawlessly, but close enough for jazz. IA said that he never doubted that I could do it, and I had my mind set on succeeding. It’s like Yoda says, there is no try. If you want something, you simply cannot allow yourself to think ‘I’ll try’, because once you leave that door slightly ajar, you see that little comforting light of a get-out. ‘Oh, this got a bit uncomfortable, but hey, at least I tried.’ No! Don’t open that door! Full speed ahead towards success and if you run head first into a wall, that’s sad and all, but at least you didn’t chicken out because things became a bit difficult.”

  When the news hit the scene that IA had found new members, most people, both fans and the media, were baffled. Not only was it mostly unknown that Christian and Joakim had been unhappy in the band, the choice of bassist replacement also came as a bit of a shock. Christian Grönlund claims to have been utterly surprised when his successor, Christer Örtefors, got his old job.

  “Christer is a good musician, but he wasn’t a bassist. I thought you had to be able to play the bass in order to be a bassist in Freak Kitchen? But he wanted it so bad and put his mind to it, and I actually think that’s pretty cool now. I have nothing but respect for Christer, but it was a new band. The classic songs are on the first four albums, but I don’t think people generally wish the old band would reform. I’m cool with that. But I think the new guys are too good, ha ha!”

  IA’s strategy not to worry the fans and thus avoiding any negative rumours seemed to have worked. The webmaster of the Appetizer fan site, Patrik Ek, remembers that IA gave him a heads up to go to their gig in Halmstad on the 25th of November, 2000.

  “IA told me that something special would happen, but it was still a secret. I’m glad I went there, because it turned out to be the last concert with Christian and Joakim. I was very surprised to hear that they dropped out of the band. Of course I was sad to see them go, but it was great that Christer and Björn joined the band so quickly. I really didn’t have time to think about the possibility that Freak Kitchen might not continue as a band.”

  Janne Stark, music journalist and long-time fan admits to not having a clue about where Freak Kitchen were headed. However, he knew about the break-up slightly earlier than most people, as he in fact auditioned for the position as bass player.

  “I was a bit shocked actually. They were a solid unit and my first reaction was wondering how the hell IA would find replacements who had the right personality and were as zany and able to play his material. I auditioned for the job as bassist myself even though I’m a guitarist, just because I love the music and concept so much. I was very surprised to hear that Christer, whom I had been in contact with through Road Ratt, would be the new bass player! But when I heard the new line-up play, all my doubts were gone right away. It felt a little like, the king is dead, long live the king!”

  The first couple of live dates with the new line-up came and went, and the reviews were positive, verging on ecstatic in some cases. In one of Freak Kitchen’s safe bets and regular tour stops, Örebro, the audience was very impressed with the new boys and didn’t stop cheering for more even after two encores. The local paper noted that both Björn and Christer had deserved their new position and that they both did excellent work as backing singers as well as instrumentalists. If Christer made any initial mistakes, neither IA nor the audience cared – they were rocking! This attitude is something Christer values immensely.

  “We create opportunities instead of looking disapprovingly at each other if someone makes a mistake live or in the studio. Everybody makes mistakes and we have an open and forgiving climate, which makes you brave and secure enough to try new things. If you get a feeling for something, you dare give it a shot: sometimes you mess it up, but sometimes you create something magnificent. If you don’t have the support from your band mates, you never do anything other than what’s already been played on the album. That will guarantee that you’ll be average at best. If I go to a live gig, I want some kind of magic to happen there. If I’m not getting something special, I’d much rather sit at home with good speakers and enjoy the album. But you have to find the balance: I could go completely bananas on stage, or stagedive, but I have to deliver the music the audience expects as well.”

  If the band had any worries about fan reactions, it seemed that they could now relax. The Internet forums at the time didn’t boil with anger and frustration and the fans continued to show up at gigs. Björn remembers being warmly received by the fans.

  “I was a fan of Freak Kitchen myself before I was in the band. I tried to treat Joakim’s playing with respect and kept the fills and beats I felt were important parts of the tracks. So I’ve kept a lot of his stuff, but I have done it in my own style. A great thing about playing original material is that no one can claim that you’re playing it wrong. Nobody can tell me that I’m not playing ‘Propaganda Pie’ as it ought to be played. I made the decision in the studio and I make the decisions live. I can improvise, or I can choose not to. There is a big difference from when I’m playing in for instance my Genesis cover band Lone Star Retractor. ‘That’s not how Phil Collins plays it!’ People sometimes have a very fixed idea about how to play certain songs.”

  Apart from the regular praise and the odd critical comment, Björn has also got some rather more unusual questions after gigs.

  “I once played the whole of Pink Floyd’s The Wall live and this guy came up
to me afterwards and asked me: ‘Why do you play the ride cymbal, generally?’ He didn’t think you should use it at all, he didn’t like the sound of it. But the Freak Kitchen audience has been very positive throughout. I’ve not heard anyone say that I ought to be replaced – not to my face at least. Our fans are dedicated, faithful concert goers, know a lot about our music and they know the songs very well. They seem to be creative and positive. Perhaps it’s a little bit of ‘what you give is what you get’. We’re positive people and maybe that’s why we get a close connection with our fans. Our audience makes us feel safe and appreciated.”

  True Callings and the Lead Ballon

  BUT WHO WERE THESE NEW LADS? Bassist Christer Örtefors is the oldest in the band and was born on the 22nd of June, 1966, in Östra Hospital, Gothenburg. He grew up in Onsala, a small seaside village just outside Gothenburg. Out of the members of Freak Kitchen, he is the only one who had a truly problematic childhood. He grew up with his mother, a step-father and two half-brothers, Magnus and Fidde (real name Fredrik). As can be seen in the Organic booklet, Fidde passed away in 2004. Christer also has a half-sister and a half-brother that he didn’t grow up with.

  “My childhood was pretty shitty, to be honest. Onsala is a really nice area by the sea, but I hated it when we moved there. It’s a place where people only care about flaunting a flawless façade and talk about meaningless things. It disgusted me from a very early age, the way people valued each other by what kind of car they owned. I’ve talked to people who live there now, and they claim it’s not like that anymore, but you can tell in no time that it’s still exactly like that. They drive a BMW and their six-year-olds wear expensive clothes.”

  Recently, Onsala was in the news when a building contractor in one of the well-off parts of town declared that he was going to build a gated community – a phenomenon almost unheard of before in Sweden. Right now, Sweden is undergoing major changes, both politically and socially, and there is a much greater segregation now than when the members of Freak Kitchen grew up. So when Christer claims that parts of Onsala are still very much characterised by vulgar displays of wealth, he is probably not mistaken.

  Drummer Björn Fryklund, on the other hand, had a childhood much more akin to that of future bandmate IA Eklundh. Björn was born on the 21st of November, 1968, in Arvika Hospital to Norwegian mother Aili and Swedish father Bertil. Arvika is situated in the province of Värmland, roughly a 3,5 hour drive north of Gothenburg, and Björn grew up in the tiny village of Västra Sund (around 70 inhabitants) just outside Arvika. Just like IA and Christer, Björn has many siblings.

  “I have an older brother called Tony who also plays the bass, drums and guitar, and we grew up together. I also have three siblings who are much younger: my half-brother Rickard who plays the guitar and keyboards, and two half-sisters, Sandra and Bettan. Bettan attends an upper secondary music school in Arvika. So there are plenty of musicians in this family, as my father is a guitarist too. We don’t have an Osmonds-like family band, but Tony and I have played lots together. In Arvika, it’s difficult to escape the traditional dance band music. Every musician there plays it at one point or another in their lives. Even if you don’t like the style, it gives you great discipline and broad repertoire knowledge.”

  The traditions and mentality of the people from Arvika – and Värmland in general – are a little bit different from the rest of Sweden, and when it comes to music, it is overwhelmingly dominated by dance bands and folk music. A suggestion for the curious is to look for the band Sven-Ingvars on YouTube – a band Björn has actually toured with! But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

  “It was great growing up in Västra Sund, in the countryside. You could play hard rock as loud as you liked without disturbing anyone. I’ve been forced to listen to a lot of dance band music because my dad played in several bands. His new wife, after he divorced my mum, was even more into it. But I was hooked on Kiss and Alice Cooper. I heard a drum solo by Peter Criss and that was it – I was a fan. I must have driven my parents mad banging on tins and buckets, pots and pans when I was little. But instead of discouraging me, my dad brought home drum sticks from his rehearsal place. I had a neighbour who was a couple of years older than me and he played the guitar in a band, which impressed me and I looked up to him. His name was Anders Nyberg, and he actually ended up as IA’s illustrator for Freak Guitar!”

  Just like with IA and his family, Björn’s budding drumming talent was encouraged, and Björn also thanks Kiss for being his gateway into music.

  “One day I was playing air-drums to the solo on ‘100,000 Years’ on Kiss’ Alive! and my mum saw me do it. Soon after that, on my tenth birthday, I got my first own drum kit. It was an amazing glittery Sonor kit and I played it for ten years! There were never any complaints at home, I could play as much and loud as I liked. My dad even helped me put spotlights on my drum kit to make it look even groovier. In the beginning, I played along to albums, with headphones. I started listening to more music, Deep Purple, Queen and Van Halen, pretty un-heavy metal. I was more into melodies and listened a lot more to guitarists than to drummers.”

  Björn admits to not being into AC/DC, Iron Maiden or Accept like so many others at the time. What is perhaps even more peculiar is that he didn’t listen to Rush at all, which is slightly surprising for a musically adventurous drummer.

  “I appreciate drummers who know where they’re going: strong and distinct drummers who have a close connection to the rest of the instruments. Deen Castronovo is one of those drummers and he played on many of the guitar virtuoso albums I was so keen on in my youth. But although I was so into guitarists, I was a dedicated drummer myself. My big brother Tony got a bit envious, so two years after me, he got his own drum kit. So we had two complete kits in one tiny, tiny room. We played our little hearts out and not even then our parents complained. Tony was the first to form a band and I thought that was pretty damn cool.”

  Christer was just as eager to play an instrument. Because he didn’t have a musical family or any money to pay for private lessons, he had to rely on the municipal music school.

  “One memory that has really stuck in my mind is that everybody had to play the recorder before they were allowed to take guitar lessons. I still don’t understand that. You had seen all the cool people play on TV, the long-haired rock stars in Led Zeppelin, and obviously you wanted to be just as cool! And how did kids learn to play the guitar during the 1970’s? Guitar lessons at the municipal music school, of course. But first you have to learn to play the recorder, sonny boy! Music schools everybody can afford are an amazing thing, but I think a lot of kids were put off by that stupid, tedious recorder.”

  This practise is no longer standard, and nowadays kids can often choose the guitar straight away if they want. Luckily, Christer had an understanding teacher who saw his burning desire to play the guitar and sing, and taught him some chords.

  “It must have sounded terrible when I first started out, but that’s how you get into music. I think it’s pretty ridiculous nowadays when people seem to believe that you become a musician by dressing fashionably and take part in some TV show where people judge you. Kids think that’s how bands are formed, but in reality, most of the big bands now probably started out in someone’s basement and it probably sounded dreadful for many years before they got anywhere. Many great musicians became so because they had to play music just to keep sane!”

  Christer’s younger years differ from that of the other members of Freak Kitchen in more ways than one. For instance, he was not at all impressed with Kiss.

  “I had a friend who had older siblings who introduced us to ELO and 10cc, and a few years later I discovered Deep Purple and Thin Lizzy. Another friend got hold of some AC/DC cassettes, and I couldn’t believe my ears! It was simply unbelievably cool. Then someone had managed to persuade their parents to buy a Kiss album and I thought they looked so dangerous! We put the album on and played ‘Strutter’. I felt cheated! They weren’t dangerous at all
! They sounded a bit too perky and that wasn’t what I was after at that point. I like some of their songs now, but it’s very far from a religion, like with the rest of Freak Kitchen. Then, like a whirlwind, came Van Halen. David Lee Roth was so over the top. Everything was just one huge party. I think I was a David Lee Roth kind of a singer for many years. I was already doing karate, so I loved incorporating high kicks and jumping from the drum podium, doing splits in mid-air.”

  Christer played music to stay sane and as an escape from reality, but Björn enjoyed an idyllic upbringing and could concentrate on being carefree and having fun.

  “My life growing up was pretty simple, because my older brother had to take all the punches in life, and I just sauntered behind him, smiling, with my feet firmly on the beaten track. I was a good kid and easy to get on with, a bit above average in school and liked maths and English a lot. I think what shaped me as a person was my parents’ attitude towards music, that it’s something worth pursuing. When I was little, my dad played gigs almost every weekend with his dance band, Zanders. Many parents have a negative attitude and discourage their children because they think there’s no future in music. But my parents supported me, drove me to early gigs, helped with recordings, and helped me financially.”

  Such goodwill must surely have helped to keep a positive vibe about music. Christer on the other hand, didn’t have the same support from home, and was always on the verge of ending up on the wrong side of the law.

  “My friends were both the rich kids and the kids who grew up to be notorious criminals. Sometimes the police came to our school and questioned me just because I hung out with the ‘wrong sort’. I think what saved me was music and practicing martial art. I got into karate when I was about 13, because basically I wanted to be able to kick people’s ass if I didn’t like them. I was quite small, which meant that it took time to learn how to compensate, and by the time I had, I had also grown enough emotionally to understand that fighting perhaps wasn’t the best way to solve problems. During the same period, I joined a punk band called Infektion. I auditioned when I was 14 and they asked me to play ‘I Want You to Want Me’ by Cheap Trick, which surprised me somewhat. But it was easy and I became their guitarist despite my age. The rest of the band members were around 18-20.”