Interview w/ Backyard Babies’ Nicke from Munich, Germany
by Sabine
The Backyard Babies are back on the map with a new record called‚ People like People like People like Us’. I had the opportunity to sit down with their mastermind Nicke at their tourstop in Munich. Here’s what he had to say.
Sabine: First of all, how are you?
Nicke: I’m good. Very good.
I thought you were hungover.
Yes, but it could be a lot worse. I could be hungover at home. I’d rather be hungover in Munich.
Last year you went on tour with Social Distortion. Then you said that you guys would probably take a break for maybe a year or something. And now you just came back here with a new record. How come?
Actually we wanted to take a break after ‘Stockholm Syndrome’. We played so many gigs. We were constantly touring for 1 1⁄2 years. But after we came back home we all felt alright and we basically went straight back to rehearsing. Then we wrote songs. And we changed the record company and they wanted a new album out. So we said, ok, we will give it a try. Coming off a tour, we never really tried to start writing new songs straight after that. But it turned out pretty good because of all the impressions we had that were still kinda fresh. And we were also a lot better as a band. We always played really tight because we just played together so much.
I was just wondering how you did it at all. I mean, when did you write the songs?
You know, we tried to write on the road. But I don’t think that we are the band that should write songs on the road. There’s plenty more stuff to do than to sit down and write a song. I was kinda surprised myself that we wrote those sings pretty fast. It just came straight from the air… just bang and it was there. And we were excited to use Nicke Andersson (Hellacopters) as a producer.
Why Nicke Andersson? Did you come up with that idea?
Yeah, you know. Because the last two albums ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ and ‘Making Enemies is Good’ we did most of the stuff in Los Angeles. And we had an American producer which we really liked. But nobody wanted to have that American kind of sound on this album. We basically wanted to take it to another direction. And Nicke Andersson is a very good friend of the band. We all respect him a lot as a very talented musician and song writer. And of course, Dregen and Nicke played in the Hellacopters together. So we just asked him if he wanted to produce our new album. I think that he was kind of a bit scared as well. But we were really happy that he agreed to do it and as you can hear the result turned out really, really good.
Why is it called ‘People like People like People like Us’?
I love that title. It was actually a journalist in America who was in our tour bus after the gig and he was puzzled about how many different kind of people were at our show. There were like from teen skate kids to big old Hell’s Angels guys to silicon girls to normal people in suit and tie. Some people were just there who did not seem to care much about the show but that was the place to be that night. We didn’t really have a good answer to that so I just said that I guess people just like people like people like us. Then I thought, huh, that’s a funny word play. So it just comes down to the fact that we are a rock band who have been playing for many, many, many years now. And we are still the same guys and we just do what we believe in. And I guess that’s pretty rare these days. And people can see through that, through what they get on TV and stuff and they know that our band is true rock.
How is the sound of the new record?
For some reason our sound always changes on every record. It’s not that we do this on purpose, though. I think we became a lot better as musicians. On this record we went on first takes a lot more and not overdo everything. Because otherwise the song gets lost if you try to get the perfect guitar parts or the perfect vocals. And it gets pretty boring. On this record we just played together as a band. That’s really the main difference, I think. Maybe the song versions are not perfect but they are very groovy so we kept this instead of trying to create the perfect recording. Just listen to any Rolling Stones record or Guns’n’Roses’ ‘Appetite For Destruction’ there’s not a perfect version. But it’s THAT version, you know.
Why did you decide to go on tour in Europe again and not in the US? I think, people in the US are really looking forward to seeing you on stage again.
We try to go on tour everywhere. But you can’t be at two places at the same time.
I am asking because you just went on tour through Europe.
No, that Social Distortion tour was uh… we weren’t planning to do it. But they asked us if we wanted to be their special guest and since we’re very good friends and we did not want to turn them down so we decided to open up again for them in Europe. Basically we weren’t supposed to do that tour. We were supposed to take a break or write songs or whatever. So the record’s out now in Europe and we’ll go to Japan after this. Then after Japan we’ll go to Australia and then again America.
Ok, that was it. Thank you very much!
