Dregen – 05-12-2013

Interview with: Dregen
By: Sabine van Gameren

Guitarist Dregen has quite a career already. Being in both Hellacopters and Backyard Babies he once had to make a choice but now the time is there some more projects are taken up. A solo album is one of them and with the release of “Dregen” we found time to talk with him about it.

Dregen has been walking around with the idea of a solo album for many years. Right when he had to make the choice between Backyard Babies and Hellacopters, he already felt that one day he would work with a solo album and have the freedom to take up with others also. The decision was inevitably. “It was a luxury problem because both bands were taking off at the same time”, he tells. The right time came when Backyard Babies decided to take a bit longer break. Right when the band was on their last tour in Japan it fell into place. “The last morning when I woke up at the hotel I thought: this is the first day of my solo career”, Dregen tells.
However it still took some time before he really started to work on music. “Then I was spending most of the first year on my couch, watching tv and doing nothing” he says laughing before he continues: “Neither Backyard Babies nor Hellacopters have never been bands that have make money with selling millions of albums, we are a touring band and live out of that. I have been on the road for ten years more or less… every year, all the time. It was good to just do nothing for a year”.

Then it began
Dregen does not seem to be a person that can do nothing for long as the projects are stepping up for him. He participated with Imperial State Electric, became a member of Michael Monroe (ex-Hanoi Rocks) his band and at the same time the work on this solo album started. It seems like again there is a bit of clash between the projects. “It was just a coincident that both my solo album and the new Michael Monroe album came out at the same time. Both albums are too good not to tour with, so they have a stand-in guitarist for me” Dregen tells. Sounds legit, but who knows how things take out in future and whether he has to make his choice again.
Right now it seems to be not worth much of a thought for Dregen. However, he does tell us that he never writes music while he is on tour. Some inspiration may float from it, but that’s about it.
“I need to go into a project, decide that day I am starting with a new album. I am not the kind of musician that goes around and write songs everyday” he explains. But when being into it, is becomes like an obsession to him. The focus is all on it and he could go on and on until he gets what he is looking for. “My wife had to tell me to stop working, I am totally getting into the writing mode” he tells about the time “Dregen” was written.
Although the album has been created in this maniac modus of him the total outcome is actually all that has been written. There were no songs left, so the total outcome is exactly the result of the session.

“Dregen”
And the result as it is now, is a fact. The album is out and the fans found their way to it. But talking a bit more about how the album got created it is clear that Dregen has his own ideas of working with it and has a partner to work with to lay that all out for him. “I have a partner, because I am totally useless when it comes to computers and it is the same with recording gear” he tells. While he makes his demo simply with his iPhone, he can trust his partner on working out the rough idea into what it should be in the end. “I can basically call him on the phone and say like: Im thinking of something like this and then just explain, a few hours later he sends me an original and it is exactly as how I wanted it so we understand each other” he tells about this collaboration.

About the recording of the album Dregen looks back warm-hearted. He has a special good memory to the song ‘Flat Tyre On A Muddy Road’, which is his brand new single. The way of working on that song has been going a bit different than the most stereotypical way of working he explains: “I just made the riff and we’re a rock band so it’s obvious then drums come in. But it did not really fly and then we experimented a bit and in the end it just ended up with one acoustic guitar”. The outcome has been something he did not expect at first so that is why it has a special memory to him. The song itself is a bit bluesy and that is probably also an element that makes it happen.

According to Dregen the album reflects himself a lot. His own personal taste in music and that may be different than he expects that some of his fans see him. “10% of my record collection is old, black music. 40’s, 50’s blues music like Robert Johnsson and John Lee Hooker. Music I have been listening to since I was a kid. But that has never really shown, so now I could really show that side of me too” he tells. To his words he thinks that most of his fans would expect him to be a Mötley Crüe fan, though he says not to own a single item of that band. Not completely illogical for his fans to think that way, as Backyard Babies Nicke Borg was a fan of that band. In our interview with Backyard Babies of 2008 (click here to read) Nicke tells about his Mötley Crüe vinyls so that people expect that from Dregen seems not completely strange. Dregen however claims to have at least 25 The Cramps releases.

Autobiography
Although Dregen says that much of himself can be found in the release of his soloalbum, he also released and autobiography. Fans of him, however, will not be able to read that unless they are fluent in Swedish. It will be translated to Finnish as a deal has been signed on that already, so in spring 2014 the Finnish fans will be able to get his hands on it. Dregen is looking for a deal to release the book also in English but even if it is found it may take a while. “They said translating would take six months. I was like: SIX MONTHS!! I would have expected… six weeks maybe” he says, but he seem to have accepted that it takes some time. However, he has good hopes the book will be available in English some when in 2014.

Photo’s by sabinevangameren.com

Links:
Dregen Facebook