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King Hobo
file under Hardrock / AOR
Despite the band name you can hardly blame the members of a bunch of aimless vagabonds. Although ‘band’ might be a big word for these four musically equal minds that got together in a Swedish house in the middle of nowhere for five days. Nevertheless, the results of these days we’re put on this disc and give the term ‘jam rock’ a brand new and lively dimension. Guitarist/vocalist Thomas Juneor Andersson (Kamchatka), drummer JP Gaster (Clutch), bassist Ulf Rockis Ivarsson (Beat Under Control, session player) and organist/organiser Per Wiberg (Opeth) combines classic 70 (hard) rock with funk, blues and jazzrock, and no matter how you like or dislike those genres, you just can’t deny the fact they definitely got ‘the vibe’. Unfortunately it’s done under the moniker of being ‘a project’, so if we will ever hear more of King Hobo in the future? We asked Per to the background and possible future perspectives of this successful spontaneous combustion between four dudes that create in five days an album that blows many professional, costly albums to smithereens.
Text: Evil Dr. Smith
First of all: congratulations Per! Although I don’t really know if you’re happy with it, because you had your 40th anniversary this month, isn’t it? Does this give you even more reflective and nostalgic moments than you already created with King Hobo, or is “40” just a figure and you don’t really give a s**t? Well, I hope you had a good party anyway…
Thank you! To be honest it doesn't mean that much, except that I can rock out with some dignity now :-) It's still as exciting to play a gig or jam as it was when I started out, maybe even more exciting nowadays as you learn a lot along the way. I'm not much of a nostalgic person when it comes to my own musicianship although when listening to music I like a lot of golden oldies. We played Rock Im Park with Opeth on my birthday and the gig was great although the weather was horrible with thunder, lightning and the worst rain imaginable (thumbs up to those who stayed, troopers!). Partied afterwards and it was good!
You blew me away with the new Opeth album, but with your project King Hobo you’ve come up with the second great album within a month. Quite an impressive achievement! Can you describe for our readers within 50 words what kind of vibe you wanted to create with King Hobo, without using the words classic, rock, (grand) funk (railroad), seventies and whipped cream?
A spontaneous album with four guys that lives to play swinging music live. Also it was really important to record all the music live with no headphones and make an album that relied on our playing abilities instead of "production values", just to capture the moment of good times being had!
The first instalment of King Hobo happened at the 2005 Sounds Of The Underground festival. Besides Jean-Paul and you, the initiators, everyone was free to join in. Can you name some guys who joined you, and who caught the right vibe (and especially those who doesn’t…). And were Ulf and Thomas already present at the very beginning?
Actually that was just a parking lot jam and a good excuse to drink tequila and funk it up! A bunch of bands were on that tour apart from Opeth/Clutch, Strapping Young Lad, Lamb Of God, GWAR, High On Fire, Devildriver, Unearth, Everytime I Die, Chimaira etc.... I'm not into badmouthing people and I don't think there's any reason really, it's quite obvious when you have a bunch of bands with different roots/influences that not everyone will have the same musical upbringing and maybe not an interest in jamming either. Some guys that took the bull by the horns and freaked out though were Devin Townsend, as everyone knows an excellent musician and a very nice man. Mark Morton from Lamb of God turned out to know his blues licks very well, which was cool. Mike and Mendez (Opeth) did some playing as well but most of the time it was me and the Clutch guys playing away. Ulf and Thomas weren't asked about this 'til JP told me he had a window to come over to Sweden and jam.
When exactly did you rent a house in Falun (are these recordings already a few years old, or were they just recently made?)? Was this just for the sake of fun with a bunch of equal minded rockers that eventually led to an unexpected pile of release-worthy material, or did you have in mind recording an album at the very beginning?
We rented that place first week of February 2007. All the music was written and recorded there for 5 days. We did vocals on a couple of songs there but the problem was that we didn't know beforehand what it was gonna be; instrumental or with vocals? Thomas and me got together a couple of weeks later to write some lyrics and lay down the rest of the vocals. As you say this was just for fun to start with and kind of an experiment as well since I had played with all of the guys before but neither Thomas nor Ulf had met JP prior to this session. I had to trust my intuition that it would work out great both in the hanging out department and musically, I wasn't that afraid though since I knew everyone well. I asked a friend of mine who's a good engineer if he'd be up for a week of recording in case something good was played. As soon as we plugged in our instruments everyone knew this was gonna be a fun week and all of us immediately aimed for it to a be an album's worth of material. I've never recorded an album where so little has been said in between takes, felt like all of us knew what to do without blabbing so much about details.
Eight songs on the album are written by the collective King Hobo. In your other bands (Opeth & Spiritual Beggars) you don’t have a lot of credits in the compositions: hardly more than one song per album. Is this something you miss in your professional bands and therefore a subconscious reason to do a project like King Hobo (besides the fun to jam of course)? It’s for you a possibility to put your composing creativity on tape (and disc)…
I wasn't there from the start in neither Beggars or Opeth and I usually ask what the deal is before I join a band. I really enjoy playing in both bands and I would never dream of trying to be "the main writer" in those bands. They were both good before I joined and the only thing I'm doing is adding a little spice to a sound that's already there. I've always had bands/projects that I've been writing the majority of the material for so I have my creative outlet elsewhere so to speak. For King Hobo it was extremely important to me that it was a band effort and nothing else. If you're gonna record an album like this it's very important that everyone contributes 'cause if everything would've been written already than the whole idea of this is lost.
The two other songs are covers. Two remarkable choices from a hard rockers point of view. The albums starts with an exceptional enslaving version of ‘Running’ from soul maestro Curtis Mayfield for his first band The Impressions (originally recorded in 1967). I always thought that the legendary status of Mayfield was a bit exaggerated (his music is, except for some cool songs on ‘Superfly’, too mellow and slick for me), but your version of ‘Running’ changed my mind completely. Damn! I never thought his music could sound so cool! Thanks for sharing this feeling, man. I didn’t know Mayfield’s work from the sixties, but I certainly will check it out! How did you get the idea to do a cover from The Impressions?
I've always been a fan of Curtis Mayfield but the idea for this song came actually from listening to a singer called Baby Huey. Kinda obscure soul singer from Chicago and he only did one album, which was released in 1970 on Curtis Mayfield's label, Curtom. The version he recorded is what we listened to and his album is very recommended, psychedelic soul kind of. Also I sort of suggested this song to get us started when we first met just to get us going in case we were running low on inspiration or whatever. It's hard to know before what's gonna happen and I thought it would be a good idea to have a "proper" song to dig into and to get the creativity going'.
The other cover is even stranger for the average rocker. It’s ‘Mr. Clean’ from jazz-funk pianist Weldon Irvine in the version trumpet-player Freddie Hubbard made in 1970. I’m only familiar with Hubbard’s early sixties work, but if this song is representative for his early seventies work, I got a lot of music shopping to do! Whose idea was it to do this song and why was jazz saxophonist Tomas Agnes only invited for this song?
That was JP's suggestion as we talked about doing something completely free form, more in the vein of Miles Davis’ ‘Bitches Brew’ era. We learned the main theme while in the studio but never played anything after that just to wait 'til everyone was feeling it. It's good to have that theme 'cause it sets the mood both rhythmically and harmonically. Roberth our engineer knows Tomas Agnas well and asked us if he should give him a call. Tomas Agnas is one of the more renowned players in Sweden but his day job is working with a symphony orchestra so this was a great moment for him to let off some steam. When he came to the studio we just ran through the main theme with him a couple of times and then we pressed ‘Rec’ and off we went. So what you hear on the album is the only time we played that song/jam.
‘Leaving Letter Blues’ is an incredible helluva blues-swamping monster song! It sounds like a tribute to Masters Of Reality (with a little Northern Mississippi Allstars-twist), because halfway the vocalist (Thomas Juneor?) sounds exactly like Chris Goss. Just a coincidence? And did Eric Oblander fly in just for this sole song, or was he accidentally in the neighbourhood? In other words: a damn shame you only used his mouth organ works for only one song!
I like that track a lot as well and it's indeed Thomas who's doing all the vocals on that song. Don't know if he ever listened to MOR (great band though) and I think it's more of a Johnny Winter vibe for him... It's fun you mention NMA, which also is a really cool band I think and to me personally one of the more inspiring "jam" bands of today. Eric did his harp recording on Clutch's tour bus somewhere in the US. When we recorded ‘Leaving...’ JP said straight away that we should ask Eric if he's up for some harp work and he sure delivered! Would sure be fun to do more stuff with Eric in the future.
In the next song (‘Rolling In from The Sea’) and also in a couple of other songs the vocals remind me however more of a young David Coverdale on the more blues-orientated songs of the early Whitesnake albums. Just another nonsensical coincident or where you guys perhaps listening to old Whitesnake albums during that week?
Not that week, but a lot in my younger days. It's definitely not a conscious thing and my guess is that depending on who you ask you'd have different answers. All of the rock'n'roll singers I like had a strong blues influence (Steve Marriott, The Grand Funk guys, Ian Gillan, Buddy Miles, etc) and maybe that's similar to what I'd call the "good" era of Whitesnake.
The music itself sounds like it’s golden gem from the early seventies. It would have perfectly fit between bands like Grand Funk Railroad, Rare Earth, Free, Cactus, Vanilla Fudge, Funkadelic etc.etc. Who’s got the biggest 70s rock collection on vinyl? You, one of the other King Hobos, or Mikael Akerfeldt? And what are your three most precious or special items on vinyl?
Of the Hobo's I'd say I'm the record nerd, but I've given up my vinyl collection and only kept stuff that I know I won't be able to get on CD or never bothered to buy on CD. I only got like 500 vinyls left and traded most of the expensive stuff in for CDs. The CD collection is starting to get kind of ridiculous now, but music is my food and fuel you know ha ha! Most precious vinyls would be obscure prog from a Swedish label called Bauta Records. They had really cool artists like J Lachen (Lach’n Jonsson), Ur Kaos and Kultivator.
Did you use other techniques and equipment for King Hobo compared with your other bands? In some songs your activities sound like you wanted to be Jimmy McGriff himself, or at least be a member of Booker T & The MGs. ;-) But in a song like ‘Swede’ your organs remind me of Jon Lord. Do these thoughts make any sense?
I only used a Nord Electro 2 for all the keyboard stuff and I borrowed a Fender Super Reverb amp from a good friend. It's sounds great for piano, organ and guitar and so... For the Swede track I aimed for more of a Meters feel. I guess it came out a bit wilder than expected and therefore the Lordesque vibe. There are so many past and present great players out there and they're all good inspiration but when playing Hammond sounds in a rock environment it's certainly difficult to avoid the Jon Lord comparisons, whether it'll be the sound or the actual playing. Without patting myself too much on the back I'd like to think that I'm changing it up quite often and the song is always the most important thing to me.
I’ll bet your week of isolation in Falun was more productive than the ten songs on this album. What covers did you play more and have you created also more new music? In other words: is there any chance for more King Hobo releases in the future (whether or not another jam session(s) with the guys)?
Regarding more material from this session I'd have to say no, although there are many different versions of the stuff we recorded except for ‘Mr Clean’ and ‘Coffee Break’ which are total improvised and first takes. We're gonna record again but I'd definitely want to work the same way as we did last time. I believe we'd come up with lots of stuff especially since we'd know this time around how we're functioning together.
The album is released on a label called Hippodome Music. Is that another word for ‘self financed’ or is this a serious and new label? What can we expect from that label?
Yes, you're right on the self-financed thing but I'd say serious as well. All of this was done by ourselves and for ourselves so it seemed logical that we'd release it ourselves as well. For some reason it feels a lot more rewarding doing it this way, not speaking economically. It's a really good feeling to play this to people and say "we did this ourselves" and it doesn't matter if someone think it sucks 'cause we know how much fun we had doing this and no one can take that away from us. I don't think it would've come out this good if we had turned to a record label first and presented the idea: "Hey we're four guys that's gonna rent a house and record some music, would you like to give us some money? We don't know what it's gonna sound like 'cause we haven't anything written yet, but we're aiming at doing it in five days..." In this day and age that might be a little bit too loose of an idea to convince someone to pay for the things. And besides that, it's just unnecessary label pressure. I'm gonna use this label for future Mojobone recordings as well.
Your activities with your new main band Opeth and recently with King Hobo make me questioning the vitality of Spiritual Beggars. What’s the status of that band?
I guess it's not happening at all... Mike Amott/Sharlee d'Angelo are busy with Arch Enemy and now Mike's doing Carcass as well. JB has Grand Magus and Ludwig's playing with Firebird. All of us are really good friends and we keep in touch a lot but there are really no plans to get back together and record anything new at the moment. I don't think the last word has been said yet from the Beggars though and if we'd have a possibility to do some things I'd be there straight away!
I mentioned Opeth a few times already: you’re a member of that band for a few years now. Did it change your life (more hectic, etc.) and are you satisfied with your role in the band?
I've been a professional musician since the late 80's so regarding the amount of touring it's not that different. Biggest difference is that when you're a member of a band like Opeth is that you're not under the whip economically speaking. When you're a session guy you have to constantly look for work so that's pretty convenient to have a steady income. Regarding my role in the band I'd have to say it's an easy "job" with nice people and good music. I'm there to play keyboards and I try to do that as good as I can.
Confession time! Come one, Per, you can tell me: the only reason you got the job in Opeth, is because you’re just as an insane music freak and 70s rock fetishist as Mikael. Your keyboard-qualities were just a lucky coincidence.
Well if you add longhaired to all of that, you're pretty damn right! Ha ha!
I'll be the first to admit that I'm an insane music freak and pretty much everything I do is about music whether it's playing, writing, learning or listening. I used to collect vinyl in the 80's and early 90's but switched to CD's since I only want the music I like and never really collected based on what an album's worth. It's quite sad when you see the same people at record fairs talking about the same albums as they did 20+ years ago. Also the fact that it's easier to bring CD's and now mp3's on the road, which is where I've spent most of my time for the last 20 odd years.
Last April Clutch did an American tour with Kamchatka. Did they create somewhere at some moment some sort of King Hobo vibe on stage/backstage? I mean: I can imagine that for instance on the last day of the tour the bands did something special. On the other hand: you weren’t there to join them…
Both Clutch and Kamchatka are bands that jam a lot in their sets. I don't know what happened on the last night since I wasn't there, but Thomas told me JP got up on stage every night with them to do ‘Whipping Post’ by Allman Brothers. I would have loved to hear that track with both Tobbe (Kamchatka drummer) and JP on drums. Also heard that Clutch guitar tech Bryan Hinkley who is a fine guitar player/songwriter played on the track Daddy Says quite a few times with them.
Speaking about tours; it’s time for the obvious question, although it might not be obvious for King Hobo. King Hobo was a one-time project (or two-time to be more precise…) and therefore it wasn’t created to put it on stage, isn’t it? I think a lot of people will be disappointed by this fact. You and the other guys have a lot of obligations with other bands, but let’s say that a band like Umphrey’s McGee, Gov’t Mule or Blues Traveler ask you for a short tour across the USA (or closer to home: with Dead Man and Dexter Jones Circus Orchestra across Scandinavia), and it’s exactly at the moment that Clutch, Kamchatka and Opeth are in-between tours. Whaddya say? A no is still a no? Or… do it the easy way: create a tour with Opeth, Clutch and Kamchatka and play a small intermezzo King Hobo-set between the last two bands every night. Or something like that…
This music is made to be played live and if the circumstances were as you say we'd be there in a second! A short tour across the US with any of the above bands would of course be fantastic but since none of us are that particular it doesn't matter if it would be together with B.B. King or Slayer as long as we can play. Preferably on our own which means that we could play a much longer set compared to if we'd do a support gig. All of us want to take this on the road but I would be lying if I could say when. It won't be this year but next year we'll try to make something happen and try to get together and record some more as well. I think all of us would be happy to just play really small clubs where the audience is close and it's easier to get a vibe going instead of trying to put on a "rock show" if you know what I mean.
To conclude: are the King Hobo T-shirts finally made?
Nope, but they will be on sale in August/Sept!
Post scriptum: I saw in your play list on the Opeth-site Bettye Lavette’s ‘The Scene Of The Crime’. Yeah, I love that one too! Do you also know Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings? Certainly worth a try!
Haven't checked that one out yet but will do, thanx for the tip!
http://www.myspace.com/kinghobo
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