Let's maybe start with the beginning, what's the story of the band, where are you guys from?
We're from Stockholm, Sweden. Actually it was two bands from the beginning, it was Christoffer the guitar player, then it was me and Carl from another band, we met together one night, we just jammed for a show, and that's pretty much how we began doing music together. Then a while down the road we found Niklas, who was like an old blues singer. So we added his touch to the music. We then went to California to record our debut album in the desert, in Joshua Tree. -Stefan, Drums
It started out like with Stefan the drummer and Christoffer the guitar player, they wanted to do a lot of shows and play live a lot, because both of our bands didn't really play live that much. So they started a band just to play a lot of gigs. And then they didn't have a bass player and I joined. Me and Stefan played together earlier. Snowy Dunes had one singer before Niklas joined, he was along for like maybe six months or something, played maybe five gigs with him or something and then he quit. -Carl, Bass
He couldn't handle the pressure. -Stefan, Drums
Haha crazy..!
Well, he was a great guy, but Niklas really formed the sound. -Stefan, Drums
Thank you man. I think what Snowy Dunes needed before was its own type of personality. I think we, as a group now, have more of a group personality and more of a vibe than you had with the other guy. I write a lot of lyrics, so I bring a lot of the... Well, we all discuss the theme, but I sort of take it in some direction lyrically, and I've always kinda done that, but I think that comes from writing a lot of blues songs and a lot of delta blues guitar. I'm kinda fast at just improvising in that sense. -Niklas, Vocals
We know each other very well on a musical level if you say so, that really helps out a lot. -Stefan, Drums
How do you guys compose your music, do you just jam and find a good riff?
It usually starts off with Christoffer the guitar player, he usually brings like a riff he's been working on for a while and doing something. He just starts off playing and then we start jamming around it. When he comes up with a riff we like to jam for like 20, 30 minutes on the same song and do variations on the riff and then come up with new stuff with that and then we try to use... yeah, like a lot of bands do, we try to use all those small things you find during the jam. -Carl, Bass
Yeah, for the first album it was mostly stuff from Christoffer's old band that we sort of jammed together into new songs, recorded in the desert in Joshua Tree, that definitely puts a feeling on it as well. It was like this big process of taking those songs, building into new songs and giving it a certain sound. -Stefan, Drums
Sometimes we'll work on a song, but like before I came in, they had lots of riffs, but they had no ear exposed to it. So I would just sit and write, write, write, write lyrics you know. Then I would come up with a good line and then we would tweak that a little bit and then... and then... it's often jamming. For our song "Atlantis Part 1", I had one line of lyrics written before we started to record it. -Niklas, Vocals
Yeah that song was some kind of an experiment. The funny thing was actually it was not decided what it was going to be, it was just like a jam, a long jam, basically. -Stefan, Drums
Exactly. Just a big jam, the lyrics are improvised, NIklas had like one line, then Christoffer came in with another thing he had on guitar around. The song just worked itself out by itself, we didn't do anything, more or less; we just played the song, which is pretty cool. -Carl, Bass
And you guys, about influences, what are yours, personally?
Well, I play bass and my influences are Geezer Butler from Black Sabbath because has a really fluent style and lot of fills, a lot of jazzy stuff. I also like John Paul Jones from Led Zeppelin, because he has a lot of melody. Those are the bands I listen to the most: Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin. I also love Captain Beyond, which is terrific band from the 70s and also another band, more or less modern, from the 90's, called Bigelf. They're a really cool LA band, it's heavy, it's like a mix between Black Sabbath, The Beatles and Pink Floyd. I like that, heavy but also melodic. -Carl, Bass
I have a variety of influences. I play a lot of different instruments as well. I think a lot of my fascination is with old blues men, I like a lot of that kind of stuff. I definitely... Captain Beefheart I could list as an influence, because just the rawness of it and the surrealness and I kinda try and incorporate a little of that craziness into my stage show, but also in the way I sing and stuff like that. Also of course Jim Morrison, The Doors. About newer bands: I like Mondo Drag a lot, yeah. But then, I mean, I can get down with a lot of different shit, I mean James Brown was a fucking awesome singer, man. -Niklas, Vocals
Do you listen to Gospel, Niklas? Because this morning during your concert I saw you were like giving the power of god on somebody's head with your hands haha it was funny.
Haha yeah I always was just fascinated with that whole evangelist thing, like a "wake meeting". Like that old soul singer, that kinda like just give everything man, until the voice fucking just like, was just destroyed completely, that whole thing, just singing with your entire body, that was really cool to me. -Niklas, Vocals
Yeah, well the same thing for me, you know, as a drummer, I'd say Keith Moon, John Bonham and Mitch Mitchell and drummers like that, you know. I guess those are my primary influences, but of course newer bands like Graveyard, you know, the bands at this festival, Dead Meadow and Orange Goblin. Awesome bands as well like Sleep and stuff like that. I listen to that a lot. Black Sabbath of course. -Stefan, Drums
From: https://morefuzz.net/fuzzy-interviews/snowy-dunes/
