SOLBLOT - Nostalgie, Neofolk, Nackedeis

The original SOLBLOT interview in English ...

In an article I just read the author wrote about SOLBLOT as a "romantic Swedish boy band". Do you agree with that characteristic?

Well, we are hardly boys any more. Even with today's more liberal standards, we are soon to become middle-aged. As for Swedish and romantic, one could say it's a fairly accurate description.

So far, you didn't mention any names, not even on your homepage or on myspace. Therefore you have to excuse this basic question: Who are you? Could you introduce yourself?

Solblot at the moment consists of two persons, who have been working together in different musical projects for almost fifteen years, often creating what can be considered to border on art music. Seen in this perspective, Solblot is just another exploration of how to create music within a strict, conceptual framework, in this case Swedish romantic nationalism. That is how we work. In a sense, Solblot is more of a theoretical creation than a personal conviction, and that makes the question of who we are on a personal level less interesting.

You are all from Scania, if my investigations were right. In historical dimensions, a very eventful province which stroves for independence till this day. What influence does your home province have on your music?

Your investigations are impressive, but partly wrong, unfortunately. None of us are from Scania, but we have been living here for quite some time now. But we are not part of any independence movement, nor are such ideas taken seriously by anyone these days. If our (new) home province has inspired us in any way, it's more likely a reaction against it and a nostalgic longing for the part of Sweden where we both grew up.

The folkloristic clothes you wear during your concerts – do they originate from your home province?

Our clothing is loosely based on and inspired by traditional clothes, but they do not correspond to any specific provincial style. The colours we wear, blue and yellow, derive, of course, from the Swedish banner.

Does your band name SOLBLOT ('Sunblood'??) have any special meanings? As I heard from you the first time, I thought of Black Metal or Military Pop…

That is actually not the correct interpretation of our name, but it seems to be a quite common misunderstanding. “Sol” obviously means “Sun”, while “blot” is the old Scandinavian word for a religious sacrifice. A “solblot” would be a sacrifice to the sun, a word that is not describing a historical fact or custom, but is made up to represent the aesthetic ideal behind our music.

Obviously, you don't resist to be categorized as a Neofolk band. You perform with correlative bands such as BACKWORLD, SONNE HAGAL or NEBELUNG. Some years ago, you were interviewed by a norwegian newspaper and you sketched the neofolk scene as very humanistic and broad-minded. Do you still comply with that definition?

Yes, we believe that one of the basic characteristics of the Neofolk scene is its open-minded and tolerant nature. It does consist of a broad variety of bands with different and sometimes quite irreconcilable styles and  ideals, and the audience is often heterogeneous in a similar manner. The normal and the extreme are just as readily accepted, which is one of the most sympathetic characters and a great benefit for the creativity of the whole genre.

An interview with a daily newspaper about Neofolk – does this fact reveal a relaxed handling with this musical genre in Scandinavia in general?

Neofolk is probably treated in a quite relaxed way in Scandinavia. There is no reason to handle it differently. But it is a small and obscure scene that the media in general has little interest in, which is completely understandable and suits us fine.

It's rather unusual for musicians to publish such an offensive statement as we can read it on your homepage. It declares amongst others that you see "the unique value of all human beings regardless of nationality, ethnic heritage, colour of skin, sexual orientation, religion or political beliefs". What lead you to this step?

We don't consider it to be very offensive. It is a very mainstream and uncontroversial statement, that we happen to agree with. The only reason to publish it was that some people apparently believed us to have a completely different view on such things, so there was a need for extensive clarification that normally isn't necessary.
 
Did you already cancel concerts because you didn't want to play together with bands that don't state their political respectively non-political beliefs as clearly as you do?

No. As a band, we don't care much about the political beliefs of others, no matter whether they are stated clearly or not at all. In theory, everyone is only responsible for their own opinions, and is free to choose whether to express them publicly or to keep them private. In reality however, it's very easy to become associated with ideas that you haven't expressed any sympathy for, nor share on a private level. And when those ideas are commonly agreed upon as being completely socially unacceptable, you will have to pay a very high price for standing up for something that you don't believe in at all. That is the only reason we once had to cancel our concert at a musical event, which at the time was a very hard decision to make but in retrospect clearly turned out to be the only right choice.

Amongst Folk and Neofolk lovers, you are well-established, although you didn't release more than a 7inch single with three songs nor played an immoderate ammount of concerts. Can you explain this particular circumstance?

We don't consider ourselves well-established, apart maybe from among a very exclusive audience. We are however very thankful for the appreciation we have received so far, even though we don't have a good explanation for it.

How do we have to imagine the audience of a SOLBLOT concert?

So far, none of our audiences have looked the same. We generally prefer to play before an audience who knows a little bit about us or at least have a general idea about what neofolk music is all about, but it's surprisingly often not the case. So it is very hard for us to imagine a typical Solblot-audience, it all depends on the event and the circumstances under which it takes place.

Last year (2009) you played on the WGT in Leipzig. You dedicated one song („Medborgarsång“) to ANDREAS RITTER (FORSETI) who is still critically ill. How are you connected to him?

We have been big fans of Forseti almost since the beginning. We had discussed making completely acoustic neofolk music with lyrics in our native tongue before, and when we first heard Forseti we realized that he had already executed this idea perfectly. Later we met Andreas during concerts and got to know him, and when we ourselves made our first musical attempts within this genre, he was the first person who actually heard something we had recorded. That was an early demo of “Medborgarsång”, and the appreciation and encouragement he gave us at that time was very important.

Are you in contact with him, what do you know about his state of health?

We are very sad about what happened to Andreas, about losing a friend and one of our favourite bands at the same time. The significance of Forseti for the development of neofolk music can hardly be overestimated, and we are absolutely certain that his music will always continue to inspire new audiences.

During the last years you often announced the first full SOLBLOT album. Now we can read once again that you nearly finished the recording, even the songtitles are set. When will your album be in stores across Europe?

We are closer now than ever before... But we have also learned from past experience not to make any promises. We are both very occupied with our professional and family lives, which naturally must take the highest priority. All we can say is that we are at the moment working actively on finishing the album, and we are clearly seeing the end of that process that has been going on for way too long now.

Concerning the lyrics on your album – did you use further poems from VERNER VON HEIDENSTAM? What does he and his work represent to you?

Verner von Heidenstam is actually the author behind all lyrics on the forthcoming album. He was a great and highly respected poet during his lifetime, but has since then been discredited and more or less fallen into oblivion. We are not trying to restore his former glory, as that would be impossible: there is no natural place for his kind of writing in the modern age. But he and his poems are the ideal companions to our music, as they represent the same romantic vision and share the same aesthetic concept.

A polemic question: Do you think that in past Swedish ages life was better?

Sweden used to be a poor country in the outskirts of Europe without much significant culture. We have the modern times to thank for our prosperity. The land we honour in our songs is not today's Sweden, nor is it what this country used to be. It's an ideal, a mythological and remote place that has never existed outside the minds of a few people. It is not reality, and it probably never will be.

Although there is only one phonogram from SOLBLOT, as I mentioned before, you run a fanshop with tons of t-shirts, bags and even a thong underwear. How hot is your merchandising?

We probably sell more merchandise than music. The t-shirts will make you look great as they not only display your distinguished taste in music, they also make you look very fit. And from our wide experience the thong is always appreciated!

On a lot of SOLBLOT photo motifs, we can see lucky and naked men and women. Are you followers of nudism?

In theory, yes.

=> zurück zum Start

Neue Artikel bequem per Email*

Email-Adresse

Name

*Du bekommst max. eine Nachricht pro Woche mit allen neuen Artikeln.
Du kannst die Wochenschau jederzeit abbestellen.