On The Record - Truckfighters - Bombshellzine.com

Truckfighters have today released their cracking new album, ‘V‘.

The Örebro, Sweden based band was formed in 2001 by Oskar Cedermalm (vocals & bass) and Niklas Källgren (guitar). Since that time, they have released four studio albums and several more releases through their own label Fuzzorama Records – including the 2011 DVD documentary featuring guests such as Josh Homme (Queens Of The Stone Age) and more friends from bands Kyuss, Fu Manchu, Witchcraft, Graveyard and more.

For this album, they have teamed up with Century Media for its release.

“Signing to Century Media Records is like kicking in the fuzz pedal with all knobs turned to 11 – maximum energy, maximum output and totally out of control!“

You can get it on iTunes [Here] on CD [Here], or hit up the Fuzzorama webstore for Vinyl & Bundles [Here].

WATCH

To find out more about the album, they answered our On The Record questions this week. Take a listen to the new album while reading their answers below.

LISTEN WHILE YOU READ

ON THE RECORD INTERVIEW

Tell us about the release title.
It came very quick and natural mainly cause it’s the fifth album for us but it also stands for Victory and so many other things of course, look into the cover and you’ll see. Actually it was the first album name idea we had, then we said ‘it is to easy’ so we thought about it a lot more and tried to come up with other good ideas, but we didn´t.

Tell us about the artwork.
We had the idea to have the V sign made by a hand, maybe people think we’re boosted by self-confidence and are a very cocky band naming an album “V” or victory, five with that hand on the front page haha, but we’re actually not taking ourselves too serious, it’s with a bit of a tongue in the cheek. The idea was also to mix old elements with new elements, maybe this can also be a timeless album. It is a conscious thought to make the cover have more than one possible meaning. V can also be virus. So what you see is the future or the past , or the present in another dimension?

What format/s will it be released on and how will it be packaged?
Oohh, man… It will come in a special limited digipak with a bonus DVD with some really intimate “in close” stuff from the studio with me (Ozo) and Dango talking about our history and all the videos. You’ll also get a few bonus tracks. The vinyl will come in a limited edition triple gatefold (single LP + audio CD) gatefolded thing that will look pretty neat, so be quick. There will be I think four or five different very limited vinyl colors.

Who will it be released through, and when?
This time we actually decided to license it out to Century Media, so they will release it under exclusive license from Fuzzorama. The release date is set to 30th of Sept.

Tell us about the studio and why you chose to record there?
It’s our own studio called Studio Bombshelter and we’ve been recording all our albums there so far, even though this is Bombshelter mk.2 (Mania, Universe and V were recorded in the mark. 2 studio). It’s as you can hear the name of an old Bombshelter that we’ve built a soundproofed recording room for the drums, and we also have 2 smaller rooms for overdubs etc. The control room is also a very cosy quite big room with a nice groove to it. It really feels like a second home spending time in there… and man we’ve spent some time in that basement. It was an easy decision to record in our own studio again, the freedom of not having to think of money rolling for every hour we spend is worth a lot for the relaxing and getting into a creative state of mind. We compose a lot on the fly so to speak, the songs isn’t finished beforehand so we need lots of time in the recording process as it is also composing process.

Tell us about the producer / engineer and why you chose to record with them?
The engineer AND producers are me and Dango and we actually love em’ haha… Seriously we actually tried for the first time ever different mixers on the last record, four different really expensive mixers did a test mix of a song, but none of them made it the way we wanted it to sound, so it ended up the same way, we did it ourselves. Or this time Dango did mostly of the mixing, mastering but I’m always not far away giving my opinion on how the mixes develop and ideas on how we could improve things…

Did you go into the writing process with a clear direction in mind?
We didn’t decide how it was going to sound BUT we where really clear when making the songs, it all came to us very easy and quick and we knew exactly what to do with it, maybe we’re starting to get a bit professional now haha.
No but to be a bit serious, we have never written a song thinking we should write something in a certain way, fast, heavy, psychedelic etc. We always write what comes out! Sounds easy right.

Were you listening to anything in particular during the writing / recording process that influenced the songs at all?
No, these days we don’t listen or get inspired by any music at all… We take more inspiration from meeting a lot of cool people on the road. I also tend to go out in the nature a lot when I’m back home… Tenting, snowboarding or whatever comes to my mind, just to get some peace or adrenaline, it depends haha.

Were there any albums you were referencing in the studio to aim for a certain type of sound production wise?
No, none. All we had in mind where that this record where going to sound dirtier than the last but still very solid and punchy.

How long did you spend in the studio recording?
Approx. 4 months fulltime but then we did small changes, fixes for another 2 months.

Tell us a little about the recording process the band used?
Me and Dango meet up and create the songs and record it with a click track very basic into Cubase just to get the structure in place. Sometimes we don’t even bother to tune the guitar and bass hahah… We want the inspiration to be the key element, and when that is all done, we re-record everything properly of course. This time was a bit different though, we didn’t have any drummer at that time at all so we recorded almost all the bass & guitars that actually are on the album first and THEN we recorded the drums, odd but exciting to try something different.

Was this any different to previous processes you have used?
Not really, maybe we where a bit more determined this time… I mean we just left a very worthless management that where suppose to make things a bit easier but in the end they didn’t and it felt so good to go into the studio with a bit of angst against them but also against things that happen in the world, there’s so many totally stupid people out there just in it for the money or just hurting other people.

Any guests involved? if so, who.. and what did they do?
Yes, our good friend Peter Damin (who also played on a Paradise lost album for an example) plays the drums on Song 1, we’ve talked about it for years but when we had time to record drums he has always been too busy, but this time it was the right time. It’s fun to do new things.

When it comes do naming the tracks, is there any particular approach or process to it all?
Usually we have a working name for all the songs, but they rarely end up as the title on the finished album, usually we try to name the songs to something that has something to do with the lyrics, what they are about.

Any particular equipment outside your usual live gear used in the process?
Not really, we recorded through a bunch of very cool pre-amps, like Drawmer 1960, Universal audio and more… but mainly it’s the sound of our new mixing console an old Soundcraft mixing console, in the late eighties this was their top of the line most expensive mixing console, but now we got it very very cheap, and the pre-amps is stellar to drive a bit hard so they distort a bit. Dango usually records on his old Rickenbacker and the Gibsons is more like a complement whilst recording.

Any memorable studio moments?
Many… I remember back in the days when we recorded the Fuzzsplit of the Century, at that time I used to work at a youth center and in the summer time that was totally, so we invaded the gymnastic hall that we had on this youth center, a big hall where we placed out the drums and recorded them… As you might guess, we didn’t need to add any reverb, the sound was huge. Also another cool memory is when we recorded Phi and we worked 24 hours a day in the studio for several weeks. We took shifts so Dango used 8 hours recording guitars, the other guitarist at that time Mr Fredo recorded 8 hours and then me the rest of the 8 hours, so we meet each other in the door just saying hi and good luck haha… We usually work alone when recording our own stuff, it’s easier if you get peace and quite to just try out things for as long as you need.

Any additional tracks recorded that didn’t make the cut but may see the light of day sometime?
Yeah, we had about 3 songs that didn’t make it to the record, one of the we recorded the drums with Peter Damin, that song is kind of finished but when we were done we felt it wasn’t good enough so we will probably re-arrange and maybe it will appear on future albums, compilations or something like that.

What track/s are you most looking forward to playing live?
All of them haha… No but seriously, this time is the first time I really feel like all the songs would be so much rad to play live… Usually you might feel that 3-4 songs from an album will be awesome live as well, but this time is different, I would love to be able to play em all.

How would you compare the final product to previous releases?
It’s dirtier and maybe even more progressive but without being hard to listen to, the melodies are better and maybe a bot darker. I guess the album breathes a bit more melancholia?

Anything else you want to say or about the release?
It’s a killer album that have everything you need, soft and hard stuff blended in a certain way that makes it sound like Truckfighters. Please buy it and Enjoy!

COVER ART