Kat Says: "Swedish House Mafia Tap Into Punk Roots on 'Paradise Again'"
I share more quotes from my recent Spin cover story on EDM's biggest band, and a bunch of incredible songs!
I actually didn’t talk to Swedish House Mafia all at once like this. My conversation with Sebastian Ingrosso happened after a chat with Steve Angello and Axwell, but I made this composite so you can see them all, yay!
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Hey Friends!
Writing to you today from my mom’s place in Nevada. About 90 percent of my worldly possessions are currently packed into the back half of a small Pod, ready to be picked up and shipped to sunny south Florida. In two weeks' time, I should be arriving just behind it but only after making a massive cross-country journey with mah girls—and I’ll be sure to share the fun with you!
I have lots of exciting things planned for my Miami Music Week arrival, but right now, I wanna focus on a different exciting thing that’s already accomplished:
Did y’all check out my Swedish House Mafia cover story for Spin?!?!?! I’m so happy, yay!!
Read it: SWEDISH HOUSE MAFIA CONFRONTED THEIR DEMONS AND FOUND THEMSELVES
Some of y’all might know this, but Spin magazine was my Bible growing up. I was gifted a one-year subscription on my 11th birthday, and I became totally hooked. One of my life’s regrets is that I threw away my near-decade collection of issues when I left for college. I’d love to read some of those old stories again. I think about them often.
I directly blame my obsession with Spin as the inspiration for my career as a music journalist. It’s lame that they don’t print the magazine anymore, so I can’t really hold my cover story with the biggest EDM act pretty much ever, but I am still basking in the pride that my 11-year-old self would give me:
But y’all don’t read this to hear me brag. Y’all want to hear the stuff that didn’t make the story, right?!
Honestly, if anyone would have told me back in 2012 that I’d be interviewing Swedish House Mafia at all one day, I’d be pretty fucking surprised. I had a front row seat to the rise and fall of EDM. I actually owe my career to that. Being one of the only dedicated and educated dance music writers in the small-town/big-city that is Miami brought me a lot of opportunities, but I was coming at the scene from the perspective of a teenagerdom filled with post-punk and goth music, and I only came around to self-identify as an electronic music devotee thanks to the double-gut punch that was seeing Daft Punk live followed by the release of Justice’s † and Boys Noize’s Oi Oi Oi.
All that to say, by the time Swedish House Mafia reached the top of the pop charts with “Don’t You Worry Child,” I was a bit of an “EDM” hater.
Who fucking knew Swedish House Mafia actually felt the same fucking way?
“I’m just going to be totally transparent,” Sebastian Ingroso told me over Zoom a few weeks ago. “When we started making music, dance music was really still underground. It was cool. We went to raves. We were kids. We felt like it was punk, you know what I mean? We were not illegal, but punk is punk, and dance music was punk—and that's what I liked with dance music. It was forbidden. People took samples as sounds and just tweaked them, drum machines were getting big and people distorted them. Everything was just wrong. That's what I felt was right. You know what I mean?”
Um, yes Sebastian, I fucking do.
I truly can’t under-hype for y’all how thrilling it was to be in my early 20s, hopped up on crushed Adderall pills and drunk for the 15th time in my life, listening to the electrifying sound of a synthesizer crunched and maxed out to the point that it sounded like a Metallica guitar death roar, partying in the living room of some 24-year-old while the local DJs played songs they downloaded from a Zippyshare file hours earlier.
It wasn’t happening in clubs. It was happening in the streets and in backyards. You had to know where to find it. It was LIBERATING. It was the sound of your insignificant misfit life finally coming together and making sense.
Of course, that sort of lifestyle isn’t sustainable (I don’t crush up Adderall anymore, for the record), and neither is the sort of unbridled and underground freedom of a music genre that sprang to life years before the invent of digital streaming platforms. A sea of like-minded weirdos was connected on blogs and forums across the world, all of us finding common ground in this category-defying sound. We didn’t have a way to express our burgeoning culture in words; which meant marketers didn’t yet know how to distill the feeling and sell it back to us.
That’s the environment wherein the Swedish House Mafia members come to prominence. You can read how Steve Angello, Axwell and Sebastian Ingrosso all met and lived that same feeling together in my story, but the tale of how they grew to become international radio superstars is already well known.
“Coming back to my point,” Ingrosso continued, “When we did a whole run and it was successful and we actually had a Billboard Top 10 with ‘Don't You Worry Child,’ it was number one on the radio, we still didn't understand what the fuck was going on. Leaving on the top of that was hard. When we got the band together and decided to make music again, music was really suffering. The dance music was saturated, commercial—and we got a little bit of the shit for that too, because we did it commercial, but that was not our intention, really. We just wanted to make music that was memorable for people.”
Do you realize SHM only ever released six original songs, and every single one of them is a bonafide banger? If you partied through the 2010s, you have every single one committed to memory—whether you wanted to know it like that or not. Without trying to, SHM (and Avicci, of course) gave the EDM trend something to grab onto, to copy, to exploit. The look, sound and feel of what they did became an ad nauseum effect, and yes, people got a bit sick of it.
Walking back up to that podium and looking each other in the face after the big breakup was apparently just as hard as walking away.
“For me, it was really challenging,” Ingrosso said, “almost depressing in a way, because I had to go through my emotions so hard… It needed to take two and a half years [to make this album], because we were developing ourselves at the same time as making music. I know this sounds too deep, maybe, but we had to go deep into ourselves. Music for me is very personal. It's the most personal thing I have, except my children, of course. But music is very personal. So if there's two other guys in the room or one of the guys who doesn't like [what I made], I get hurt. but I need to be open for ideas. So all of us are the same, I guess. It took like two years to come together where we all saw the same thing.”
It sounds to me like the process was deeply personal for all three dudes, and the reward is SHM’s first-ever full-length album, Paradise Again.
“We wanted to tell a story of the underground and the energy,” Angello said, “We're moving towards the sky. I feel like our light spot is going to be when we go out there to the world and we meet the fans. That's our paradise.”
“It feels fucking great,” Ingrosso said. “The older you get, or the more you do in the music industry, the more scared you get. This is my advice to everyone making art, whatever it is. I guess a lot of people already know this, but; fuck that. If you're scared, you're not going to come anywhere. We started to get not scared, I guess, and just make music, and that's when it gets great again.”
“When you don't have anything to lose,” Axwell said, “you're in a position where you can do crazy stuff that can work out. Taking over the world? You can get the feeling if you rock a club for 300 people. You can really get that feeling the same way as when you do a big tour or your number one on a chart. There's different ways of getting that feeling.”
“You can even get that feeling without people in the room,” Angello said, “when you're in the studio.”
“When you finish the song that you die for, that's it,” Axwell said. “You don't even have to release it. You know, that's the best in the world.”
I personally and honestly was invigorated by my conversation with these three dudes. I could feel that their passion was real and earnest, that they worked really fucking hard on putting this thing together.
They had some help, of course. They’ve got new management and a new label, which always opens doors to try something new. Their new artistic director Alexander Wessely is doing wild fucking shit with their visual aesthetic. The music videos all tell that story of working backwards from the bottom of Dante’s Inferno back to the top. They worked in the studio with this hot young Swedish producer named Desembre who, off the record, is about to release co-productions with some of the biggest names in music today.
The new album is dark. It’s groovy. It’s got some WILD collaborations, and it explores a whole bunch of SHM’s sonic roots beyond that which they’ve ever explored in public. I haven’t heard the whole thing. They actually only let me hear four songs and I had to hear them via a Zoom call, but there are some really cool ones coming, including a fun French Touch inspired jam that I am soooo amped for!
Of course, SHM don’t really give a fuck who likes it.
“I'll tell you my honest opinion,” Angello said. “You can hear me, right? When it comes to reactions, I couldn't care less about what anybody would ever say on the internet. Because I've never stood on stage without an energetic connection to the crowd in my whole life. So unless you were there, you don't understand what that is, and there's a lot of people that can be like, ‘Yo, you should to play this, you should have played’—But listen, I'm an artist. If I want to go up on stage and play a guitar or play banjo and sing, if that's what I feel like doing for 90 minutes, I'll do that. We know who are true fans are. They're the ones that are buying tickets and coming to our shows. That energy with the crowd, that's the only thing I connect to.
“At the end of the day,” he continued, “if you were at Ultra [for the reunion in 2018], you could cut that energy with a scissor. That's what matters, and you know what the best part is? It's when we're standing, us three, together on stage, and I feel Ax's energy and Seb's energy and we're standing there. We've already succeeded, because we're standing there together. That's what the beauty of this is. That's three guys that grew up together doing something together, succeeding together, challenging and going on this roller coaster together. We're standing there, playing music that we've done in the studio. That's insane, and people are dancing or feeling shit that we’ve been, like, in the basement in Stockholm, fighting about the kick drum, and all of a sudden you see somebody crying in the crowd because it changed their lives. That's what it's about. We're so blessed. So, so blessed.”
God damn right I’m catching this fucking show!!
Alright, that’s it. There are more quotes that didn’t make even this second cut that are cool about being in the studio with The Weeknd and 070 Shake and shit, but this newsletter is long enough. I’d love to share the audio files with y’all one day. Maybe that’ll be a subscriber perk when I go paid. WOULD Y’ALL PAY FOR THAT?
On to the tunes!
Absolutely Necessary
(This is the part where I share songs that are so good, they’re absolutely necessary to listen to. That’s it. That’s the bar.)
I made two Spotify playlists for this section that you can follow: one weekly playlist updated with just the new stuff every week, and one cumulative playlist that will host every song I pick ever (until Spotify tells me it's full). Check them out! I made them for you—and me, but mostly you.
Last week, I wrote about SHM’s new tune “Redlight” featuring Sting, the release of Kat Calls alumnus Quiet Bison’s debut album Dawn, and Felivand’s incredible track “Butterfly Wings.” Please do read and enjoy!
Clothespin. - “Manufactured”
EVERYONE GIVE IT UP TO OUR FRIEND @HANKSAYSHELLO! You may know him as @hankthorough from the Kat Calls and Cutie Club chats. He changed his handle, but he’s still hanging out with us in the Discord. This is his first official music release on Spotify, and it’s sooo good. I’m so proud to have such talented people in my corner, and I hope you all give Clothespin. a follow and play this one real loud!! <3
Leena Punks - “Decisions”
Kat Calls alumnus LP Giobbi is well-known as the reigning piano-house queen and leader of the Femme House crew. She just smashed a piece of the glass ceiling, releasing an all-femme compilation on Insomniac Records. It features some incredible talent (including fellow Kat Calls alumni Kaleena Zanders and Baby Weight), but I wanna shout out this tune by London-based producer Leena Punks. It’s my first time hearing of the talent, and it’s the last tune on the 11-track compilation. I love its smooth moods. It’s a watery groove that hits me in all the soft emotional parts, and I’m excited to get to know Leena better :)
Destructo x Tima Dee - “F With Me” Feat. Chromeo
Making music with my partner as the CFAs taught me just how much I actually am influenced by west coast g-funk. Therefor, this new tip from the original HARDfather, LA-songstress Tima Dee and Chromeo funk-master P-Thugg is an ace in my earholes! Drive 20 mph and make your tunk bounce to this.
Pendant - “Static Dream”
Idk if y’all know this about me, but I’ve seen Trainspotting like 100 times. It’s my favorite movie of all time, so when this video hit my inbox calling itself a split between that Scottish masterpiece and Terminator 2, my interest was piqued. Turns out this song is FUCKING GREAT. Pendant is a producer from LA. "I wrote ‘Static Dream’ after seeing my late father in my sleep one night,” he says. “The dream was chaotic and sad, but over the following day I felt a closeness to him I hadn't felt since his passing. It felt like a new memory I was able to forge with him outside of space and time." Fuck, followed.
G Jones - “A2C2I2D”
No one is going as fucking crazy with the noise-fuck bleep-bloops as G Jones. If you ever get the chance to catch him live, do not fucking miss it. This tune was released 3/03 in honor of the Roland 303 that gave birth to acid house. Do not ask me why he didn’t name this song “A3C0I3D.” It’s a mystery, but it sounds gnarly as fuck.
Zerb - “DNACID”
Speaking of acid house! Another fun 3/03 Day banger, this one featuring hilarious news reel samples from the freaked out U.K. normies who didn’t know how to handle the acid house scene of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s :)
Above & Beyond x Mat Zo - “Always Do”
This is a collab I did not see coming, but it is joyous and glitchy and adorbs. What a neat pairing!
Tourist - “Your Love”
Catch a wave on a blissful daydream. Tourist is consistent af, and we love a cinematic video, don’t we? This is a lo-fi tickle paired with a soul-gripping groove that just feels like heaven.
Amber Lewis x TT The Artist - “Let’s Get Down”
Oooh, feel-good disco-house delivered hella smooth over some upbeat rhythms. “Let’s Get Down” to some jazzy vocals and hazy, low-lid vibes. Shout out another Kat Calls alumnus! (Talking about TT.)
Yameii - “O Well”
If you’ve ever tuned into Kat Calls, you’ve seen my Yameii doll on the shelf behind me. It’s one of my proudest possessions; a creation of digital artist OseanWorld. He’s this young, uber talented kid from Atlanta, and he’s one of Madeon’s architects who help create the visuals for Good Faith live. He also makes his own music and basically is building his own universe. I interviewed him for Modern Luxury. Learn all about him!
Tiberius b - “Olivia”
Hailing from west Canada, Tiberius B is making some truly interesting pop jams. I'm still just digging into the project, but this new single was a must to include.
Okay, I could keep adding songs this week tbh but I’m gonna leave it there for now because this was a long one!
Here’s what’s coming up:
No upcoming streams while I’m on the road, but as I teased in the beginning, I am about to hit the streets HARD, recording vlogs during my adventures at Miami Music Week and Ultra Music Festival, plus I’m gonna experiment with my first reels on Instagram, so go follow my journey there.
I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH, HAVE A GREAT FUCKING WEEK.
Thanks for tuning into my newsletter. Listen to the playlists on Spotify. One is updated weekly with all the songs from each edition. The other is cumulative with all the updates ever!