Freak When Spoken To
Page 20
“It’s great fun, but it takes too much time. Steve Vai recommended me to a classical composer in the States, saying that if anyone could take on this tremendously complicated task, I could. I was so flattered, and even though the money was pretty good, I said no, because the amount of time it would take to practise would encroach too much upon the rest of the things I want to do. But I can very well imagine doing more classical music in the distant future. But not right now. And I don’t have a bucket list as such. Of course I’d like to take Freak Kitchen up a notch. Not mega, because we’re after all middle aged men who play strange music. But just a little bit bigger venues.”
IA keeps finding himself involved in all sorts of strange and exciting projects. Zac O’Yeah, the author of The Tandoori Moose, the novel behind “Once upon a Time in Scandinavistan”, has written a film script, and IA has composed the soundtrack.
“It’s about two stupid Swedes who go to India, and they get eaten by all the rubbish in the streets. The project seems to have been put on ice, but I have used the music which I wrote on the strange instrument called kelstone. I told them I was going to use the music on my own album, because I was really happy with it. I’ve also had an e-mail from someone called Ben Rush, who presented himself as one of the main animators at DreamWorks, which was huge in itself as we’re big fans of what they do. Ben and I also happened to be related on my father’s side of the family! We actually met when we were kids. He told me that they were huge Freak Kitchen fans at the office and that next week, Juanjo Guarnido was going to give a lecture there about the animation of ‘Freak of the Week’. Ben was working on a new animated film called Lucy vs. Scarecrow aimed at an older audience and he wondered if I’d be interested in making music for it. So I have written music for the trailer, and it’s no kind of widdly-widdly guitar, but rather moods and sounds.”
Somewhat surprisingly, perhaps, IA is already “making sinister plans” for the new Freak Kitchen album in the studio.
“The idea is to keep the studio vibe going. If I let too much time pass in between recording sessions, I have to relearn things which takes time. The 8-string with True Temperament will be heavily featured on the new album. When it comes to new Apple Horn models, I have very basic requests: 8 strings, True Temperament, scale of the neck, Floyd Rose and certain pick-ups. But I trust Itaru Kanno completely when it comes to the details. And the 8-string is not a gimmick; this is the guitar I’m using and will continue to use for a long, long time. My aim is to bring out a new Freak Kitchen album in 2016, and the reason I’m even contemplating it is that I think it’s such great fun playing on my Caparison 8-string with True Temperament. I can’t help myself, I’m already writing the new album.”
IA claims that he doesn’t mean to be insensitive to anyone’s feelings, yet when he sets his mind on something, he doesn’t stop to think about how his passion and dedication may affect someone else.
“If I set course for something, it is very difficult to stop me. Perhaps I’ve mellowed slightly as I got older. I’m a pretty nice guy on the outside, but sometimes stern and goal oriented on the inside and sometimes people won’t know what hit them until I’m long gone. I’m not a careerist, because then we’d be a lot more popular, but I’m very picky with integrity. I don’t intend to step on people’s toes, it just happens because I stride on and walk my own path. I do things without asking anyone and suddenly it’s done. Perhaps you could say that I have a big ego, but not in the sense that I need to assert myself all the time, but rather that most of the time I only trust myself to get the job done right.”
Many years back, IA said that he worked on including Björn and Christer in the “fun stuff” to a greater extent than he did with Joakim and Christian, because their exclusion was one of the reasons why they left. How’s it going with that?
“Not well at all, I think, ha ha! We don’t do a lot of promotional tours anymore, anyway. And to be honest, sure you get to see Paris or whatever, but when you’ve been interviewed ten hours straight, it’s not very glamorous, and I actually prefer to do it through Skype. Yes, perhaps I do more of the fun stuff, but God knows I do most of the not-so-fun stuff too, all the administrative junk. So, no, I don’t think I’ve become better at including them, but Björn and Christer are a lot better at handling it and they knew the the job description when they joined. And it wasn’t like I greedily grabbed all opportunities right from under Christian’s and Joakim’s noses, it’s just that I was always the one who was asked to do stuff and I always said yes. And also, if the companies and agencies we work with specifically want me to come, should I then insist we send Björn or Christer? After all, and without sounding too self-important, I know more about the band and I started the band. I know that Björn and Christer have wanted to meet up more, perhaps watch old gigs, but it’s just not me. The whole join hands and sing ‘Kumbaya’ – no, I’m decidedly not a team player.”
Luckily Björn and Christer tell IA straight up what they think, and they ask him to let them know what he needs to steer the ship. All three members claim that there is no tension or passive aggression between them, and IA expresses a heartfelt gratitude.
“When they first joined the band, I felt such a relief: how I have longed for people like you! They look after their instruments, they make sure they have working cables, they come prepared and they don’t bottle up their emotions. And before you think I’m a complete dictator, I would like to add that while that might be true if we’re talking music, I’m much more considerate in for instance problematic situations with families and so on. I will rather cancel a bunch of gigs than let someone replace another member. Björn, Christer and I are Freak Kitchen, and if they give a good reason why they can’t go on tour during a certain period, or miss out on a couple of dates, there’s no question – we’ll cancel the dates. Family comes first.”
So, is there a sell-by date on Freak Kitchen? Rock musicians usually have the advantage of being able to continue performing, as opposed to artists in more trend conscious genres.
“I want to keep playing for as long as I don’t feel like we’re an embarrassment. If Björn and Christer were to quit the band, Freak Kitchen would still continue, either as a trio or as a collective. Sometimes I think that perhaps Freak Kitchen could be like open source code, and that different people could join at different times – Freak Kitchen could have a hundred members! But right now it’s still us against the world, and I wouldn’t let them quit. I’d make them stay; drag them along by the hair until they saw reason.”
And if history is anything to go by, Mattias IA Eklundh has ways of getting what he wants