Spice Boys - “Glade” | An Interview & Album Review
Spice Boys are back after their 2016 “Spice City” EP with their high octane debut album, “Glade”. The Swedish garage-rock band recorded 16 tracks over a hectic weekend in their hometown of Umeå, Sweden, and perfected them over the course of the next year. The time taken to perfectly craft this album was well worth the wait, as “Glade” is a force to be reckoned with, encapsulating the sound and feeling of urban frustration. Heavily influenced by the San Francisco garage scene, it opens up with “Spice City Boys” - a surf rock/psychedelic chaotic romp. It’s a fantastic opener, as it sets the sound for the rest of the LP. They carry this energy almost all the way through the album, deviating only on their track “Citrus Blossom”, for a perfectly placed, serene, and melodic intermission that refreshes you for the rest of the mayhem that ensues. The highlights of this album include the aggressive jam in “I Don’t Get Around”, the brief emotional headbanger that is “Fuk Luv”, and the raucous riot of “Vessel”.If you haven’t listened to Spice Boys yet, you definitely will be in the future, as this band definitely here to stay and is making their mark on the garage rock scene.I was able to talk with Sebastian Holmlund and Adam Forsberg from the band about “Glade”, the process of making the album, as well as what the band looks towards going into the future.“What was it like for you guys making this album?”Adam: “It was trying and fun but i think that when we recorded the album but I think when we recorded the album the process was we recorded the songs over a weekend in two days”.Sebastian: “Yeah everything 16 songs in two days.”Adam: “There were a lot of unfortunate incidents like we had to borrow a lot of equipment and that took some time and then we worked on overdubs, mixing, and producing.”Sebastian: “We wanted it to sound more expensive than a classic garage album, like Brian Wilson. So we took a long time to do the overdubbing and finding the right sound. It sounds so wildly different than the eight tracks we started out with, it’s like night and day...I think it’s a process before it starts, and then during you’re making it, then after it’s still a process like you’re never really finished.”“How do you guys think your sound will change going forward and what do you look towards in the future?”Sebastian: “It’s always ambitious to say that. Me and Adam write songs separately as a songwriting team but not related. So we come up with a song and see what we do with it and i think that’s great because it makes for a lot of diversity in songwriting. We listen to a lot of different music so it’s always exciting and a little competing to have that kind of talent. We will see. It’s hard to say at this point. We are probably going to record a new album this spring”“I know that it’s forward thinking to start talking about all of that but I think it’s important to think about what’s coming next.”Sebastian: “Focusing on the next thing is the most important think you know? This album took a year and a half to record and produce so it’s very old songs for us. It feels very good to start with something else.”“How do you guys feel about the album? Do you like it the way it is? Are there any things you wish you could change about it? Or a combination of the two?”Adam: “We’re very proud of it! I think it’s really good and of course when I listen to it I still hear things i want to add and change maybe but in the whole I like it.”Sebastian: “Yeah i think we did the most with the songs we had and it’s like that’s the period that has gone from my life and it feels better now when its out and you don’t work with it so now i can feel glad about it but for a long time i didn’t feel so good about it but now when it’s released and it’s something that’s out there.”Adam: “Yeah and I think always it’s like that during creative processes. Feeling bad, feeling like what what you’re doing sounds like shit you know haha but that’s what pushes you to make it good and reaching.”Interview by Luis Rodriguez // Speaker of the House
