Imperial State Electric - 05-12-2013

Interview: Dolf de Borst
By: Sabine van Gameren

Nicke Andersson, the main man of the project, is not feeling too well on the date of the interview. So to spare his strength for the show it was Dolf de Borst who spoke with us about the new album “Reptile Brain Music”.

A new album usually brings something new to the table, at least that is what all the fans are hoping for. When talking in how this third release stands out compared to the others Dolf tells us that there is quite some evolution going on compared to where they started with.
“The first one was mainly a solo album of Nicke. He wrote all the song, played most of the instruments. We just guested on one song. The second record is much more with the live band, we learned the demo’s and just did it, but this release is like the evolution of that. We play on all the songs, I wrote some more songs with Nicke, we grow more into a band.”

So it sounds like we can consider it a band now, rather than Nicke’s solo thing but perhaps a definition of Imperial State Electric is not as simple as that.
“Loads of people have been saying that. I don’t know, I play in other bands as well and have my own outlet also. I still see it very much as Nicke’s baby. It goes through his filter, the things he likes are not necessarily the way I would have done it. It is his vehicle, but at the same time there is room for us to come in with our personality.”

But nevertheless the album shows a good piece of collaboration between the musicians. It is for example not always Nicke that holds the microphone.
Dolf explains: “We sang a bit on the other records, but mainly backing. I sing lead on a song called Reptile Brain which Nicke and I wrote together. He had the music and the choruses and said it would be much better if I would sing it and I semi-arrogantly said I could do the lyrics a bit better. *laughs*
So I could pull it more towards how I sound.”

About the way the band has been working on the album you could also notice the guys have a relaxed attitude towards the creation of it. Dolf tells a bit more in how they work while creating an album
“It is very much done in the studio. One song, one person plays bass on another it could be someone else. We don´t have any ego´s on that. We talk about it before, like.. we want it to go into this direction. The we decide what songs we like but then whoever plays what, it does not really matter. We are old enough and been in enough bands that we don´t really care. It´s more about what is the best for the outcome.

The fourth album, we already are thinking about that because we don´t tour so much, we kind of hope to do it the other way. Rehearse a lot, for months and then do it really fast. Then it will be much more of a band. Nicke is doing some demo´s and for me, on bass, I steal a lot of ideas of what he has already done on the demo´s. “

Back towards album number three: ‘Reptile Brain Music’. Because we wondered where are the surprises on this release.
“The song ‘Stay The Night’, it sounds a lot like the demo but when he wrote it he had something completely different in mind. In the beginning he played it like a 60’s kind of thing. Most of the time the songs come out very much like how we envisioned it. “
Tomas Eriksson walks in and has some to add as well to that. For him it was the song ‘Eyes’ where the main surprise was found.
“There is one song, called ‘Eyes’. Which had a really strange drumbeat on the demo. And that was the first song we recorded for the new album. Neither of us had even picked that song because it sounded a bit strange on the demo.”

The album is also released on an LP and that has been the case with any of the releases. We wonder how important that is for the band the release an album this way. Dolf tells that they are collectors themselves, so the choice seems quite natural.
“We have done them all like that, it is just the way we choose to do the music. Cd’s seem pretty irrelevant now because everyone is listening on the computer or spotify. The digital side is kind of evolving. It is a nicer thing to have a free download with the LP. You can listen them on your phone or computer but still have the album as it is supposed to be. More a collectors thing I suppose. The artwork is quite important, we all put a lot of thought into that.”

With the album just out Dolf already spoke of album number four, we try to see how concrete the plans are so far and it seems like they are having some serious thoughts of it already.
“A new album, yes, we love the songwriting and the creative process. There is , maybe 30 demo’s and there are different ways we can do it. As mentioned before we could do it all live, after rehearsing long time. We also have our own studio so it is really easy to do the creative thing there and try many different ways of a song. We try to steer Nicke away from all the songs sounding like Kiss. *laughs*
He is into so many different artists and made many different things over the years. So we’ll see what direction it will go to.”