旧文重发。
什么？你问我双方当事人都move on了为什么还发？当然是为了平等地伤害每一个鹅粉。嘻嘻。比心
What has happened to Gustaf Norén?
Text: ERIK EJE ALMQVISTPhoto: MAGNUS BERGSTRÖM
PORTRAIT
From Filter # 49 (March 22, 2016)
As a front figure and songwriter in Mando Diao, he won gold records, drew millions and was worshiped by fans all over the world. Then Gustaf Norén decided to walk in a completely different direction.
Spring sun on the parquet in the Norén family's sex room at Ynglingagatan. Gustaf's fingers drumming towards the dining table. He tries to summarize what has happened in the past year.
- That Gustaf would have gone crazy? No. Gustaf has not gone mad. Gustaf has always been like this.
A black nylon suitcase hangs over his semi-glossy Adidas pants. The head shines.
Just eight months ago, he was still part of the band with which he sold out German hockey teams, won Japanese gold records and played at Conan O'Brien. With their toned Frödingdikter they even conquered the Swedish top public. Got summer talk, perform in Allsång på Skansen and play for the Riksdag and royal family at the opening of the Riksdag in the plenary.
Then came the press release, which explained that Gustaf Norén was no longer part of the band.
That same evening, he hosted the live TV show Breaking News. Already when he entered the pajamas dress with occult patterns, it was clear that this would not be an ordinary interview. Then the viewers saw how a tagged Gustaf Norén explained that he did not leave Mando Diao at all because "Mando Diao does not exist".
When the presenter Fredrik Wikingsson asked if the split might be due to Gustaf and his former songwriter partner Björn Dixgård wishing to make different kinds of music, Gustaf raised his hand: "No, no, no! I don't want to make any kind of music. I've never wanted to do some sort of music! That is unpleasant. "
With ardent arm movements, he then explained that he developed a "new studio that is one hundred percent mobile so that I can make music where I want". He turned to Filip Hammar: "Then I ask you: Do you want to be in a cellar in Akalla or on the top of a mountain? I will be on top of a mountain, take in nature and write and record music. Everyone can listen. I upload it from the mountain only. There are 4G! «
The audience's reactions were characterized by confusion. Several drew comparisons to actor Joaquin Phoenix collapse at David Letterman. Some praised Gustaf's naked nervousness. Others, like TV4's hostess Jessica Almenäs, believed that Channel 5 had "crossed the border" that even sent the interview at all because it was "obvious that he was stone-high".
"People say I'm a madman. And I have no problem being that. But in that case it is not I become the last year. "
A few months later, Gustaf Norén was interviewed by Aftonbladet and explained that, after "a pig productive outing", he wrote a new song that was about "adopting the same reverent relationship that one has to nature even in sex".
Mando Diao fans who discussed Gustaf online became increasingly difficult to understand. The distance to the early years indie rock in narrow folded jeans seemed endless. At Gustaf's Instagram account, they were able to follow how he, wearing home sewn, walked around in the Lapland mountains with a branch on his head.
In his native language of Ynglingagatan, Gustaf strokes his left hand against the cheek.
- People say I'm a madman. And I have no problem being that. But in that case it is nothing I have become the last year.
What was it that really happened then?
He turns his face towards the window, looks over the Stockholm traffic.
- I became too political, simply.
GUSTAF NORÉN WAS ten when he started reading evening prayer. Every evening, after rabblat through the Lord's Prayer , he added his own verse: "Please God, I can not get to make a record?"
Just like everyone else who grew up in the district of Kvarnsveden in Borlänge, he turned early on to the acidic smell of sulfur dioxide that pushed out of the chimneys on Stora Enso's paper mill.
The plant, which was the largest in the world in the early 80s, also constituted a workplace for most adults in the area. Gustaf's parents stuck out. Mamma Kerstin was a curator at Forssaklackskolan, read "all the books that got good reviews" and gladly initiated debates on the Dala-Demokrat's submission page. Dad Jan was a psychologist and bassist in the cover band Sigmund Fröjds.
Growing up as an academy boy in such a distinctive working-class district led to confusion. The family deducted less money than the workers at the mill but were considered "upper class" because the home was not only full of books but also messy, unlike the well-groomed living room of the working children with "glass table, leather sofa and porcelain ornamental shelves".
While Gustaf's classmates listened to Guns N 'Roses and Metallica, he wore round John Lennon glasses and played double bass at the Falun Conservatory. Although he managed to convince all the guys in the class to join the school choir, he felt alone about his cultural interests.
One evening in the park outside the City Hall in Borlänge, when Gustaf and his friends "drank beer and raved about who was full for real and who pretended", he got a look at a guy who stood and ravaged Jussi Björling songs.
Gustaf introduced himself. A friendship took shape. Soon Gustaf was offered a place in Björn Dixgård's band.
After three years at various clubs in the Borlänget Funnel, Aftonbladet's Per Bjurman - also he from Borlänge - named Mando Diao "Sweden's best unsigned band".
A few months later, Gustaf and Björn i gin tonics poured into the quartermaster Stjärnan på Södermalm to celebrate their record contract with EMI.
Bands such as Strokes and Libertines had just become world-famous and created an unexpected demand for teen-age rascal rock. Mando Diao's breakthrough came immediately. Debut EP Motown Blood celebrated. The band was invited to play at Kalasturnen with Thåström and Kent. In interviews, Gustaf posed with a slightly backward bent head for the photographers and invited the reporters on quick-paced reply that his band was better than the Rolling Stones and earned more money than he could keep track of.
- Gustaf was the obvious leader in every way, says the then drummer Samuel Giers. On stage he was like a chaplain. If you played a little too slowly, you got a sour look right away. He had an incredible glow. Without it, we would never have gone so far.
BORN: February 1, 1981 in Borlänge
LIVING: Stockholm and Dala-Floda
FAMILY: Wife and four children
MUSIC: Since 2002, he has released ten best-selling records with Mando Diao. Started the artist collective Caligola with, among others, the Salazar Brothers. He has written songs with Eric Saade and Sophia Somajo and, under the name Ma, adds his own songs on Soundcloud. In January, the songwriter team State of Sound (with Gustaf's brother Victor) released the song Higher Love with Gustaf on vocals.
OTHER: Plays the musician "Gustaf Norén" in Fia-Stina Sandlund's film She's Wild Again Tonight ,
which premiered last year.
For every new record release, Mando Diao sold better abroad. They toured in Japan and the US. Top lists in Switzerland, Austria, Germany. Performed at Conan O'Brien.
"When we first came to Japan and stayed at a luxury hotel, it was a shock to believe that you were a rock star for real," says Samuel Giers. But Gustaf was never satisfied.
With the success, the pressure from the record company increasingly followed the road. At the same time, Gustaf began to question what they were doing. When his wife gave birth to the third child of the couple, he did not feel so attracted to continuing to tour 250 days a year.
One day in 2008, he took the metro's red line to Norsborg to visit the producer brothers Salla and Masse Salazar Campos in the Red Line studio. After a short chat, they started playing together.
- Salla and Masse came from a completely different world, says Gustaf. When they were having a beat, they didn't look for a fucking drummer or a bass player. They were looking in a landscape that ranged from old classical music to electronic.
Soon, it was decided that the Salazar brothers would produce the next Mando Diao disc.
The record company was worried about an overly serious breach of style, but with the disco and funk influences from the brothers Salazar's record collection, Give Me Fire Mando Diao's best selling record was until now.
In the coming years, Gustaf and Björn continued to hang with Masse and Salla in the studio. In 2011, the four artists collective Caligola formed and arranged collaborations with a spectrum of artists, from the rapper Stor to actor Julia Dufvenius and jazz musician Bo Hansson.
- When Gustaf is excited, there is no stop, says Samuel Giers. Everyone in the band became dependent on him and his ideas here and there. When we started to get a lot to do and schedules were sent back and forth, he could suddenly decide: Now we are going to scratch for now my wife and my children in Dalarna. Okay, but all our plans that we had this weekend, we just need to fry them because you decided you would scratch? In the end I said away. That was one of the reasons why I was fired.
Gustaf's next idea was to make poems by Gustaf Fröding.
The result, Infruset , became one of the best selling Swedish records in the 10th century. Gustaf was courted by the record company, who wanted a sequel.
Instead, Mando Diao ran in a different direction. In January 2014, when they premiered the synthesized single Black Saturday , Gustaf and Björn danced in neon lights under the grille of functional clothes and pink Ipad belts.
The record certainly reached the Swedish album list first place, but did not get the same impact at all abroad. The record label, which put millions in studio only, considered it a failure.
During the launch, the differences between the two main characters of the band became increasingly clear. While Björn seemed to prefer to talk about the music, Gustaf, now in platinum-based hair, slipped into increasingly winning reasoning about class, gender and how the digital technology made it easier to question the male-conditioned domains of the music world that were characterized by "real instruments".
At the same time, the artist Fia-Stina Sandlund planned the last part of her feminist film trilogy based on August Strindberg's Miss Julie . The title role should be played by Shima Niavarani. Now Fia-Stina was looking for her Jean.
- I wanted the character to be a male musician who was involved with feminists and was critical of his own industry. Someone with a social pathos and a strong ideological attitude.
After Shima Niavarani advised the director about Gustaf Norén, Fia-Stina listed some old interviews.
- When I saw him talking, I realized he was perfect. Used to be in the center, and at the same time aware of his privileged position as a white man who made a career.
The director's idea was that Shima and Gustaf were to play elevated versions of themselves. The power game would arise while they themselves wrestled with the limitations and privileges they received in their respective gender and professional roles.
»A few years ago I started making small walks in Dalarna. I play and play ukulele or harmonica. «
A process that for Gustaf Norén became unexpectedly painful.
- I played a parody of myself, and it was incredibly difficult to get a view of myself and my ego, he says.
At the same time, the thoughts painted on the band's outgoing record contract. After filming, Gustaf went up to the family's house in Dala-Floda. There he sat at the computer to summarize his view of the record industry. He wrote: "Why does the musician want to own his tune? Does it really want it? I don't think so, I think it's the will of capital. Ownership is the foundation of capital not music. […] I think that all music should be accessible to everyone, always. No charge. […] That's how I want to work. Compose music, record music and then upload it online, free for everyone, to download or stream. «
Then he called Dala-Democrat's editor-in-chief, Göran Greider, also resident in Dala-Floda, and offered him the text for the debate page.
- I sat on the porch when he called, recalls Göran Greider. I noticed that our conversation was productive and suggested that we make a podium together. So I rode over and so we sat in his studio and recorded a call.
A few days later, Björn, Gustaf and their manager Carlos Barth gathered to discuss the future. Gustaf's vision was clear: they would not sign any contracts at all. Instead, they would upload all songs and song sketches for free on the internet. In this way, people all over the world would not only have access to their music, they would also be able to work on the songs and make their own remixes.
This time Björn and Carlos said away. The discussion became loud. Gustaf left the room.
A few days later he received an SMS from Carlos who wondered if it was okay that he sent out a press release: »Since the band recently had different visions, Gustaf Norén now chooses to test new artistic expressions and realize their creative ideas outside Mando Diao. Björn Dixgård and the rest of the band will continue together as Mando Diao and carry out the summer gigs as planned. «
Gustaf's answer was short: "No."
In the afternoon, Sony Music nevertheless spread the news: "Mando Diao and Gustaf Norén go different ways." Then Gustaf soon had a TV studio in Frihamnen. He was invited by the Breaking News editorial to talk about his acting debut in Fia-Stina Sandlund's film. Now he realized that the interview would instead be marked entirely by the news of the breakup.
Before ordering his taxi, he decided to shave off his hair and went down to Ica to buy shavings. When he realized that the only shallow water in the shelves was Ax Africa, the same scent he used when he was fifteen, he began to cry.
At 22.25, 123 000 viewers saw how he entered the TV studio, negated the audience and hugged the hosts. About half an hour later, Twitter boiled.
ONE EVENING IN FEBRUARY , I call Carl Norén, former singer of Sugarplum Fairy, who is now studying to become a sports teacher. He wants to nuance the picture of his big brother:
- I don't think Gustaf has changed much. Sure he has snapped his hair. And right now it is a good opportunity in the record industry to say that you do not want to sell records. What he is doing now, it is more like Madeleine decided to renounce her princess title in order to live normally Svenssonliv. It would never go altogether, because she has still grown up as a princess.
He's silent.
- In addition, it is well that someone who says to the media that he has the ambition to be anonymous is not a completely credible person.
MANDO DIAO
The Mando Diao brand is managed by a company in which Gustaf Norén and Björn Dixgård own 45.5 per cent each. The remaining nine percent is owned by the manager Carlos Barth. With Carlos support Björn can therefore continue to work under the band's name.
A HALF-BARREL SANDWICH sandwich lies on a ladder in the hall. Gustaf Norén has not had time to finish the last after the four children's breakfast.
He puts on coffee and shows around in the bright floor. Stays in the bathroom, where he picks up a deodorant and smears the armpits.
- I would like to start by stating one thing, he says. What do you think I stopped with? I will always do music. What does it mean when you say that Gustaf behaves strange? Mando Diao has lived in a fairly closed world. For a few years in the beginning, I was seduced by all the flair in this disgusting rock industry that only celebrates itself. I became a dead fish and swam along the stream. Had the clothes and the hairstyles that were expected.
He puts back the deodorant in the bathroom cabinet and steps out into the hall.
- This question if I got crazy I heard already in 2007 when we were hanging in Norsborg for five years and let Salla and Masse produce everything we did. Not to mention when we made a record with Frödinglåtar in Swedish.
He mimics a conformist rock fan with exaggerated valley target:
- "What happened to Gustaf?"
- Nothing! I've been doing this all my life. And I have had to contend with Mando all the time.
During the months that have elapsed since the band's split, he has escaped just the fighting. Without obligations to bandmates, record companies and concert organizers, he has flown more freely. Alongside podden Brännässlor with Göran Greider and existential discussions in Malou von Siever's philosophical TV salon, he has initiated musical collaborations with a variety of artists. Become a mouthpiece in a folk music orchestra, released a single with his brother Victor and wrote songs with Sophia Somajo, Eric Saade and a number of strangers he met on the internet. He has also made sleep music, where he plays harmonica "so quiet that the breath is heard as much as the notes". In addition, he has realized the vision that never became reality with Mando Diao: under the name of Ma, he puts up songs on Soundcloud that musicians all over the world can rework and remix.
But above all he has devoted himself to recovering lost time with the family.
- Earlier, when I was inside the bubble and always was going out into the world to play, I felt it was rational to be away from my children 250 days a year. Now I wake up next to my four children every morning and see the many small problems that are born daily. Which I can take part of. It is terrible which doll I have been in the hands of the market.
I ask what he does in the days when his wife goes to work and the children are left at school and kindergarten.
- I walk a lot of sick.
The youth?
- Some years ago I started making small walks in Dalarna. I play and play ukulele or harmonica. The point of the move is that you behave like the music. Music is not stationary, it walks and moves.
Gustaf carries a small guitalele - a sex-strung ukulele - and picks up the strings while he is screaming over the parquet.
- You start going in a different way. And you leave concepts like songs and chords. It is format that only exists for the music to become a product that can be sold. Making the music a hike makes it an experience in itself. You release the music.
So people have looked out of their kitchen windows in Dalarna and wondered: "What is it?" "It's just Gustaf who walks around in the woods and nomadic games?"
- It's nice! Yes, it has been. In Hagaparken, I am always persecuted by the police. You know, the Crown Princess lives there now. And I understand that I look suspicious when I walk around alone and play.
He puts down the guital.
- Do you want to go with sometime?
"Can anyone just go to Kanye and put his hand on him. Please! Help him step down from the stage. "
FOUR DAYS LATER Gustaf, I and the artist colleague Jonas Lundqvist trampled down for Ynglingagatan with the aim set on a mountain in Hagaparken which Gustaf wants to show us.
Gustaf's and Jonas's only previous contact are the music files they have sent to each other over the last month. Since the Bad Cash Quartet, the band Jonas drummed in since his teens, in 2004, he has funded his solo career by working as a tennis coach. When he heard that Gustaf wanted to make music with new people, he immediately found him on Instagram and sent a message. And now Gustaf has invited him on one of his hikes in order for them to have the chance "to like two dogs noses each other in their buttocks".
Jonas is bubbling with enthusiasm and curious questions.
- Damn, what a great thing about a walk. Do you go here every day, Gurra?
Even Gustaf is in the gas. When we left Norrtull's traffic noise, he began to talk about what he calls "my cultural criticism".
- If you would say to any carpenter or garbage collector that the culture is superficial today - they would take it immediately.
Just a hundred meters into the Hagaparken, the promenade has developed into a lecture.
- Think about what music is. There are two tones, G and D, that form a triad that creates a feeling in your body. It has been around for millions of years. But what we think of when we say 'music' is something that was created when you started printing discs. An industry was formed. The music was adapted to what got place on the record and could be sold. We started to think of music as "songs" and "albums". It was then that "Frank Sinatra", "Elvis" and "Beatles" came. The musicians became trademarks.
That, he says, becomes both the music and the artists suffering from.
- It's not fun to be Kanye West. All who become artists are low on the confirmation account from the beginning. That is why they stand on a stage. But they don't feel better about people screaming at them. Instead, we should put them in an armchair and say, "There is no danger, you are as good as you are, Kanye West. Sit down, drink a coffee, take it easy, be with your children. «
He mimics an excited artist:
- "But I have to play and play! I have fans who need me! "
I ask if he speaks of his own experience.
He giggles:
- Yes please.
After passing the Hagaparken's snow-covered tennis courts, Brunnsviken spreads out in front of us. Dark ducks on the white ice.
When we meet a hundred-year-old pensioner, Gustaf turns away from the gravel path and steps out into the snow.
- I have started to think in metaphors all the time. That path means something. You can walk on the path and you can walk freely.
He stops, looks back at the high-rise buildings in his neighborhood to make sure that we are heading in the right direction.
- Now we must not be fooled by the market here, he says and tricks away between the birches.
- Music is released every minute that does not receive the same financial backup and therefore is not visible. It creates a cultural class society, where the only culture we are exposed to is the one per cent . And we have become accustomed to consuming music by looking up at a singing brand. A guy with jeans and t-shirt and guitar who sings about his life, over and over again, in all eternity. And all: "Damn, what good, better than Springsteen! Better than early Stones. Five pluses! "It's racist, because it prevents other kinds of music from being heard and leads to a fear of dissent.
Gustaf is so educated that he does not notice how Jonas's hat gets stuck in a jagged branch.
- But I think it turns. Soon everyone at Håkan Hellström's concert will turn to each other and understand: We are 70,000 people here who want to have fun. And we are 70,000 Håkan Hellström here, we are able to maintain each other. We can devote ourselves to culture based on commonality rather than consumption of goods.
He picks up a mouthpiece from the jack pocket.
- I want to make the music something everyday. Music as an art form is not at all as interesting as music as a form of socializing. As we do now with talk.
He plays the mouthpiece against his lips and starts playing.
- Then the music is like this. Simple, easy, harmless. Impossible to sell.
Jonas Lundkvist giggles.
- This can only come from a man who has lived in his rock star bubble for fifteen years.
THE FOREST SEALS as we move further away from the gravel paths. While we are hitching up for an icy slope Jonas tabs in:
- I think you're doing a cool thing. But when I heard this I thought straight away: Damn, Gurra has lots of children. The cash must enter.
- Everyone says so, says Gustaf. But the only thing I know is that every time I have gone against what the record companies have said, I have made more money than if I listened to them.
- But please, say you have that you can manage for a while anyway? says Jonas. I hate to hear about people who have worn music for decades and have bad cash.
Gustaf admits that he can probably live on royalties from old Mando Diao songs for ten years. Especially as he reduced his expenses and began to "explode" the family's plot in Dala-Floda to become increasingly self-sufficient. In addition, he has the ambition to get employment as a teacher in the municipal music school.
- Look! We have arrived.
Soon we will be standing on a tree-free hill with a view of all directions. To the east, Danderyd's villas glimpse. South of the inner city's hills and the church tower. West Solna's hotel and shopping complex.
While we take in the prospect, Jonas tries to highlight a positive aspect of the situation in the industry.
- I think it is so wonderful now, when we are no longer cool. Zara Larsson is a hundred times cooler than us. A young feminist girl who writes on Instagram about everything she stands for. The five-year-olds who follow her are as changed as you and I were by Kurt Cobain.
Gustaf fixes Jonas with his eyes.
- Is it good, or? It is like saying: We have changed the king to a queen, so everything is okay, though we have left the monarchy. The system where someone can stand on a scene and say, "I'm the shit ."
He shakes himself.
- There is a Zara Larsson in every fucking class. That we only see one depends only on the armies of people who work with PR. There is nothing that distinguishes Zara Larsson from another 15-year-old girl in human or cultural value, besides any fucking figure. Number of discs sold, number of followers, number of grammars. Fuck them!
- Gustaf, I love how you ... how you're doing. I understand that ...
- But those prices say nothing about the culture. If so, they would just say that men are best and whites are best and rock and indie are the best. And it doesn't help to award prizes to blacks and girls. This is because there are cultures that are not based on placements and stacks. But the record industry is a cuckoo kid who shoots away all other culture: Indian, Chinese, Arabic, South American and African music are difficult to cope with. Religious music, folk music, techno - music that is not based on being sold but on being experienced.
Gustaf stomping the boot against the snow.
- I understand that one can think that it is rational to go to a record store and buy a record that has received good grades and everything is good. But today we have a community on the internet where it comes a Kanye West in a minute. You no longer have to worry about that zero that feels super poor of its halo. It screams so damn badly. Can anyone just go to Kanye and put his hand on him. Please! Help him to step down from the stage.
Jonas breaks off:
- I think that this whole thing where you are sitting four guys in a bus and going out and playing - what life has stopped quite recently for you, are you with? All this you experience now, you will experience for the first time.
Jonas looks down at Hagaparken.
- Damn, shouldn't we just go down from the mountain and take a carry?
BACK IN THE apartment, Gustaf Norén pulls out a laundry bag on the floor and begins to sort dirt clothes.
I ask how he thinks about talking to the media about his willingness to leave the public.
- My idea was that Mando Diao would be pioneers in devaluing themselves. Instead, I now try to step down myself. But it is difficult to fundamentally change my behavior. We are all just as sick today as we think we need all these numbers to hang out - how many likes your Instagram picture, how much you earn or how many people like your shirt. The intention must come before the act. I'm just on the road.
And while you publicly disagree with men who "want to fight and save the world," do you do that for your fight?
- I for that discussion with myself every day. First, I think I should make a political statement, then: "Just go down the stage in silence, Gustaf." I would really need an antibus in my arm not to wake up with the thought "now I will perform".
He looks down at the pile of children's clothes on the parquet.
- I have so easy to do everything for a project: Now I wash and clean! I'm going to be the king of kings!
Footnote: Filters have spoken to Carlos Barth, who did not want to say more than that "Gustaf is a super intelligent and very creative person". Björn Dixgård has declined to comment on the split.
