The Hives – 22-03-2009

Interview with: Nicholaus Arson and Chris Dangerous
By: Nina Mende

So here we were at Nosturi meeting Nicholaus Arson (guitar) and Chris Dangerous (Drums) of The Hives to do an interview with them.
Although they have had many interviews already, the rest of the guys had left to the hotel to rest already and it was getting close to show time, the two guys were surprisingly talkative and up for a nice chat.

This is the outcome of countless “ehrm”s and “you know”s later:
PS: They really did begin and not finish phrases all the time. it’s not me being unable to type

Me (after some beginning chit chat):Can we start?

Nicholaus: “Yeah sure. Fire at Will!”

Me: Ok. We will!! (laughing) So yeah how are you guys, all fit and stuff? Cause you just had a world tour, right?

Nicholaus: “Well, ehrm, yeah more or less. I think we came home at the end of September last year and then we had some time off until maybe right before Christmas and then we did an Australian tour. Three weeks or something and then we and then after that we stayed at home for well… it’s probably two months now, I think it’s almost two months”

Chris: “Yeah, we’re pretty well rested now actually. Yeah, we’re at the very last of the tour for the Black and White album now.”
Nicholaus: “Yeah. It’s like the …ehrm …. we’re gonna do, you know, this Finnish of show and then the Swedish. A brief tour in Sweden and then a week in Japan and then that has to be it for this album. The closing! You know, well, our gear is done and the smell too bad Got to move into something new. We’re getting tired of what we have and we have to get something new going”

Me:Why are you going to Japan?
Nicholaus: “Well cause we haven’t been in Japan on this world tour “

Me:Okay
Nicholaus: “We haven’t, I think.”
Chris: “I mean we always try to play every country in the world but we haven’t really done that. But we played a lot of them. “
Nicholaus: “We never really succeeded”
Chris: “We’re working on it.”
Nicholaus: “Yeah.”
Chris: “But now it’s just time for Japan I mean we just did Australia which is also kind of far away. It’s not a place you go to right after releasing a record.
But, … And Japan is not one of those places either. But So we need to go there and say hello.”
Nicholaus: “yeah, and say Connichi wa…. Genki. That’s also hello, I think. But it’s down further south. Yeah and then we say LocknLoll “
Chris: “Yeah. And then we go to rock the town.”
Nicholaus: “Yeah.”
Chris: “And then we go sing some Karaoke. A little bit. That’s ok. And that’s it.”
Me: “Sounds like Fun, yeah. “
Nicholaus: “It’s not bad at all”

Me: So what’s with the black and white dress? Is that only because of the “Black and White” album?
Nicholaus: “The black and white?”
Me: Yeah the suits…
Nicholaus: “Well it’s always black and white. This is just a different version. We’re showing how talented we are now. Mostly, yeah mostly talented, really. We can wear different type of clothes. Even though they’re all different combinations of black and white.”

Me: Why black and white though?
Nicholaus: “It looks better than with red and pink.”
Chris: “I think we’re just in black and white. Ehrm… without even trying anything else. The… It looks really good and it’s very helpful if you’re color blind. And you are not really having any problems matching it up.”

Me: I heard that you guys switch the label, right?
Nicholaus: “From Universal to something else.”
Me: Yeah, why? How did that happen? Are you getting a new one?
Nicholaus: “We might. We don’t have a record deal at the moment. So we don’t really know. We haven’t even recorded a new record yet. But well, we’ll see. But obviously we are gonna record a new record but we don’t know where we gonna end up.”

Me:Okay.
Chris: “If you did something and played in a band and were in our situation you could say that we work in between chairs. (laughs), but that’s not really true. But yeah nothing is written and it’s been talked. But nothing on the matter.”
Nicholaus: “The contract we have expired and then we have other options, you know. We’ve had bids from Universal. But we haven’t said yes and yeah….. We have not said anything yet.… We need more money I think – basically. (everybody is laughing) Possibly we don’t need more money but we’d like to have more money or we’d like to have you know there… there… there is all kinds of… all kinds of parameter or whatever you like to call it. That there is supposed to go into a record deal, you know.”
Chris: “We’re trying to get a Space shuttle. But they are gonna be more expensive.”
Nicholaus: “Yeah. And I don’t want to pay a tour support for us touring in our space shuttle.”
Chris: “It’s like a … apparently you can go around the world if you have the budget in a space shuttle. It’s 200 000 Euros. It only takes you forty minutes. I mean we need to land in between to play shows. So wouldn’t work.”
Nicholaus: “So the talks are basically stranded.”
(everybody laughing)

Me: I see. So, there is a new album in the planning?
Chris: “Yep absolutely.”
Nicholaus: “And sort of in the making”
Me: Already?
Nicholaus: “Yeah we recorded a bunch of stuff actually.”

Me: How is it gonna be then?
Nicholaus: “Don’t know yet cause we don’t know what’s gonna be on the album in the end. If we’re able to record better songs, those songs would most likely end up on the record.”
Chris: “But we’re…”
Nicholaus: “I’ll be back in a second.” (says and leaves)
Chris: “But we’re having discussions all the time about what direction like that one but nothing is written in stone anything we’re just fooling around. With everything… you know.
I think it’s exciting, pretty much. So we don’t really know yet what’s gonna happen, we don’t know where gonna record it. We don’t who’s going to produce it. Or anything. Just planning, thinking.”

Me:Is the sound gonna change? Is it gonna be something new?
Chris: “Yeah I mean it’s still… you can pretty much put us anywhere and give us an instrument and no matter where we are and who is producing it we’re still gonna sound like The Hives. So therefore it’s not gonna change in that way But I mean we think that’s there been a lot of changing in the past between every record. But people might still think that you know we sound like The Hives. And that’s cause… It’s pretty much the only way we know how to play. But to us, I mean it’s a huge difference to us if we use a different microphone or whatever, your know, different room or… But you’ll still be able to hear it’s The Hives.”

Me:Are there any festivals planned yet?
Chris: “Yeah, I mean, I don’t think…. I don’t know how much I’m able to tell you. But there’s… there’s… we’re gonna play some festivals. It’s not gonna be as many as it usually is cause we’re gonna try to have some time off in the summer which we haven’t had in ten years.
So we’re gonna… we’re gonna take it a bit easier and just play a… I don’t know how many, we’re gonna take it easy.”

Me: But not like last year, you played at almost every festival?
Chris: “Not at all, absolutely not, we’re gonna,… we’re pretty much gonna do the ones that we… that are fun doing for us.”

Me: What would be your favorite?
Chris: “Oh, My Favourite festival to play? Oh I… I loved to play a festival that was called “Quart festival” and which used to be in Kristiansand in southwest of Norway. I loved to play there, we played there twice. The festival doesn’t exist anymore. But we played there twice and it’s… you know … before you go on stage, you can take a swim in the fjord, stuff like that. So I would like to play that festival again but it’s just no longer up and run. So…I don’t know which one I would like to play other that… Oh the one in Drumsö is great as well. We love Norway; we think Norway is a beautiful place therefore we love to play there. So we see what happens.”

Me: But why don’t you tour there after the week in Sweden?
Chris: “No, no I think there was talked about a gig in Oslo but for some reason it didn’t happen.”
Nicholaus (who sneaked back in): “I think we are playing … we are playing two festivals in Norway this summer. I think.”
Chris: “Yeah. And I’ve just said I’m not sure how much I can tell them about that.”
Nicholaus (interrupting): “Yeah, it could be true, huh?”
Chris: “Therefore I said that I would like to play in Norway (laughter)”
Nicholaus: “But you got a good point though. If you wanna go Norway why don’t you just go? Thanks.”

Me: And during world tour were there any special happenings or anything most worth to remember?
Nicholaus: “ehm yeah. It’s like the intense touring, it was like one and a half year of touring. So it’s not like nothing is happening every day.”
Chris: “It’s a weird place to be at if you don’t want action. So to speak. I remember one thing, when Vigilante fainted before he was supposed to go on stage in somewhere in America. Where was it?”
Nicholaus: “It’s the north of Los Angeles, It’s ehrm… I can’t remember.”
Chris: “Anyway, Pelle had to play the guitar cause Vigilante went with the ambulance to the hospital that was pretty memorable. That was kind of awful cause we didn’t know what happened to him.”
Nicholaus: “Some kind of heart failure, or something.”
Chris: “But there has been good stuff too. But that is the first one that comes to mind.”
Nicholaus: “He is the source of many happenings while touring.(laughter) He has lots of… lots of tricks up his sleeve. He has one where he can crawl into his own underwear. You wouldn’t believe he can because he’s so big.”
Chris: “Yeah, and it usually happens late at night in the tour bus. I guess he loosens up during the show.”

Me: Where there any favorite places you played at?
Chris: “Oh yeah tons, ehrm yeah, oh yeah, we played eh, we toured south America which we haven’t done before. We played Chile, Argentina and Brazil.”
Nicholaus: “We came back to Mexico as well because it’s always been good for us.”
Chris: “Yeah.”
Nicholaus: “And a lot of good American shows as well. As well as coming back and you know doing great shows in you know UK and Germany and France is great now.”
Chris: “Yeah that’s true.”
Nicholaus: “A lot of places are great now.”
Chris: “They’re … They’re … They are starting to match up. With The Hives greatness, they’re catching up. It’s always fun to go back to Australia to, cause you know, I said it’s a pretty good place to be. But now the show’s been great.”
Nicholaus: “We did a great tour of America with Eagles of Death Metal. Well we toured you know pretty much All the southwest of… eh… you know… southwest in USA like you’re going from Texas and then over to you know Los Angeles and… or towards California, playing some shows in California and eh you know only eating tacos and good Mexican food as well as playing with a great band.”
Chris: “Yeah and eh… and eh pretty much all of… all of the guys in that band are up at Vigilante’s level when it comes to having a good time. So it was fun tour.”

Me: How do you like Finland? Do you like playing here?
Nicholaus: “It’s been great, as usually. I mean Finland is something to we can relate to. That’s people are often very drunk. And that’s… that’s the same with you know the whole of the northern part of Europe are pretty much the same. I can go to Sweden, Norway and you know Finland. And Germany as well is… is like that. People are very drunk and it’s a … usually makes up for a pretty good show as the… there’s a lot of sweat and heat and eh you know, drunk breath and it’s a … it makes up for good shows.”
Chris: “I’m actually Finnish.”

Me: Ahhhh. Cool.
Chris: “well, ok. I’m not. I was born in Sweden, but my parents are Finnish. Therefore it’s like a second home.”
Nicholaus: “What’s Chris Dangerous in Finnish? Kimmo Jumala?”
(everybody laughing)
Chris: “Probably”

Me:So you don’t speak Finnish?
Chris: “I do actually. But I don’t know what dangerous is.

What if something is dangerous you need to take it varovasti
But what… what’s dangerous? ”

Me: vaara?
Chris: “Ah there we go, yeah.”
Nicholaus: “Ville Valo.”
Me: No, that’s light. William Light
Nicholaus: “Vaara is dangerous…Exact. Is Ville light… Yeah. So you will be Will Dangerous.”
(everybody happy now.)

Me: thank you very much
Nicholaus: “thank you”
Chris: “Thank you”

It was a nice interview with The Hives. Many thanks for taking the time for us.