>> Surly Swedes the Hives are breaking out all over

by JOHNSON CUMMINS

It seems that the influential U.K. press has never flexed more muscle in dictating what will be the “next big thing.” Those finicky Brits have been solely responsible for blowing up American bands in the U.K. and Europe and hence have had A&R men on this side of the pond in a signing frenzy, running around as if their ponytails were on fire.

For the past year, the land of warm beer and fishcakes has heralded the return of rock. But what we are getting under the guise of rock, in my not so humble opinion, is piss poor at best. Let’s run down the list of the big hype bands that the Brits have spilled a lot of ink on lately.

Andrew W.K.—not bad, I guess, but I liked Twisted Sister’s teen metal anthems the first time (hey, at least I didn’t mention Helix!).

The Strokes—file under trust-fund poofter rock.

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club—Jesus and Mary Chain redux, great for slumming clubbers who like to wear black.

The White Stripes—easily the most deserving of the hyperbole in this cavalcade of stars, but they should be signing over their royalty cheques to Mick Collins (the Gories), Jon Spencer or Jack Oblivian.

This is the return of rock? No bloody way, Stewart! And that’s where our trusty cover boys come into the picture. Call me a snaggle-toothed, boiled-beef-eating Brit hack but this is pure, sweat-drenched, excitement-packed garage-punk rock ’n’ roll, played at its best. The Hives really do rock, by gummy!

Slow to grow

After previous releases on somewhat obscure (at least on the grand-scheme level) labels like Gearhead and Burning Heart, their last record Veni Vidi Vicious was quickly championed by BBC DJ John Peel, Creation/Poptones records mogul John McGee and even screeching harlot Courtney Love.

Despite Love’s seal of approval (yeesh!), they still managed to charm the English press into falling all over themselves with a live show that would seal their fate as the real deal. What is also bizarre about the sudden fame is that the band have been plugging away since 1993 and the album heralded as record of the year by many actually came out two years ago.

“I don’t know why it has taken so long for us to become popular, I guess people are just slow,” says extremely polite guitarist Nicholaus Arson. “We had always thought we would sell about 10,000 copies and we would consider that good by our standards. I guess we knew something was happening when we first toured Germany and it was just crazy. After that, we sold about 80,000 copies in the U.K. before the press started hyping the band up, so it was always the people that discovered us first.”

Compared to the Strokes, who were selling out mid-size venues before they even had a record out, the Hives have been earning their stripes the old-fashioned way—by hitting the road. Their current tour has had them out on the road for two and a half years now. “We like touring and if we didn’t like touring, we would go home. We toured for two years before anything much happened. We’re only doing this because it’s still a lot of fun for us. We still have our apartments that we have always had, so it’s not like we’re rich.”

Striking Vikings

The Hives came out of the garage rock scene of Stockholm, Sweden, which has lately been a hotbed for metal (Meshugga, Entombed), pop (Ray Wonder), psychedelia (Soundtrack of Our Lives), punk (Bombshell Rocks, Satanic Surfers, Raised Fist) and a plethora of meat-and-potatoes rock bands (Hellacopters, Backyard Babies, the Nomads).
“Three of us live just outside of Stockholm, so I guess that’s where our headquarters is,” says Arson. “There has always been a good music scene and a strong culture to start up rock bands in Sweden. I think there are such good bands there because there are just a lot of people with really good taste in music. Sweden is such a small country that most of the metal bands know the pop bands and most of the pop bands know the garage bands and so on. It may take a Swedish band a lot longer to become popular, because no one really cares, but I believe if a band is good, people will find out about it.”

With a killer live show earning them the right to the hype, the Hives also bring the whole package home by dressing sharper than a box of tacks. Taking the tip from the matching suits of the ’60s garage scene, these Swedes dress to impress, with a penchant for tasteful ascots and white patent-leather shoes.

Says Arson: “I guess the look was always important to us. We started out in 1993 and at that time the grunge thing was popular. We didn’t want to be a grunge band, so we started wearing suits. Our favourite bands have always looked a certain way. Even AC/DC looked a certain way, with the exception of Angus Young, and we really liked that.”

Arson even offers a few tips for those rockers out there who like to look good. “To the guys, I would say, ‘Tuck that tie in.’ It’s nice to wear a tie but if you tuck it in it will be that much more special. As far as the ladies go, as long as you go with a colour code, you can never go wrong.”

The man behind the curtain

Some of you trainspotting liner-note geeks out there you may have noticed that the songs were not written by the band but by the “sixth member,” Randy Fitzsimmons. The story goes that Fitzsimmons hand-picked the members and writes all of the tunes, but will not perform with the band. The U.K. media’s cloak-and-dagger squad leaked that this Randy Fitzsimmons was actually just an idea hatched by the band and is merely a pseudonym for Arson, but the polite guitarist is adamant that this is not the case.

“I’m really not allowed to say who he is. He is kind of like a Phil Spector kind of guy, but more anonymous. It’s his decision to be out of the public eye because he really doesn’t really want to become famous or for people to know what he’s doing. Obviously we think he is a great songwriter. Otherwise, we would just try to write our own songs. I’m not allowed to say much about him other then he is the initial force behind the band.”

Alrighty. Apparently Fitzsimmons has been sitting on the new songs for the next record and they will start the follow-up in the next couple of months. With all of the attention being heaped on them now, the pressure must be on for the band to deliver twice the raw garage/punk power that was displayed on Veni Vidi Vicious, but Arson says the band could care less.

“We will probably sell more copies of the next record when it first comes out, but I don’t really know how that popularity thing works. We always thought our music was too narrow to become popular. I mean, we do feel pressure about the next record because we are really picky about what we do and we are probably our own worst critics. As far as the hype goes, that doesn’t really affect us.”

With all of the newfound press hoo-hah and gold-record status, it seems the true secret to the Hives’ success is simply shunning it. “The only aspiration we’ve ever had was just to play music,” says Arson. “We never thought we would become popular in any way. We wanted to please ourselves and be one of the best bands we would want to see live, and make some of the best records that we would have in our record collection. I don’t think much has changed. If we didn’t get along with each other, we would just split up the band. We started this band when we were 13, 14 years old, so at this point we are only doing this for ourselves. We just hope that if people are going to like us, then hopefully they will start trying to find better records by other bands. I think that’s enough.” :

With Mooney Suzuki and the Pattern at Club Soda on Sunday, June 9, 8pm, $15