As kids, Peter Moren and Bjorn Yttling would spend hours watching snowflakes fleck a midnight-black sky. Growing up within Sweden’s Arctic circle, the two friends knew what it was to live at the furthest edge of civilisation.
This, perhaps, explains, why their music appears to strain towards the light, a light that seems always just beyond reach. Recording as Peter, Bjorn and John (another boyhood chum, John Errickson, completes the trio), their sad, strange band has a sunshine pop sound and a heart of purest winter.
“It was very, very isolated, growing up where we did,” says Bjorn. “Discovering new music was certainly a struggle because it wasn’t as if you could just pop down to the record store. The winters were extremely long, extremely dark. You felt an eternity away from the rest of the world.”
Holding court in Dublin’s Market Bar, a fashionable beer hall apparently modeled on a Spanish cobblers’ market (brogues are stacked, Catalan-style, to the roof), Peter and Bjorn are contemplating their nascent pop career. ‘Nascent’ because, despite having three albums under their belt, the trio (John is taken up with promotional duties elsewhere) recently signed to V2 records and are basking in a new-found prominence (‘Young Folks’,the lead single from their latest album, has been enjoying heavy radio play). The novelty of all this doesn’t, it’s worth pointing out, exactly thrill them to bits.
A certain ambivalence towards the mainstream seems, in fact, to be a calling card of the trio. It is writ large over their accessible yet rather bleak new record, Writer’s Block, a suite of deft melodies and dark lyrics.
“There’s a tension between the lyrics and the songs, which is something we like,” explains Bjorn. “At first glance, the songs may sound like straightforward pop. But we like to think something more interesting is going on beneath the surface.”
Typical of the album is the aforementioned ‘ Young Folk’, a boy/girl duet between Peter and The Concretes’ Victoria Bergsman, wherein two lovers swap sad reminisces over a happy/sad melody. For all its polish, the song is, in its bones, a dirge.
“The idea was to write a classic back-and-forth ballad,” explains Bjorn. “We approached Victoria because we knew her voice would be perfect. The track was finished before she even came to the studio. She just had to sing her part.”
Sweden, not unlike Ireland, is a relatively small place. Mention of the Stockholm scene prompts Bjorn to pull a face.
“Right now, Stockholm is full of dreadful synth-pop duos. They’re dire, absolutely awful.”
Asked whether he refers to bands in the vein of electro-rock brother/sister outfit The Knife, his frown deepens. “Well yes. Except, unlike The Knife, they’re all crap.”
At this point, Peter feels duty-bound to interject: “Actually, there are a lot of really great bands in Stockholm as well. It’s like any city – there are many scenes and some are more rewarding than others. Over the years, I think Sweden, and Scandinavia in general, has always been very quick to pick up on new music. We were getting into jazz and blues before the rest of Europe, the music was coming to us straight off the boats from America.”
What about Lordi? Were Peter Bjorn and John cheering the latex metal-warriors as they romped to first place in the Eurovision?
Bjorn scowls again, although this time a smile plays around the lips.
“Oh yeah, Lordi. Yeah, for sure, we love Lordi.”