They Live by Night

No more blogging

2007-03-08T02:38:00.000-08:00

We will stop using this blog and publish all news at our new website. The adress is still www.thelivebynight.com and it will be up and running in a few days. Bye for now.

Album and single delayed

2007-01-23T11:16:00.000-08:00

New release dates:
Factory (single) - February 28th.
Art and Wealth (album) - March 28th.
The reason for this is our never ending dedication to detail.
We are sorry for the delay, but it will be worth it.
Keep an eye out for new songs on our MySpace during February and March.

Yours truly
TLBN

Our new single up on MySpace

2007-01-20T09:13:00.000-08:00

You really should visit our MySpace profile and listen to Factory, the first single from the forthcoming album Art and Wealth. This is the exquisite single cover, by Cajsa von Zeipel. Cajsa will be creating the artwork for the album too, you're gonna want the poster, the t-shirt, everything.

Art and Wealth

2007-01-07T08:46:00.000-08:00

They Live by Nights debut album will be called Art and Wealth. Razzia Records will release it in Scandinavia on the 14th of march.

Right now the album is undergoing mix therapy. Next week we will go to Stockholm to master the single Factory and look at Cajsa von Ziepels artwork for the album. We will also be shooting a video for Factory in the next few weeks.

Julskive-recension

2006-12-11T04:30:00.000-08:00

Det lackar mot jul och Razzias julskiva Oh no...it's christmas börjar få lite av den uppmärksamhet den förtjänar. Helsingborgs dagblad skriver fint om den. Och om oss, vilket förstås är avgörande för att vi ska blogga om den.

New single: Factory

2006-12-09T08:24:00.000-08:00

The first single from our debut album will be released in Scandinavia on the 7th of february. The name of the song is Factory.

The recording is finished

2006-12-04T05:17:00.000-08:00

Last week we recorded the last parts for the album. Today Andreas will send us rough mixes of the eleven songs we have recorded and Razzia will decide what track will be the first single, to be released in Scandinavia on february 7th. The album will be released on march 14th.

When the single is picked we will start to work on visual concept for the album and single, including the video and the website, which will be totally reconstructed (AT LAST!!!).

We will probably put some new tracks on our MySpace before the album is released, so keep your eyes open. If you're on the mailing list you will get messages about this stuff (if the list hasn't fallen to rusty pieces, we haven't used it for ages...)

Here are some pictures from the recording, we'll keep the funny/naked ones to ourselves, sorry:
The first snow of the year fell on our first morning.

Andreas, producer hero.

Oh, so THIS is what a studio looks like! *gasp*

The bald man...now with suitable hairdo.

It's a brave new rock direction! And so cute...

The only remains of our garden party.

Andreas again, as drawn by Robin.

Intervju om julskivan

2006-11-09T10:31:00.000-08:00

Man kan läsa en liten intervju med Joel ur Borås Tidning här. Det handlar om låten vi har med på Razzias julsamling Oh no...it's christmas. Ni kan beställa skivan från vår hemsida så har ni den så fort den är ute (15 november).

Christofer och Robin lägger piano i rummet utanför. Det låter helt fantastiskt.

All is well in the countryside

2006-11-08T15:51:00.000-08:00

Things are going well down in Skåne. We're almost done with the instrumental tracks. The vocals will be recorded in Göteborg later this month. Right now it's late and since we get up and have breakfast before 9 am everyday we really should go to bed soon. Right now Christofer and Robin are playing a hockey game on the Xbox. The score is even, looks like another hard-knit fight.

Andreas (producer) and I went to see Yo la tengo play at KB in Malmö last saturday. They were brilliant for 90 minutes. Then they went offstage only to come back for TWO sets of encores. It all went boring then, no magic or energy left. Note to self - never do sets over 90 minutes no matter how many songs you're sitting on.

Robin just scored. 1-0 and Arne Hegerfors salutes him.

Everyday is like sunday down here, but the greatest sunday of them all was the 5th of november. At least for me, proud supporter of champions!

Christofer just equalized. They're tapping those buttons like their life depended on it. I'm going to shut down now. Recorded guitar for 12 hours today.
Goodnight.
//Joel

Driving south

2006-10-30T14:38:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow we're off to the Mission hall studio outside of Lund, where we will begin recording our debut album. We're all sick, stressed out and exhausted but still all spirits are high. We pack warm sweaters, dvd's, books and twelve songs. You might have heard a few of them before but most of them are brand new. And of course we changed the old ones too. Switched keys and whatnot.

This is it.

Keep your fingers crossed.

New release date

2006-10-16T14:37:00.000-07:00

The release date for Oh no...it's christmas has been changed. It will be in stores on november 15th. Visit Razzias homepage to view most of the tracklist.

Studio booked!

2006-10-03T02:24:00.000-07:00

We will start recording our album on the 1st of november, in a studio outside of Lund in the far south of Sweden. It feels wonderful. We've waited such a long time for those dates to be set.

New song released 22/11!

2006-10-01T12:01:00.000-07:00

We have spent the last month working on a song for Razzias new christmas collection Oh no...it's christmas. Writing a song with a certain theme can be pretty hard and it took a lot of time to get it right. After hours of trying to write laments for Santa we stuck with writing a Lucia song. It's called Lucia (I Deserve Some Candles In My Hair).

For those of you who don't know about the Lucia tradition, it's a celebration of a sicilian saint that has turned into a beauty contest. Most schools have their own contests where one girl wins the title as Lucia and get to sing solo and lead the pageant on the 13 of december. When I was in school the popular blonde girl would always win and the others would get sent back into the choir. I guess that the voting was considered some kind of a democracy exercise by the teachers, but it was pretty obvious that the voting was all about rank among the kids. One time some of my classmates tried to vote a bullied girl Lucia because they knew she was too shy to stand in front of a crowd. I think she withdrew pretty early on, when she understood they were only taking the piss. Ever since those days the whole Lucia thing has made me kind of sick, so we wrote a song about it.

The collection Oh no...it's christmas will be out on november 22nd, we are featured among some other real classy swedish acts (I guess you could view it as a songwriting contest, kind of a paradox there...) Hope you'll enjoy it!
//Joel
By the way; the best pop christmas song ever is River by Joni Mitchell. It's on the Blue album, so go listen to it.

Emmaboda

2006-08-19T02:41:00.000-07:00

Photo by Jerry Boman

So we played Emmaboda, the best festival we know. And of course God or whoever had to rain on our parade. I've been to four festivals this summer and the only time that the rain really poured down was during our only show.

The people at Emmaboda could have given up on us and crawled into their tents, but they didn't. To everybody who got soaked to watch us play: thank you! You made it fun even though we were sick, injured and damned.

Right now we're writing even more songs to make the perfect TLBN debut album. We plan to record in in october. It will not be produced by Thomas Rusiak, as we stated in this blog a couple of months ago. Instead, the man with the finger on record will be Andreas Söderlund. You might know him from his band Niccokick. He also produces and plays live with Hello Saferide. Yes, we keep it in the Razzia family.

That's Andreas in the front. Photo by Mathias Söderlund.

Oh, and one last thing. To the girl who came up to me efter the Emmaboda show but didn't get a hug; I'm sorry. You'll get one next time we meet, promise.

//Joel

Saturday - Darmstadt

2006-06-08T01:57:00.000-07:00

The Schlossgrabenfest is a town festival to celebrate the water around the Darmstadt castle. The stages are enormous. We played the second largest one and there were 4-5000 people there! Crazy.

Darmstadt also offered the nicest hotel of the tour. We found this on the TV when we arrived:

It's really strange to play big stages and festivals. The soundcheck is always too quick and you have to settle with the basics (more or less just your vocals). The biggest problem is that you never get any bass or drums on stage and it feels like you're playing out of a small transistor radio. There is no energy, so you have to fake it and doing that can make you feel stupid and kill the experience totally. But even though it felt lame, the sound out was like thunder and we made a good effort. Afterwards Torsten came back to get us out of the backstage and in front of the stage. There was a big line of teenage girls there, waiting to get autographs and take their picture with us. We sold off all the cds we had and Christofer got his sticks and signed them for one of the girls. They sent us some of the photos they took:

Thank you Alexandra and Verena for the pictures!

The show was filmed by a TV show called Newcomer TV. They also made an interview with us before the show. I think it will air in august, so look out for it if you live in the Darmstadt/Frankfurt area.

So that was it. We left Germany early sunday morning and got into our van that was falling apart. The gears were a mess and the air condition was leaking water like crazy, so we drove through germany on the 4th gear and had to stop every half hour to fill up the water. It took us 16 hours and the magical hands of Germanys best mechanic to get us home.

But here we are, back in Gothenburg again. I'm writing songs like crazy right now, the rest of the guys will join in soon and then we will make the best album possible so that we can tour Germany again and again and again. See you later. //Joel

Thursday & Friday - Bamberg

2006-06-08T01:36:00.000-07:00

Bamberg is the prettiest of all the German cities we visited. Wooden houses from the 15th century, a river running through the city, old bierstubes with their own breweries and so on. But if you go there be sure to note that it is not situated in Bavaria (although it kind of is) but in FRANKONIA. Very important. The Morphclub booker Ralf taught us this. I told the audience that we found Bavaria beautiful and he told me I made that nights biggest mistake there. What an insult. I am but a stupid tourist.
This is Ralf, the coolest guy in Frankonia. He knows every inch of Bamberg like the back of his hand. And he is only this tired in the morning.

The show was probably the best one we played on the tour, in close competition with the opening in Hamburg. My voice made it through, but after the fourth encore I had to stop just to be on the safe side. But I actually think they would have had us playing all night long. It was a shy crowd at first, but when they got going they were like crazy! We'll definitely be back to play for them again!

The next day was a free day in Bamberg. We slept late as we got home early, and then me, Robin and Christofer had a nice italian breakfast at the city square. Then I slept some more while the others went shopping. In the evening we finally got to eat sauerkraut! It was sublime. Then it was off to visit the bierstube that served smoked beer (rauchbier, you can buy it in Sweden too). The place must have dated back to 1450 and Ralf told us that his grandfather used to take him there after school. After the bierstube we went to another one where we played Mauro Scocco tunes and talked to some of Ralphs friends. It's those nights you want when you're on tour, to make up for all the hours spent in a stinking van.

We will be back, Bamberg!

Tuesday & wednesday - Berlin

2006-05-31T01:38:00.000-07:00

The scenery along the autobahn is beautiful, especially in early summer. Why do the Germans go to Sweden to look at nature?

We set off on a long trip to Berlin in the morning. Torsten took over the driver/tour leader/daddy-role from André and pushed our old van to extremes on the autobahn. By this time we believed that our Wolkswagen had come home to Germany to die, like an old elephant returning to the graveyard. The exhaust pipe was close to falling off when we reached Magdeburg, and there were things clanking around the whole car. When Torsten got behind the wheel the gearstick got scared and turned loose, so it became really hard to get the first and fifth gear in. But once Torsten got the fifth he made the best of it, peaking at 190 kmph.

In Berlin we shacked up at Sandra and Leas place. Sandra is a friend of Decoder and works as a promotor. Her little daughter Lea is the cutest girl in Germany. Martin took a picture of her, we'll post it soon.

The Magnet Club was just a few blocks away. It is more or less the perfect rock club! Great stage, very nice barroom and the worlds fastest sound engineer, Peter. Probably the smallest backstage ever though...

We got great thai food from next door and everything felt fine. The first half of the set was goo, but then it happened. We played Night Out as our seventh song and I suddenly felt as if someone was strangling me. As soon as i went for a high note the only thing that came out was "ghhhshhschrck". I had lost my voice. I had felt that the throat was no good during soundcheck, but I didn't expect this. We finished, but without me being able to sing the songs properly it felt terrible. The other guys didn't really notice it, but listening back to the video tape Torsten made was awful. I was absolutely broken to pieces afterwards. I went home to get up early and go to the doctor.

Me and Torsten went to see a nice throat specialist named Regina. She had been raised in east Berlin and didn't speak a word of english (they learned russian in school). So i was sitting there, hoping for the best while she and Torsten talked over my head. I got some turbo antibiotics. When we got home we woke up the guys and decided to cancel the next night in Chemnitz. It felt awful, but there was really no other way.

So we went sightseeing in Berlin for two days. Here are a few photos:
Martin outside a nice liberal venue.
We took the tram to Falkenberg.
Torsten taking a regular coffee.
And Robin drinking Irish coffee.

Monday - Düsseldorf

2006-05-30T14:42:00.000-07:00

We went to fellow Decoder band Kratzeis' apartment for a shower and then took them with us as a supporting act to Düsseldorf. Kratzeis is a witty electrorock-trio. Very nice people. We liked them a lot.
Two out of the three Kratzeisers.

Before the show we did an interview with two guys from a online magazine and ate some strong tofu at a chinese place. It was probably the best tofu I've ever eaten outside Beijing! But the service was extreeemely slow. If you don't mind me saying so; very authentic chinese style. And that has its charm of course, but not when you're about to play in 45 minutes.

Our show is not documented in any pictures, sadly. So you'll just have to take our word when we say that it was good. It was probably the smallest stage we ever played; maybe 2 metres deep.

After the show we went back to André and Claudias place for one last FIFA tournament and some well deserved sleep before taking off to Berlin with Torsten.

Saturday & sunday - Bochum

2006-05-30T03:25:00.000-07:00

Outside the bunker

Bochum is really close to Gelsenkirchen so we drove there in the afternoon and loaded our stuff into the Bastion. It's an old bunker from world war II with concrete walls two metres thick. It just can't be demolished, so the city let organisations rent the premises cheap. This is quite common in Germany, so there are a lot of venues shacked into old bunkers like this one. The good people of no-budget-arts arrange concerts and clubs and even show movies in their own theatre!
We watched The Shining here the night before the show. Awesome.
And for our show they decorated the place with projections in some kind of They Live by Night-horror fashion.

On saturday we all went to a really nice little bar and watched the Eurovision song contest. We voted for Lordi, of course, and explained to all the Germans what kind of a lunatic was competing for our country.

The next day we got some hours before the show to rehearse on stage. We used the time to finish a song called "I hear songs when we make out" and played it in the show that evening. I messed up the first verse, but other than that it was ok. We would play the song in every show after that. We performed very good in front of André, Torsten, Claudia and and a lot of their friends. It was a relief after the Magdeburg horror.

Gelsenkirchen is our home too

2006-05-29T14:41:00.000-07:00

The sweetest and most tired couple in Germany!

We spent the night after the Magdeburg show in André and Claudias place in Gelsenkirchen. In the morning André went out and bought all the kinds of soymilk available in the Ruhr area for Martins breakfast. Then we had a few FIFA 2006 tournaments on the Playstation.
André and Claudias place has been in some kind of home makeover show and it's really stylish. The keyword is "orange".

And they have a really sweet labrador named Kira. When we tried to take her picture she turned into a monster. She's actually more well behaved than this in real life.

And then we all went to the bunker!

Friday – Magdeburg

2006-05-23T01:24:00.000-07:00

We left Hamburg with great confidence and set the coast towards former eastern Germany and Magdeburg. The difference between the cities is staggering. Magdeburg is really worn down, but that has its charm as well.

The venue was a great hall that held 1400 people. Some boring band called Blackmail was the headliner. We soundchecked and everything was a little bit chaotic. Then we did a small TV thing and went on stage and everything turned to hell. For the first time in our history as a band, we could not hear ANYTHING. The monitor was non-existing, everything feedbacked and we had no idea about who played what. We packed up and left as soon as we could. We forgot two tambourines and didn’t even get a chance to use the whirlpool and the sauna. From paradise to hell in 24 hours. That’s touring.

Thursday – Hamburg

2006-05-23T01:16:00.000-07:00

The ferry speaker system woke us up at 7 am. We got our stuff in the van and rolled slowly onto german soil. Finally. Deutschland. Bundesrepublik. Das vaterland. Heimat.

Kiel greeted us with rain and it kept on pouring until we reached Hamburg. We managed to find our way to the venue called Grüner Jäger straight away thanks to the meter precise directions that André of Decoder Records sent us. We met up with André at the venue and he started taking care of us right away. He guarded the van while we set off on a coffee mission in the beautiful district of Schanze. We found some, and some exquisite falafel as well. Then André got us checked into a really funny hotel room and we kicked back for a while.

The Grüner Jäger is a really cosy venue in a public park. There is a nice area outside where you can enjoy your drinks and a very smoky rugged stage area that reminded us about the nice Perrong 23 in Hässleholm where we played in February. It was so small we didn’t run anything except the vocals through the PA. But it sounded really good in soundcheck anyway. We felt confident about this one. Until we discussed the setlist with André that is.

When Martin and André talked on the phone earlier this year Martin raised the question of set length. This was because our Swedish booking agent Emil had told us about the problems some Swedish artists have encountered when they play their Swedish 30 minutes standard-length sets abroad. In Norway the clubs demand an hour, or you won’t get your money. Martin asked André about this and got the idea that seven songs would be a perfect set. It wasn’t until now, as we sat down to eat after the soundcheck, that the misunderstanding became apparent. André had no idea that we had prepared such a short set. He told us that we were expected to play for a full hour. We thought that he was joking. He thought we were joking. For five minutes we just sat there, chocked. We realised that we had to make the set longer. There was no choice but to rehearse some old songs. We sat down in the dressing room and played for a while and pressed them into the setlist.

There were maybe 30 people in front of the stage when we started, but they filled up the small venue very well and were real nice. We enjoyed the set more than we have ever done, everything was very relaxed but still focused. We played our best show ever and managed to stretch the set to 51 minutes. Good people of Hamburg, we salute you!

And if you plan to go to Germany Hamburg is a must. An incredibly beautiful city, but you should beware of the rougher Reeperbahn blocks, where the Russian mafia will take you to the cleaners or to the morgue. Stay in the Schanze instead.

Wednesday – The ferry to Kiel

2006-05-23T01:14:00.000-07:00

We boarded the Ferry at 19:30 and watched the port of Gothenburg disappear into the mist. Joel and Christofer had only one objective this evening – to watch the Champions League final on TV. But the crew didn’t manage to tune in the right channel so we spent the evening listening to the radio and drinking cheap beer in our small cabin. Then we watched the Metallica documentary Some kind of monster until 2:30 and fell asleep with Lars Ulrichs manic words ringing in our ears: “Faaaaack!! FAAAACKKK!!!”

We're off to Germany!

2006-05-17T02:57:00.000-07:00

Tonight we board the ferry to Germany to do our first tour outside Sweden. There will be ten days of almost constant playing. First stop Hamburg. We will update this blog every time we find an open wireless internet connection, so keep your eyes open!

German artwork

2006-05-03T05:51:00.000-07:00

This is the poster for the show at Morphclub, Bamberg on the 25th of may. I think they've used the original movie poster. Sehr gut. //Joel

Popadelica!

2006-05-02T01:49:00.000-07:00

So we went to Huskvarna and the brand new festival Popadelica, situated only a few hundred meters from where Christofer and Robin grew up. We were greeted by the nice but nervous staff, had some food and beer and did that autistic rockstar thing they call "hang out backstage".

There were a lot of people visiting the festival so we hoped to play to a decent crowd. Alas, we found ourselves stuck inbetween the local phenomenon I'm From Barcelona, who soundchecked for 30 minutes more than they were supposed to, and the other big live act Sci-Fi Skane. This meant that people went straight from IFBs show to S.F Skane and forgot all about us. But we did a good show anyway.

We would like to thank everyone who came to see us, cheered and sang along. Some of you even came up afterwards and that always makes our day.

All these photos were taken by my dearest Pauline. More photos of us and other bands who played the festival will be posted on rockfoto.nu very soon. //Joel

Lund

2006-04-20T09:46:00.000-07:00

We just came back from Lund where we played at Smålands Nation. We only had one day to rehearse, the first one as a full band in a month, so we were a bit stressed out and real tired. Singing for ten hours straight with a slight cold left m,e sounding like a crow. People seemed to like us though. Our thanks to Demoband-Johan, Sanna and Henrik, one of the few intelligent engineers this business has to offer.

This set list will be shorter when we play Popadelica next saturday. But the band will be so much better. There will be some major changes in the TLBN live sets from now on.
//Joel

8000 downloads!

2006-04-15T10:55:00.000-07:00

Our songs have now been downloaded 8000 times by almost as many people. We hope it never ends. There are a bunch of new TLBN songs and a few of them will be available to you as soon as they're recorded, just sign up on our mailinglist and you'll get to hear them first! If you can't wait, just come see us play. //Joel

Emmaboda!

2006-04-11T05:14:00.000-07:00

Nu har det äntligen blivit officiellt och okej att skrika ut: They Live by night spelar på Emmabodafestivalen 2006 - Ge mig nåt! Det är så jävla kul! Det var verkligen den festivalspelning vi helst ville ha, det finns ingen festival som Emmaboda, där folk verkligen kommer och lyssnar oavsett klockslag eller scen. Det är klart att det här med fri sprittransport på området spelar in där, men vi väljer förstås att se det som att det beror på ett genuint musikintresse bland publiken. Vi vet inte vilken dag, tid eller scen det blir än, men vi säger till när vi har bättre koll.

Nu väntar vi bara på att Hultsfred hör av sig. Tack till alla som försökt önska in oss dit förresten. Vi har 102 röster och det är sjukt bra! Vi ligger på övre sjundedelen, inte illa alls.

//Joel

Timo skär ner på Biffen

2006-04-06T03:35:00.000-07:00

Nu ska Christofer tydligen bara spela en spelning med Timo, på Debaser den 28 april. Tänkte bara informera så att alla trumstudenter och trånande flickor och pojkar i Malmö och Norrköping inte blir besvikna.

Nu snöar det i Göteborg igen. Fan. Håll förresten tummarna för HV71 ikväll! Det är årets viktigaste hockeymatch för Christofer och Robin. Jag ska hem till Biff och heja med honom. Försöker vinna sympatier så att han ska sympatihålla på Elfsborg i år, men det går sådär. Han tjatar bara om något korplag som heter J-Södra hela tiden.

//Joel

Timo stjäl Biffen!

2006-04-05T07:11:00.000-07:00

Vi har ju vetat att Christofer är en av sveriges bästa rocktrummisar länge nu. Nu har vår skivbolagskamrat Timo Räisänen fattat det också. Han har blixtinkallat Christofer till tre spelningar, på KB i Malmö 27 april, på Debaser i Stockholm den 28 april och på Mogwai (på Hugo) i Norrköping den 5 maj. Missa inte!

Två killar, samma kofta!

Jag skulle också vilja passa på att kommentera lite rykten om att jag och Timo egentligen är samma person. Ja, vi är lika. Ja, vi delar skivbolag. Ja, jag tror att vi är typ lika gamla. Okej, nu delar vi trummis och producent, och ja, det verkar inte bättre än att Timo har gått och köpt samma gröna velour-kofta som jag har använt i ett år (se bilden).
MEN! Jag har aldrig försökt att kopiera Timo, vi råkar bara leva något slags parallella liv. Och det finns många skillnader mellan oss. En liten guide för den som känner sig förvirrad:
Timo är den kortare och spralligare.
Jag är den långe och tystare.
Timo, om du läser det här: vi måste börja gå ut mer ihop bara för att göra folk förvirrade.
//Joel

German Mp3-charts

2006-03-23T13:02:00.000-08:00

The German Mp3-site Tonspion have put Night Out on their site. Now it's entered their chart too, at place 15, ahead of Peaches, Mogwai, Arctic Monkeys and other nice stuff. Feels real good. Keep downloading everybody! //Joel

7000 downloads!

2006-03-22T04:15:00.000-08:00

Somebody just downloaded Night Out from thelivebynight.com and that was download number 7000. I hope whoever downloaded it liked it a lot. God bless the internet. //Joel

People we work with

2006-03-21T05:48:00.000-08:00

We had a meeting with Razzia Records and Tomas Rusiak yesterday. We listened to the new songs, they liked them a lot. Tomas is an old friend of Martina and Daniel. He's going to produce our album. Tomas is known as one of Swedens most outstanding hiphop producers. The idea is that we will send him the basic tracks and he will do just about what he wants with it. Kind of like a remix, except that the basic structure of the songs will be the same. Think of our songs as beautiful, but frozen naked people that Tomas drapes in velvet. Or something. We will start with some demo recordings and see how it works out.

And André of Decoder Records sent me this photo today. These are the people that are currently turning Germany into TLBN country. They are the best!

Top German reviews translated!

2006-03-17T04:46:00.000-08:00

Claudia of our German promotion company Glanzzeit sent me these translations. They just make my day! //Joel

Sellfish.de
They Live By Night - dto. EP
Razzia Records / Decoder Records / Alive
rating: 9 of 10 / Spielzeit: 20:15 / Indie

It’s no surprise that the doors are open for the four guys from They live by night. With their atmospherical 80s indiesound they don’t reinvent the wheel. But it’s not only the current return to snappy New Wave-Sound, which pushes the Swedes very much, there’s more behind it. They live by night have recorded an EP which presents not only a wicked artwork, but especially five unbelievably danceable, catchy Songs between New New Wave, Indie and Pop.
The Songs are unbelievably precisely structured, the drums rattle, the bass is rolling, the guitars are lashing to the front and synthesizer, keyboard and organ are always at the right time. Surprising, how these young guys manage this. “Truth or Dare” is already a club hit in Sweden, and should become one here, and “School” has the same danceability with a nicely croaky voice. The same goes for “Night Out”, while “Saint” and “House of Addicts” are a bit calmer and the last one is almost a ballade.
Five Songs and no drop out come to the conclusion that some bands just can write hits. With these they won’t win an innovation award, but certainly will pull enough fans to concerts and dance-floors. We are excited how the band acquit themselves on album length.

Sebastian Gloser

Absolut anders
King kong klub

Label: Razzia Records/Decoder Records
Style: Indie
Monkey-Points: 8/10

The chain of slightly off-key singing and carefree playing bands with really intense, immortal and beautiful indie anthems, which seem to come out of nowhere, won’t break off. That’s a good thing! After Arcade Fire, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Bishop Allen or Tilly And The Wall now we have They live by night from Sweden. The sudden hype began surprisingly with the Single “Truth or Dare”, with which they had a club hit in Sweden, a wonderful catchy "Bah-baaah-daa-bap-baah-daa-dah" tune, the way we all like it!
Christofer, Martin, Robin und Joel from Gothenburg can hardly believe what is suddenly happening to them: "It is really strange what happened in the last year. We played our first three shows (1. In a gallery, 2. at a empty lecture hall and finally, 3. in a small club) and at once we were directly booked for the Arvika Festival 2005 besides bands like Moneybrother, New Order and The Ark!" The five Track EP, which was already released in September last year in Sweden, is a first, very impressing foretaste of a hopefully soon coming album, on which the band is working since January.
There are only a few bands which I’m ashamed of not discovering them earlier for our Party-series, but here I sink to the ground. SORRY! The young four Swedes are taking it one step further than the before mentioned bands, because between rolling, extremely danceable rhythm parts, targeted synthesizers and worth mentioning sound-beneficial guitar parts, which sometimes scream, sometimes stroke, it is especially the outstanding, energetic vocals which reminds of heart-breaking emo-moods between all the melodies for millions. With the below mentioned four club hits developed four great Indiepop-Anthems between yearning and pure energy, which are definitely addictive. So: don’t miss, DON’T BURN, but: buy, buy, buy! ADDICTIVE!

Outstanding Track(s): "Truth Or Dare", "School", "Saint"
Clubhit(s): "Truth Or Dare", "School", "Night Out" und "Saint"

Tracklist:
1. Truth Or Dare
2. Saint
3. Night Out
4. School
5. House Of Addicts

Homepage
Kaufen: HIER
Sound like: TheyLiveByAnArcadeFireWithBishopAllenAndTillyAndTheWallClappingTheirHandsSayYeahByNight

Great review!

2006-03-16T13:13:00.000-08:00

Here's another great review (scroll down and you'll see it) in german that we don't understand. We need to start taking lessons.

We are popsnören!

2006-03-16T11:13:00.000-08:00

The two new songs came out brilliant! We are more pop than ever and damn proud of it. The songs are called My Kids and I Hear Songs When We Make Out. The last one is a happy love song with a sad smoky verse and I'm playing it on repeat right now. I'm so damn proud of us. I love being in this band. On monday me and Robin will play them to Razzia Records and our producer. Stay tuned.
//Joel

New songs on the way!

2006-03-14T14:25:00.000-08:00

For months we have let the pressure of writing songs for an album get to us. We have focused too much on what we think we ought to do instead of doing what comes naturally. But this week we sat down and talked about it and decided to stop trying to pull singles out of our asses and just make music. And here we are, four days later, with two new songs we are really proud of. Potential singles. Music is like love, stop trying to make it perfect and it will come out great. That's the Dr. Phil-quote of the day to all you bands out there.
//Joel

German tour taking shape

2006-03-13T02:45:00.000-08:00

Our man André of Decoder Records have set a few dates for the German tour in may. There are four dates set (you'll find them om the homepage) and more are on the way. André says we will hopefully only have two or three days off during those two weeks. Sounds good to us! Bring on the hard rock labour!

One of the dates is at the Schlossgrabenfest in Darmstadt. This is a picture from one of last years shows there:

According to André there are usually 6000-8000 people packed in that town square. I'm not entirely sure, but I think that would be some kind of record for us...

Right now I'm listening to My Morning Jacket. What a brilliant band. Man oh man. If you've missed them, congratulations, you're in for a new favourite gang of bearded men.

New songs are being finished and demo-recorded this week! I'm going to bring them to Razzia Records next week. Finally we feel we're getting somewhere.
---------------------------
Be careful out there //Joel

MySpace

2006-03-09T04:04:00.000-08:00

We have been registered on MySpace for some time, but haven't fully grasped how great it is. Now we know. Please visit us and become our friend here!

Anyone for German

2006-03-06T01:26:00.000-08:00

Does anyone out there understand german well enough to give us a brief translation of this review? The somewhat clinical grading of "songqualität", "interpretation" und "klang" makes me wonder if the critics in Germany wear leather boots and wield horsewhips... Personally, I believe that our interpretation and songqualität beats the klang by far.
//Joel

How do you like them apples?!

2006-03-04T10:00:00.000-08:00

Sorry for not writing anything last month. A brief summary: we played some shows and recorded demos of three new songs. Then we went back to our dayjobs for a few weeks. Right now we're back in the rehearsal room, writing new songs. Here are some pictures from the mini-tour. Enjoy!

We played Metropol in Hultsfred the 2nd of february. While waiting for the show, Robin became bored and decided to draw portraits of the band on selected parts of our rider.

Then we drove some more...

...And arrived in Norrköping where the nice people of Club Mogwai gave us Loka päron, the worlds greatest mineral water. We gave the people of Norrköping everything we had, I even bled for them:

I always slice open the fingers on my right hand when I play live. I lose control over my picking somehow. So I bleed all over my guitars. Very rock'n'roll.

The next day we drove down to Skåne and Hässleholm.

Perrong 23 is just a great little place, we had a real good time and hope to return real soon. Thanks Hanna, Marcus and everybody else for a great and late night.

I'll write again soon, promise!
//Joel

All back to the hotel!

2006-01-22T07:56:00.000-08:00

We played a show in Linköping yesterday. The stay included hotel reservations (breakfast included). Our first tour hotel night - a historic occasion! The hotel was not exactly the Waldorf Astoria, it smelled of piss and trucker sweat. But the beds were comfy, the breakfast was nice and there were lots of useful stuff laying around:

(Those are Russian 100% toll free cigarettes.)
The arrangement at the club was excellent and the food was great. While we waited for the soundcheck, Christofer and Robin got into an argument about the TV-show "På spåret". Christofer defended the show frantically:

He won support in the daily paper:

...and finally got us all hooked for one hour of elderly entertainment.

We played a good show. The best thing about the set was playing the new songs, they felt great. Sadly, the club was far from packed this night, but the arrangers and our friends Gustav, Stefan and Erik made it a nice night out anyway.

(That's Gustav on the right) Tomorrow we go back to recording and on thursday we're off to Lund. See you there!

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

2006-01-19T11:19:00.000-08:00

Today was an eight-hour rehearsal to prepare for the Linköping show on saturday. We were supposed to rehearse the three new songs we finished and then move on to the whole set but, as always, we got stuck making changes in the new songs. We always work like that, changing details and moving stuff around fifty times before we feel the song is finished. Tiring, but it works!

We made some changes to the webpage today. Stripped it down, basically, and changed fonts. There will be a more thorough remake of the page next week.

We suck...

2006-01-17T23:57:00.000-08:00

...when it comes to blogging. We know this. We aim to get better. At least be happy that instead of posting stuff here we're writing and recording great songs. We'll be playing them live on our swedish mini-tour starting this saturday in Linköping. Go see the show if you're around.

Vi är med på Rockpartys bäst just nu-lista (längst ner på förstasidan)! Måste väl vara ett gott tecken inför festivalen... Men först ses vi på Metropol 2 februari.

Moving on

2006-01-10T12:43:00.000-08:00

We moved from one rehearsal place to another yesterday.

The new one is much bigger and not as dimly lit. The wooden walls gives it a certain sauna feeling that we like.

All that moving gave Robin a nosebleed and Christofer strange cramps.

We feel very much at home. Especially with our A&R-saint Martina taped to the monitor.

Bye for now!

Back to work!

2006-01-07T12:43:00.000-08:00

Today we were all assembled in the same room for the first time in two months. We worked on three new songs. We're going to record demos of them next week. One song is about the tsunami, one about rape and one about some good old heartbreak. They're all pop tunes played with rage, as you like it.

Our videoman Jerry is going to document our mini tour this month. There will be obscenities, tears and smashing times. Hopefully it'll become a bonus-dvd for the album later on.

Yaou!

Do you wanna make tea at the BBC?

2005-12-25T07:30:00.000-08:00

The BBC radio 6 DJ Steve Llamac likes Truth or Dare and has played it in his afternoon show. Even more proof that Britain is our kind of place. We aim to get there soon.

Merry christmas!

Ny spelning!

2005-12-16T07:59:00.000-08:00

Vi spelar i Linköping den 21 januari lördagen den 21 januari. Klubben heter Casbah. Det lär väl bli första gången vi spelar några av de kommande singel/albumlåtarna.

What's going on?

2005-12-12T05:27:00.000-08:00

Why are we not doing any shows?
Why are there no new songs on the website?
Are They Live by Night dead?
More than a month of silence makes you wonder. But no, we're still here. November was a dark period though. Broken relationships, two lost voices and work, work, work just to pay the bills. It's left us frustrated, almost forgetting that we're in a band at all.

But after this week things are supposed to get back on track again. We will keep working on new songs and record a few of them in mid-january. Then we will probably get to work with a single. We'll probably work with a producer this time. Yes, we think we've found our man.

We aim to play some shows in the south of sweden too. Only one booked so far but it's a good one: Indieplundring i Lund!

And here's a review from soundsxp.com:

They Live By Night EP (Razzia)
Article written by Paul MNov 27, 2005.
Released in Sweden back in September but still available on-line, this EP has scarcely registered this side of the North Sea, so it’s worthy of a late push here. Five very impressive tracks make up the post-punk influenced release and although all are excellent it’s the Bravery-esq Truth or Dare that will have you hurtling towards the dancefloor (or the skip button depending on your viewpoint). With its thundering and incessant percussion, squawking jarring keys and “pah pah pah” harmonies it has certainly got a few tired old limbs moving in certain corners of SoundsXP Towers...

Deutschland über alles!

2005-12-04T09:12:00.000-08:00

We're starting to get a little buzz from Germany. A few blogs and web magazines have written about us. It's just too bad that we don't know German very well. But the blog Coast is clear seem to like Truth or Dare a lot and calls our music "Nächtliche Ruhestörung". Sounds nice. Our man André of Decoder Records is releasing the record in march and plans a tour in april or may. The only problem will be finding vegan food in the meateater-paradise that is Germany.

Ny recension!

2005-11-16T14:18:00.000-08:00

Zero Magazine recenserar Ep:n och ger den en trea. Texten är ändå lite entusiastisk och fin, även om namedroppingen är rätt trist. Jag menar, Shout out louds? När såg du oss spela jeanspop i randiga tröjor med fötterna inåt och nyschamponerat hår sist? Vi gillar inte Shout out louds. Inte att jämföras med dem i alla fall. Fan. Men BD gillar vi.

Missing: voice

2005-11-09T09:56:00.000-08:00

Joel has been sick for a long time and now his voice has damn near seized to exist. He went to see the doctor yesterday and was given strict orders not to talk or sing or hardly open his mouth for a few weeks. So the gig at Wish in Gothenburg on the 18 is off. It sucks, but you can't be too careful with these things.

...And here's the Russian translation!

2005-11-08T11:26:00.000-08:00

>>the swedish means the excellent. ikea, saab, abba, huckleberry syrup, what else? :) anyway, they live by night outblocparty the very bloc party, see the point?<<
Oh, yes. Point made.

Over 5000 downloads!

2005-11-08T11:21:00.000-08:00

Tonight the number of downloaded songs from our website reached 5000! Wheehoo! Fetch the champagne! And keep downloading, people.

Moscow calling

2005-11-06T04:15:00.000-08:00

The russian blog MusicReporters.ru seem to like us. We have no idea of what they're writing, but they seem to think we're the next big thing out of Sweden (haha, nice), and sound a bit like Bloc Party (erm...okay) See for yourselves:

They Live by Night — Truth or Dare | Blog: Local Information
Шведское — значит отличное! Ikea, Saab, ABBA, брусничный сироп, чё там еще было то? :) В общем, They Live By Night outblocparty самих Bloc Party, see the point? ;)
download | добавлен: 21.10.05 | размер: 5.1 Mb | скачан: 21 | автор: vsmith

Anyone for russian? Please leave us a translation if you can.

Across the seas

2005-11-04T07:45:00.000-08:00

In a few weeks our Ep will be distributed in Germany and the USA! In Germany by Decoder Records (who also distribute A West Side Fabrications artists) and in the US by the Illinios-based Parasol Records, who are doing great things for José Gonzales right now. You'll be able to buy the record from both websites.

Razzia set this up beautifully and we hope it will get us some new friends, supporters and shows.

And now it's time for Joels birthday party!

Debaser!

2005-10-31T12:31:00.000-08:00

It was just a great show. The best one we've ever done. Only five songs, but they all felt perfect. The club wanted us to get on stage at 22:00, when there were like 40 people there. We managed to stall it forty minutes and the crowd turned up just in time. Thanks a lot to everyone who came to see us. And thanks to the very nice people of Convoj. We should go on tour together, really.

Pauline Benthede of Rockfoto took photos of the show. They'll be up on the website soon. If you can't wait, look at them here.

A bit below at the top floor

2005-10-27T00:18:00.000-07:00

We played Sticky Fingers top floor yesterday, supporting The Editors from Birmingham. We weren't very good. No real energy. Joel, Martin and Christofer were in various stages of autumn colds. Guess that explains some of it. But that's behind us. Now we're leaving for Stockholm.
We'll meet with Razzia tomorrow to talk about the future. And we're going to avenge yesterdays dull performance by giving Debaser all we've got on saturday. See you there.

Descriptions

2005-10-23T13:01:00.000-07:00

Here's a few words from the Canadian/Scottish blog Said the Gramophone:

>>They Live By Night - "Truth or Dare". Dirty drums rattle under They Live By Night's bending neon guitar and everything's a glad Killers-style garage-disco until the chorus comes along and things get a little complicated. Not too complicated, mind, just a swirl of M83 synths and "da-da-da" vocals that seem ripped from an old Camera Obscura LP. It's grungey garage with a twee girlfriend, the Mr Tough Guy who goes home and listens to The Pastels, a bully who's gone head-over-heels for the girl in the Belle & Sebastian jacket.<<

Reference-dropping with wit and finesse! Just lovely.

Daaahling!

2005-10-17T10:07:00.000-07:00

We're "veckans älskling" ("darling of the week") on channel TV400 next week. Fantastic. We love you too, TV4. Except when you make cutbacks that make our friends lose their jobs. But musical editor Camilla of TV400 can't help that. Kick out the cheap old men and make her boss of the network!

On the road

2005-10-11T01:58:00.000-07:00

We're back from Öland with three new songs more or less in the bag. It was a great week. We drank gallons of coffee and ate all day long. We went sightseeing and Joel and Robin got to drive a car for the first time. The old policevan we borrowed from Anton ran like clockwork until we got home to Gothenburg. Then it suddenly refused to start. We're just thankful for not getting stuck on that island.

We played a gig in Kalmar too. Great fun. Our love and respect goes out to Toffe and Jonas of Klubb Atlas.

We've been offered to play a gig in Visby, Gotland next thursday. The problem is, as always, money. Getting a band on the ferry to Gotland and back is ridiculously expensive. We need to work it out somehow. We're thinking about shuffling coal to get there for free. No business like show business.

Oh, and we're playing at Debaser in Stockholm on october 29th along with the fine indierockers Convoj. That's a saturday. A payday saturday. Lovely.

We're off to Öland!

2005-10-02T14:49:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow we'll get into the old police van and leave the city. We're going to Joels family's cottage on the island of Öland to make music and grow beards. No shower, no water toilet. Just music, an x-box and male companionship. Back to nature! On saturday (october 8th) we pack up our stuff and go to Kalmar to play a show. Come see us if you're around.
//LOVE, TLBN

We're on the radio!

2005-09-27T05:55:00.000-07:00

Today Truth or Dare made it on to Sveriges radio P3:s playlist. F-I-N-A-L-L-Y!!! The nation have very slim chances of escaping the song now. This is a real icebreaker for us and we're very happy. It's a strange list – once you're in you're never out. At least not for a couple of months...

And we seem to be on our way to Germany too... Nothing signed yet though. But Martin is trying to recap the german lessons he took in high school.

Konstiga rykten

2005-09-26T01:57:00.000-07:00

Så här låter säljargumentet för oss på delicious goldfish records:

"Otroligt hyllade Göteborgsbandet They Live By Night signades i somras av Razzia efter hårda förhandlingar. Gruppen har kallats för "nästa Silverbullit" och "äckligt bra live"."

Hårda förhandlingar? Vad fick de det ifrån? Men resten lät ju trevligt...

Sticky Fingers

2005-09-23T00:51:00.000-07:00

We had great fun playing at Sticky Fingers yesterday. Probably the best show we've done so far. And we got paid and everything - brilliant! Thanks a lot to the people who sang along and cheered for us. If you only knew how much we need you... Photos from the show are coming on to the website this afternoon.

Robin is back!

2005-09-21T09:23:00.000-07:00

Our beloved member Robin returned from a couple of weeks in Umeå this monday. We finally became a real band again, and have been rehearsing non stop to prepare for the gig at Sticky Fingers tomorrow. It's going to be a great show. We'll play one brand new song and one cover. No, we won't tell you which one. But it's from an album released today. Real fresh.

We were interviewed by Göteborgs-Posten today. They run the article tomorrow and hopefully it'll draw a crowd to the club. We love it when the media works for us.

Martina of Razzia called today and brought some great news. Looks like we might get a good oppurtunity to go abroad for a while. We'll keep you posted on that one.

Review

2005-09-16T10:44:00.000-07:00

Found a new review of the Ep. In swedish. Packed with that ol' reference bullshit. But you can't blame him, really. Guess that's what being a debutant is all about.

Shopping spree!

2005-09-15T09:22:00.000-07:00

Today we went to Gothenburgs finest music store MUG and went crazy. We bought an in-ear-monitor for Christofer (so that he can hear properly when we play live), a metalzone pedal for the synthesizer, a stage tuner, strings, drumsticks, cables and a stand for Robin's new keyboard. "Our record comany will take care of the bill," we said, and walked back to the rehearsal place smiling. Being signed feels sooo goood.

Ny spelning

2005-09-15T01:45:00.000-07:00

Vi ska spela i Kalmar den 8 oktober. Stället heter Café Söderport, klubben heter klubb Atlas och det kostar ynka 40 spänn att lyssna på oss. Kom dit, alla goa smålänningar och ölänningar!

Good students

2005-09-14T04:27:00.000-07:00

The Ep is released today! If you want a copy you can order it via our website. Tonight we'll celebrate by going to our booking agencys new club in Gothenburg.

And this calls for a celebration as well! Truth or Dare is #2 on the national university radio list:

1 Acid House Kings - Tonight is Forever - NY - - Labrador
*2 They Live By Night - Truth Or Dare - NY - - Razzia*
3 The Greatest Hits feat. Jesse - Give It To Me Baby - NY - - DNM
4 Death Cab For Cutie - Soul Meets Body - NY - - Warner
5 Weeping Willows - I´m Gonna Let Love Find Me - NY - - EMI
6 The Cardigans - I Need Some Fine Wine And You, You Need To Be Nicer - NY - - Universal
7 MS Dynamite - Judgement Day - NY - - Universal
8 Franz Ferdinand - Do You Want To - NY - - Playground
9 Tegan and Sara - Speak Slow - NY - - Sony/BMG
10 Panthers - Thanks for the Simulacra - NY - - V2

That ought to convince the people at national P3. God bless our educated youth.

A new day, a new article

2005-09-13T01:04:00.000-07:00

Borås Tidning runs an article on us today. Kan du svenska så läs den här.
Yesterday we worked on new songs. When we were out to lunch we thought we'd call some journalists and get them to write about TLBN. Three calls later we had three journalists hooked. That's how you work the media. You just call.

We we're featured in the national radio music show Musikjournalen last wednesday. They played Truth or Dare and talked about us for a while. It's just that the host had gotten our name wrong and called us "They Live by THE Night". Oh, the negligence!

Last but not least - Martin got chicken in his vegan fried rice yesterday. His stomach revolted. We will never eat at Condecco again.

Pins

2005-09-11T09:20:00.000-07:00

Höstens accessoar är här. Kom till spelningen den 22:a och få en du med.

Publicitet

2005-09-11T02:03:00.000-07:00

Det här inlägget få bli på svenska... Göteborgs-Postens Johan Lindqvist hade oss på sin "Johan gillar"-lista igår. Han skrev att vi "spelar hårt, punkigt och snyggt på ett ett vis som låter mer New York än Göteborg". Det var ju fint. Vi blev rätt chockade över att Lindqvist gillar oss; han brukar barar skriva om stadiumrock. Men Razziabanden har tydligen en plats i hans hjärta - han listade Hello Saferide också. Och så är han Elfsborgare. Bra.

cough

2005-09-08T06:56:00.000-07:00

Martin, Joel and Christofer all have colds right now. An Robin is up in freezing Umeå. As the swedish saying goes; det är förkylt.
But we're still working & writing songs. It's starting to take off real good now. We have six new songs in the works. In early october we plan to go off to Joels cottage, right by the sea on the island of Öland, for a week of retreat, cooking and songwriting. Eventually we are going to do a gig in Kalmar while we're down there. We keep our fingers crossed for that one.

Beng beng

2005-09-07T01:22:00.000-07:00

It's finally happened! They Live by Night is now truly a 21st century rock band! Why? Because Truth or Dare is now available as a mobile ringtone! You'll find it here.

We can't give you any guarantees regarding the company selling the ringtone though. Be sure to read the conditions when ordering. If anyone does download it, it would kind of shock us. :) But in time we hope to compete with that crazy ol' frog. Beng beng!

Working 9 to 5

2005-09-02T14:02:00.000-07:00

Today was They Live By Nights first day working office hours. We worked on new songs from eleven to two, had lunch and then went back to work until five. Nice job. We have some 80's disco rock coming up for you. This fall we're working our regular jobs half-time and playing music half-time (except for Robin who is in art school). It leaves us poor, of course, but that's ok. The thing we need right now isn't money, it's great songs to make up our album. The only problem with this new routine is that we tend to drink too much beer after each work day.

Oh, and today Joel, Christofer and Martin all wore the same Koppartrans-sponsored hoodie. We looked like a casual cult when we went out for lunch. People laughed and pointed fingers. It was an accident waiting to happen.

It's a-happening!

2005-08-30T07:41:00.000-07:00

Martina of Razzia has sent hundreds of promos to all kinds of people and slowly but surely, ears are opened and heads turned. We're played a few times a day on Radio AF, the most popular University radio station in Sweden. We're going to be interviewed for the october issue of Groove, Swedens biggest music magazine. And we just discovered that a DJ in Washington played "Truth or Dare" at a big indie party there a few days ago. Now that's the kind of thing that makes your day.

//Joel

In your face!

2005-08-26T02:59:00.000-07:00

We sent a demo to Pauline of Rockfoto.nu and this is how much she loved it. Yummy. When the new web page is done next week you'll be able to see some of her photos of us from the gig at Arvika festival.

Play it, kids!

2005-08-25T03:33:00.000-07:00

Got the record. Loved the cover. No problems at all. We're so proud of our baby. It's being distributed to media as we speak. Next week we'll hopefully know if the swedish radio P3 puts it on their playlist. A lot of things depend on that.

Now this picture is just adorable. Christofers dad sent it to us. It's Christofer playing drums and Robin playing keyboards like 12 years ago. Check out the drumkit! This is sort of the embryo of They Live By Night, I guess.

//Joel

Pixel fury

2005-08-23T03:36:00.000-07:00

Martina of Razzia just called to tell me that the Ep has arrived. It's just that it's - blurred. The cover is appearently a bit blurry and pixeled in some places. She told me not to panic but what else is there to do? No way we're releasing a messed up cover. A few copies are in the mail, heading for my doorstep now. You'll read all about the horror tomorrow. //Joel

Soul, hair & rumours

2005-08-21T10:11:00.000-07:00

We've had a week of vacation away from all things concerning the band and it did us good. The spark is back again. Watched a documentary about Motown's session band The Funk Brothers. Damn, they were something else. I suddenly had a vision of us doing a cover of "What becomes of the brokenhearted". It just might come true.

We're busy preparing ourselves for stepping into the limelight, however small it might be. This week we'll be writing press releases, designing pins & t-shirts and shooting new press photos. We all need to get haircuts asap (except Robin who should never cut his hair, ever). Christofer will get his hockey-synth-neck trimmed, or we'll do it for him.

Oh, and this makes us very happy: an unconfirmed rumour tells us that Simon (seen to the right) of Sweden's finest rock band Silverbullit thinks we're great. That's just about the finest compliment we could get. Now we just need to get it confirmed from the man himself. If you know Simon, please tell him to drop us a line. Thanks.

//Joel

Hate it or love it

2005-08-15T15:40:00.000-07:00

I hate being this caught up in working with our songs. I can't really decide whether it's brilliant or no good at all. But I'm leaning more and more towards brilliant. So are Robin, Christofer and Martin. I'm going to isolate myself on an island for a week now and not listen to the Ep at all. When I come back I'm pretty sure I'll be too proud for my own good. See you then. //Joel

This is what it looks like

2005-08-09T13:00:00.000-07:00

The cover is finished! This is what you will be looking for september 14th when the EP is released.

Done!

2005-08-08T12:25:00.000-07:00

Here it is! The end result of 9 months hard work. Our debut Ep! Mastered in style by Gothenburgs #1 soundboy Hans. Now we're going to put the cover together. Just wait a couple of hours and you'll see the result...

Getting there

2005-08-08T05:08:00.000-07:00

Martin at his computer, our mixing maestro.

We've just recorded the last choir tracks for the song "School". It's turned out all glimmering punk-soul splendor! Falsetto! Lyrics about being bullied! You'll love it, or hate my cracking vocals. "School" is in B flat and that's hiiiiiiiiigh for me! I did 200 takes on my lead vocal. Damn. //Joel

My, that's a big mic, Christofer.

Mixed feelings

2005-08-04T00:35:00.000-07:00

Oh blogger my blogger, wherefore art thou a blogger? Everyone suffering from the swedish ego epidemic is putting their everyday life on the internet to try and give it a twist. Some importance. Oh, we try so hard to squeeze some substance out of this dry sock that is our life but if it's not there it just isn't. Therefore this blog will contain nothing but stuff about They Live By Night. Not a lot of personal things. At least not as long as we lead such miserably boring lives.

On the other hand, They Live By Night is a major part of our life so there will be a lot to blog about. Right now we're putting the final touch to the last two Ep-songs. It will feature five songs in all and it will hit the streets in september. We're extremely proud of every second on that record. No matter what we will always love it. It's like Max Romeo sings in that old smash hit "Wet Dream": Throw all de punch ya want, I can take dem all!

Yesterday we found out that an english guy named Tom had put us in the spotlight of his indieblog/portal/site/whatever. Suddenly the downloading from our site went off like crazy. That's why a lot of the posts on this blog will be in english. We're making a complete makeover of the website soon as well, and in will probably feature english and swedish versions. Maybe only an english one. After all, we want the world, the whole world and nothing but the world.

//Joel

Absolute Beginners

2005-08-03T10:54:00.000-07:00

Ok, we've launched this blog and it will be in english and svenska hullerombuller.
Right now we need to get down to some mixing business, ok? Visit the website if you want to have a listen or tell us something.

//Joel & Martin