Abbiamo intervistato una delle band più promettenti del panorama Oi! Svedese (io personalmente adoro il punk e l'Oi! made in Scandinavia e voi ?)
RTC) Oi! Mate, start with a usual question, short story of the band
S) Sabotage started in 2013 as a project between Matte, Erik and myself. I was just wrapping up my previous band Antipati, and Erik had returned to Stockholm from Malmö. Him and Matte has been playing together for ages (Frontlash, skinhead hardcore band in the late 90’s among others) and I was with Erik in Contemptuous in the early naughties.
Anyway, they had a couple of songs they wanted to record. The first 7” became a small success and we followed up with a 12”EP, and at the same time were asked to play the PSK festival. After that we just kept recording and doing occasional gigs here and there. The core has always been me, Matte and Erik. We’ve worked through a couple of bass players, and for a while Silvio (Maraboots, early Lion’s Law) was in the band as a rhythm guitarist.
Recently Erik moved to an isolate island in the archipelago which makes an active membership in the band hard. He was “replaced” by our good friend and studio guy Sacha (also drumming for Agent Bulldogg since 2016, and bass and guitar in Apart during the band’s existance). We have also found a great, steady bass player in Jesper, who’s been in the band since 2021. He has a past in great punk bands like Royal Stakeout and Nobelkommittén. When we started the band we were all between 30-40 which means the band had to compete with baby making and adult stuff, so it’s been relatively slow. But we’re still going and have just released our first album after more than ten years as a band!
RTC) which are your music influences?
S) This is a bit tricky. Although we all have our roots in what you would call “skinhead music” (be it streetpunk, oi!, or hardcore), we all listen to different kinds of music, and we all bring ideas to the sound and songs, which make Sabotage’s music a bit hard to define. Matte is into thrash, BM and NWOBHM, basically all types of metal and hard rock. Erik has a thing for 80’s computer game tunes and poppier new wavish stuff. Jesper has a broad taste but is rooted in punk. Me, I like all kinds of punk and Oi! We have some common ground, like The Templars, French 80’s Oi!, Swedish folk music and so on. We all pitch our ideas into the song making, and then we process it in the Sabotage meat grinder. What comes out is our sound.
RTC) How Is the scene nowadays in Sweden? Can you recommend us some new bands with good music and attitude?
S) After the “pandemic” it seem to be slow, and the decline began with a shattering of the scene in around 2016-2017 (that is my impression at least). During the covid hysteria it seemed many of the people left – at least in Stockholm – made other life choices, having families, left the subculture etc… maybe just because the generation that was keeping things going all had reached “that age”. But also, the PSK festival meant a lot to the scene, so when they called it a day, it gone pretty quiet.
There are clubs and gig organizers, but they’ve taken another shape. Previously the division between punk and oi! was smaller, but now there’s no mixing. The only somewhat regular punk/oi!/skinhead organizer is in Norrköping, slightly connected to PST Records. They brought Bromure over the other weekend. In Stockholm we have Pike and Kimmen from PSK/Club Underground that does small DIY-gigs in a dodgy lower class trading estate. They’ve brought some great bands, and I’ve played there with Sabotage aswell as with Apart and Agent Bulldogg during the last 3-4 years.
It seems all good bands playing skinhead oriented punk/oi! consist of the same people that always have been there, more or less. The youth seem less attracted to it, even though there are some promising young punk bands (too PC to mix with skins in many cases it seems, though). So the active bands are old bands or old people under new names. Lavett, Close Air Support, Sabotage and Agent Bulldogg… I guess Oldfashioned Ideas and On The Job are still going, and Kombatants seem to be back. There are some good punk like Dråpslag, Dödskvartetten, Nackspärr and Inga Anor but they’re not young (except for Nackspärr). There’s also this hardcore kid crossover thing, here in Sweden, but I’m not interested in that.
RTC) What's your attitude towards politics?
S) Politics, it’s hard to avoid if you’re not singing exclusively about drinking beer. We stay out of it in the way that we won’t play for a specific agenda or under a political banner, but being “apolitical” is impossible. Politics has always been a very vital element to punk and oi!, even if we’re talking “politics of the street”. I mean, it’s party music, but it is also rebellious protest music. We’re politically independent, but not apolitical.
RTC) How many works have you released? Do you have something new ahead?
S) We have released five EP:s (two 7”, two 10” and one 12”), a split EP (12”) and a split LP between 2014-2022. We have recently released a double CD with all material from the EP’s and splits, and on Saturday we release our first album. After that, we have talked to Drakkar from Spain about doing a split release, but we’ll see when that happens.
RTC) you got deleted by some festivals because One of your members wore a kill baby kill t shirt, can you tell us how did It go for real?
S) Yes, we were booked for the Streetpunk Winter Riot Fest in Bratislava in 2018, and this Slovakian band Rozpor (with antifa connections) somehow found a private picture of me carrying my young daughter on my shoulders wearing a KBK-tshirt on a midsummer’s eve’s celebration from the previous summer. That was apparently enough to label us nazis and kick us off the bill. I was very disappointed with Kuko the organizer, as we had played the winter fest with Agent Bulldogg the year before, and I thought more of him.
RTC) Could you tell us the most important bands you played with?
S) Importance is hard to define in this context I guess… we did our debut gig on PSK with The Exploited, Toy Dolls, East End Badoes, Vicious Rumours and Anti-Nowhere League on the bill, which was a great line up. A personal favourite was our second gig, with The Snipes (Shug O Neill from The Guttersnipes (RIP) last band – great music and people). Playing with friends like Pressure 28 or Östra Aros is always cool. I look very much forward to share stage with Anti-Heros next year. Their new album is ace!
RTC) Your favorite alcoolic drink
Any best bitter on cask. Buckfast needs a mention too.
RTC) what do You think should be done to make the scene Better ?
S) The scene won’t survive without some new blood, so we need to force the kids away from tiktok and other mind-numbing bollocks. The problem is internet has killed the street with its real live meetings as the main social arena. And regarding us adults, we need to start act like adults and not engage in gossiping. We do this for the love of the scene, right? Let’s accept the fact that everyone’s entitled to his or her own opinions. That should be the basics when people speak about the joys of diversity. And the people that are already aware of this need to help each other out. With some work we could pull this old corpse into another generation that will keep on carrying the torch.
RTC) Do You go or went to football? Which team do You support?
S) No, I’m not interested. No one in the band is.
RTC) ok the interview Is over, something left to Say?
S) Thanks a lot for the interest! and if you want contact us please write to us trought our social Instagram and Facebook.
Ringraziamo i ragazzi per aver risposto a tutti i nostri quesiti, e come hanno detto loro, seguiteli sui loro social e ascoltate i loro pezzi disponibili sia su youtube che spotify.
Cheers & Beers
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