Posted on April 19, 2009 - by Mark Zonda

Breakfast with Medalist

“The Medalist” is more than just “Yet Another Cloudberry Band From Gothenburg”. Songs like “No one knows”, with its catchy guitar strolls and sweet vintage sinths are sugar for our ears! “From Time to Time” could be easily taken for an “Oh no! Ho my!“ track, whil others (such as “Foreign Language”) goes jingle-jangling in the purest new swedish indie pop tradition. The Medalist began during the summer of 2006 Jonas when answered a contact-ad Christian placed in order to start a new band. Since both were playing guitars, there was a chance for german exchange student David to join in with the bass half a year later. He now lives in Göteborg permanently. Finally Andreas entered the band playing drums. In this formation they have been playing for a bit more than one year. Their base is in a run-down house at Tredje Långgatan in the centre of Gothenburg, where they share rehearsal space with other nice bands.

Christian, Jonas, David and Andreas are sitting in Davids kitchen at 8:00 on a sunday morning ready to be interviewed. Outside the kitchen window the sun is starting to gather strenght during the breakfast and hints that it will become a nice pre-spring day in Göteborg.

Mark Zonda: Dear you, introduce yourself to SleepWalKing readers. How did you decided to start a band?

David: Hm. Introduce ourselves? If we were a flower, we would be an…

Christian: …orchid, cause it is so rare. And it is so hard to grow at home, but when you manage it gets really beautiful.

Jonas: But no, Christian, the SleepWalking Readers wont get the the irony. Lets say a pool table. Cause there is a lot of colors! That people will under-stand as being irony.

Andreas: Cant we just try to answer un-ironically? If we were a car, we would be a red Ford Fiesta. But I don’t really like Ford. Maybe the Volvo PV 1800 because I like that one. Its the only swedish car with class.

David: I need to type this.. How do you spell Volvo what? pee vee? P like Penis and V like Vampire? Penis Vampire!

Andreas: Yes I think so.

Mark Zonda: Penis Vampire! Mmmm… Interesting! (but maybe not).

Could be a good name for a shit-gazing gang! Ford Fiesta was my parent’s car (a light browny one) when I was a kiddo. Don’t lie to me!

You said “Orchid” just because it’s the coolest flower in the indie-garden! Just think at  Sarah Records! Which is your favourite artist or band from that label (if there’s any?)

Andreas: He seems to know a lot about bands..

Jonas: I just checked out the label Sarah Records and I didnt know any bands from there. And the Orchid..it is the for sure coolest flower. We are busted.

Andreas: It is not about being the coolest flower..it is just objectively the nicest flower and we make the nicest music..pang!

David: And did you like the music?

Jonas: I didnt have time to listen to it, but we might just lie and say that we like it.

Mark Zonda: Is it easier of more difficult to play in Sweden? Which are your favourite band from and outside “the scene”?

Andreas: You get cold fingers from playing here in Sweden! We should go to Italy and play.

Jonas: David, you are german, is that different?

David: I dont know..but yes, the quality of the live-bands here are really high. In Germany I saw loads of shit bands, which in Sweden would never dare to play live, like for example “Pleasant Crumber”, a horrible band from my school. But they were using a cello, so we were all really impressed until the second we heard them play live. Their catch line was:” From time to time I am feeling, like hanging from the ceiling.” I think I am as much inspired by bad music as by music I like.

Jonas: What does he mean by scene? Let’s at least mention one band, we all like. Dont we all like “The Shins”?

David: Wilco?

Christian: It is a bit obvious with The Shins.

Andreas: I like old men’s rock n roll.

David: But we dont sound like that. Lets mention some of the bands we played with, like Boy Omega, Björn Kleinhenz…

Christian: …The book of Daniel, ThemJacks, Lassus.

Jonas: I liked the answer untill we started mentioning actual bands.

Andreas: Shouldnt we say that we all come from different directions..:

david: German rock-pop-music, no distorted guitars what so ever. Jonas, metal or?

Jonas: Oh ja that was a long way.

Andreas: Were you part of the Umeå Hardcore scene?

Jonas: No, I kind of missed that out. Which is sad, cause it seems fun to play that music.

David: Christian?

Christian: Christian Rock..haha.

Andreas: A band i like now is Florence valentine

Jonas: More difficult compared to what?

Mark Zonda: More difficould compared to Portougal or Ucraina, for example… Do bands with  cello go uncool like Gogol Bordello?

Christian: I dont think this can be generalized.

Jonas: I dont know to many bands with cello. Only one. Do you know this great band ”Apocalyptica”, covering Metallica.

David: Jaja i know them… 5 cellos or 4 maybe. I even got the album from my brother in law, which usually had not to much to do with music.

Andreas: I had a friend who was an enourmeous Metallica fan, which started playing guitar because of them. But he was tune-deaf.

Mark Zonda: Ah! Ah! Ah!

Andreas: He could play a solo next along the song and didn’t realize that he played the wrong scale.

Christian: We started with our band only playing Metallica songs. There were always in E-minor. And i guess almost all bands in the local bandroom in our small town either played grunge or metal.

Andreas: In our social-band-room was the band ”Frozen Complexity”. They had only one really skilled musician… playing guitar. In each song he pulled the guitar behind his back to play his 5 minute solo.

Mark Zonda: WOW! Who are band’s most beloved heroes, and which are your musical references?

Jonas: We kind of answered that already. Its a hard question.

Andreas: …and we’ve never really talked about it.

Jonas: That is what makes our unique sound of grunge-new-age-wave-punk, like Soundgarden.

(The Medalist  start singing: “Black hole sun, wont you come, and wash away the rain…”)

David: I see us in the swedish indie-pop tradition. That sounds boring but i guess its true. When we were recording we listened a lot to Josh Rouse, and all of us liked it.

Christian: At least we share our great love for boyish background choirs… We should put more of that in the songs.

Mark Zonda: “No One Knows”. Maybe it’s because of guitars, vintage synths and katchy choirs.. but I’m right if I got the impression there’s “Wings” on your song?

Christian: Ah ha ha! The wing question… what do you mean?

Jonas: Is that a reference?  Can we just answer with a plain yes?

Al together: YES!!

Mark Zonda: Wings was the ’70s Paul McCartney band.

But I clearly missed that point. Best bands from that era?

David: I get the feeling I have really no clue about bands. I never heard of any of the ones he mentioned.

Jonas: I liked the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. They had really nice harmony-vocals. They did this nice choirs-voices.

Andreas: I listened a lot to Springsteen and other Gubb-rock. Old-mens-rock in Swedish. And then of course Bob Dylan when he got electric in the 70´s. Was that in the 70´s?

Jonas: And I have to admit liking the early Genesis.

David: I will settle with Simon & Garfunkel. On the live album in Central Park in NY they sing the song ”a hart in Now York”, pretty unfamous but great. The crowd cheering for theat song gives me…. äh, how does one say… goose-bumps.

Andreas: Ah ja, thats nice.

Christian: And what do I like.. hmm?

Jonas: Buggles? Arent you really into the disco-thing.

Andreas: That was 80´s…

Jonas: Oh!

Christian: I like the late 70´s punk. The Ramones and the stuff.

David: “The Ladysmith Black Mambazo Choir” from South Africa has been singing very nice in the 70´s. It might not really fit in here, but I still feel for mentioning them.

Mark Zonda: “The Zebras”, “Yuppie Flu”, “Oh no, oh my”. Bands from Australia, Italy and Texas. Still I can hear so much common sounds in your songs. Did all these indie blokes got the same heroes to look at from the
past? Passion or Fashion, who win the match when you sit down and write a song?

Jonas: I had actually never heard of the Yuppie Flu before.

David: They have many myspace-clicks. I was surprised. and it is really nice music.

Jonas: I listened to “Oh no, Oh my”. I liked it.

David: Me too

Jonas: I think the second part of the question is interesting.

Christian: Passion, Fashion. Neither nor i think. We are not really passionate when making songs, or?
We get more attached to the songs the more we work on them.

David: We never really talked about the music we like. I just play along as good as I can. How is with you when you (Jonas, Christian) make the songs? Usually one of us comes along with a 3/4 finished song, which we then work on as a band.

Christian: I just squeeze it out like kaviar from a tube. hard creative pressure and then something very juicy and delicate comes out!

The Medalist -”Landslides”

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