PAUL: “Can I have all your full names, what you do in the band and your ages please?”
WDD: “Daniel Palm, I’m 30 yrs and I do vocal duties in the Dept as well as act as a general big-mouth. Christian Lundqvist, 28 yrs and handles the four strings in the band. Fredrik Andersson, 23 yrs and take care of all the nice guitar noises. Niklas Sandell, 19 yrs and likes to hit hard and steady on the drums.”
PAUL: “Can I please have a brief history of how WDD came to be a band and how you differ from your previous incarnations?”
WDD: “Daniel: Me and Christian met through his band Belltown back in 1997. We played together for a few years and released an EP in early 2000. However, a year from that we felt that we had come to a creative dead end. However, Just 2 days after Belltown broke up, Christian and Damir hooked up with Jonas Olander and started to play some new music without a special destination. Luckily the interest was huge and just 4 weeks later the band had a show booked at a club festival in Stockholm. At this point they just called me up to see if I was into it and off course I was. So this is how WDD first came about. We released an EP in early 2002 when I and Christian began to realize that this new band deserved more attention. Until then we had just played for kicks and for the fun of making songs. But both of us felt that we wanted to make a more serious effort with our music. We felt that the music really started to connect with our political message into something we really liked, a hard but melodic statement against militarism and capitalistic exploitation as well as the dull, stagnated sound of rock’n roll music in general. Our drummer and guitarist didn’t feel the same way however, so we had to part ways in the late summer of 2003. With a great deal of luck we quickly found replacements in Fredrik Andersson and Niklas Sandell. Both of them really connected with our previous work and added a ton of energy to our overall sound. We quickly decided to record a few new songs to see how the music would turn out. I think that we are all very pleased with the ‘Propaganda Promo’, and it is surely an indication of the direction for the upcoming full length album.
PAUL: “Which bands influence your sound?”
WDD: “Daniel: Music-wise, I like System Of A Down, Electric Wizard, Entombed, Unsane, Machine Head and similar bands. For vocal and lyrical inspiration, I listen a lot to Zach de la Rocha, Serj Tankian (SOAD), Mike Patton and Peter Dolving (Mary Beats Jane). Unfortunately there is no shortage of inspiration for lyrics about power abuse or oppression in our world these days.
Christian: For me personally, it’s not a specific band or a genre that influences me that much. It’s more a vibe or a groove from a song I could be influenced by, and it could be everything from a cool Bjork song to a brutal Messhugga riff.”
PAUL: “A lot of bands hate the ’emo’ tag, do you think you are an emo band, a punk band or a metal/hardcore band?”
WDD: “Christian: Personally, I don’t mind the emo tag at all, but the sad thing is that most emo bands are just dead boring with crappy singers. I think we have some emo/hc/rock vibes in our sound, but most important we focus on raw energetic music with great melodies.
Daniel: I wouldn’t call us emo either. I think that we play rock’n roll with a hardcore attitude. But we do have an emotional element in our sound that most hc bands lack. We do have melodies in our music, but only to get our message of revolution, solidarity and love into the heads of pop-listeners. It is a well-planned propaganda strategy to get into the minds of people who would never listen to a political band otherwise.”
PAUL: “How would you describe the new record to someone who hasn’t heard it?”
WDD: “Daniel: Hard, melodic, political and a pointer toward the future of rock’n roll.
Christian: It’s raw, groovy, melodic and not a bit sexy.”
PAUL: “Who produced the record and what was the recording experience like compared to
your previous work?”
WDD: “Daniel: Except from borrowing a few microphones from a friend, the ‘Propaganda Promo’ is strictly DIY by the Dept. We recorded the whole thing on our portable studio in our rehearsal room, mixed it and mastered it on our own computer. The cover photo was taken by my girlfriend and the rest of the cover and the CD labels are also made by us. I think the DIY process has been more rewarding than our previous recordings. Since we now are almost self reliant equipment-wise, we can turn more focus into the music and not feel any stress due to limited studio time or lack of money. It has also learned us a lot about the whole process of making a record and the amount of time involved. It also feels good that the band has complete control over the process through every step.
Christian: It’s definitely been a more DIY vibe this time and I think it reflects where the band is right now, but for the full length album I can see us bring in an outsider to help us with ideas that we normally wouldn’t think of. I know we can relay on ourselves to do a great job, but it’s real good to have an outsider coming in with fresh ears and ideas.”
PAUL: “How does the songwriting process work? Who writes the lyrics and who comes up
with the music itself?”
WDD: “Daniel: Usually Christian or Fredrik come up with a few riffs that we try out together. Then we spend a few sessions trying out arrangements and adding or removing elements in the song. Often I use a nonsense melody to make out the vocal parts, and then I make a tape recording of the raw song and try out lyrical ideas over a period of time. This means that a song can experience one, two or sometimes three different vocal styles and words before it’s finished. Eventually it all comes together nicely, or it gets canned in favor of a new song. Our problem has never really been the lack of songs, rather to deal with an abundance of ideas that we never get the time to try out…
Christian: Yeah, but some songs like Babushka Dolls and The New Guidance is just pure jam session songs from the beginning to the end. In these cases it’s often I starting to play a weird bass riff and the others join in and after a couple of minutes we have a brand new song.”
PAUL: “Do you have any views on the UK scene at all?”
WDD: “Daniel: I know that one of my favourite bands come from the UK, Electric Wizard. Other than that I am sadly uninformed about the current bands. But generally I am happy to see that there is more of an underground scene with bands, bookers, clubs, webzines and small independent labels working together to counter all of the mainstream crap that the major labels and most radio stations try to sell us.
Christian: Not more than I know that it’s a hell of a better scene in the UK than there is in Sweden. A couple of my favourite bands are from UK, such as Hundred Reasons, OMS (rip), Pitchshifter (rip). Hopefully we get down to the UK for a couple of shows in 2004 so we could see how the scene is with our own eyes.”
PAUL: “What plans do you have for 2004?”
WDD: “D aniel: First of all we want to get back on stage with our new line-up and our new songs. Then we must make a selection from our heap of material to start the long overdue recordings of our album. From there it will be all smooth and easy. Stardom, an overthrow of G W Bush and his fellow warmongers and exploiters, and to top it all a raised global consciousness over the issues that make our world a cruel and depressing one. Personally I must get my motorcycle together as well.
Christian: The stage is waiting for us, really looking forward that. But most important is off course the recording and the release of the album “The Awkward Silenceâ€. From my point of view 2004 looks to be the best year for me ever.”
You can download the entire EP from the following links:
Instant Hate Syndrome
June 16th
http://www.wonderlanddementationdept.com/June%2016th.mp3
The New Guidance
Disinfotainment
Babushka Dolls