Viagra Boys have been writing for a year and are about to start making a record out of it. Speaking to NME backstage at Reading Festival, where the Swedish six-piece played the Gallery Stage, frontman Sebastian Murphy said the band has spent the past year in the studio recording demos and riffs, with two shows left on the current tour before they go and live there.
What it will sound like is not settled. Murphy said it is too early to pin down, on the grounds that whatever it sounds like now probably will not be what it sounds like later. Keyboard player Elias Jungqvist offered eclectic, and Murphy amended it to eclectic rock and roll.
Jungqvist did name one thread running through the album, and attributed it to bassist Henrik Hockert, who skipped the interview to watch Liverpool play Nottingham Forest on his phone. Hockert had spent the previous day shouting about emotions being the only way. He is just now finding out about emotions, Murphy said.
The band were also asked whether they knew Viagr Aboys was going to break them when they were making it. Murphy said he has too much self-loathing for that. Jungqvist added that the day they feel that feeling is the day to quit, and guitarist Linus Hillborg admitted he was surprised people liked it as much as they did.
That record was their first with an official self-production credit, co-produced with Pelle Gunnerfeldt of Fireside. Murphy described an outside perspective as useful up to a point and unhelpful past it, and argued the band gets one internally anyway because there are six of them: one person's idea is another person's least favourite thing, which he considers healthy.
It was also the first album they made in their own room. Shrimptech Enterprises, their headquarters in a former cement factory in Stockholm, gave them time to try riffs in different shapes and keys rather than work to a booked session, and Jungqvist said that was the big change. They intend to carry on in the same space, with one complication: the building is going to be demolished. Murphy said he hopes somebody tells them first.
The new record joins the coming rock schedule on the release calendar once it has a date. Viagra Boys played the same Reading weekend that carried Royal Blood's secret Gallery set and the site's Spotify playlist tie-in.
The facts
- Viagra Boys have spent a year recording demos and riffs in the studio.
- They go back into the studio after two more tour dates.
- Elias Jungqvist described the new material as eclectic.
- Jungqvist said one thread through the album is emotions.
- Viagr Aboys was co-produced with Pelle Gunnerfeldt of Fireside.
- It was their first official self-production credit.
- It was recorded at Shrimptech Enterprises, their Stockholm base in a former cement factory.
- That building is due to be demolished.
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