Thanks so much to Henrik Edberg for the interview! I wrote about Saliva some time ago on the blog and last week I heard from Henrik and he was up for an interview! And luckily he was also quick replying all my questions! Saliva released just one EP back in the 90s on Dorian Records, the label of the great Roger Gunnarsson. If you haven’t heard them yet, or heard about them yet, this is a nice way to discover this fine 90s Gothenburg band!
++ Hi Henrik! Thanks so much for being up for this interview! How are you? Are you still involved with music?
Hi! Thank you for your interest! I’m fine, thanks. I never thought I’d be interviewed about a band that broke up 25 years ago. I still play guitar almost daily and I have lots of songs, but I’m not involved with any band unfortunately. I am currently working on music for a one man project called Quaadillac. I would describe the music as a cross between Screamadelica-era Primal Scream and 1970’s jazzfunk.
++ Let’s go back in time. What are your first music memories? Do you remember what was your first instrument? How did you learn to play it? What sort of music did you listen to at home while growing up?
My first musical memories are listening to my father’s records in the living room when I was a child. He had quite a record collection. Lots of American and British vinyl singles and LP:s from the Sixties. I particularly remember listening to Del Shannon. I loved his big hit Runaway, but I was even more fond of his songs Hats Off To Larry and Keep Searchin’. A few years later, when I was about seven or eight I got into KISS (this was about 1982). I saw KISS on their first tour without make-up in 1983, when I was nine. That made a huge impact on me. I knew then I wanted to play guitar and be in a band.
My first instrument was a used Hagström Corvette electric guitar from the 60’s, which I got for Christmas or possibly my birthday when I was about 11 or 12 years old. It was almost unplayable. But I took guitar lessons and learned songs by Black Sabbath and AC/DC in a cellar beneath a nearby school. In the early 90’s I took jazz-guitar lessons with Fredrik Berggren and Patrik Landgren who were also in Saliva, which had a great influence on our style and our songwriting.
++ Had you been in other bands aside from Saliva? If so, how did all of these bands sound? Are there any recordings?
Yes, the first ”real” band I was in was called Jelly Roll in the late 80’s. We played 80’s style hard rock, I guess. At least initially. There might be some demo about somewhere, but not in my possession sadly… or perhaps luckily.
++ Where were you from originally?
I’m from Torslanda, a suburb of Gothenburg. All the members of Saliva were from Torslanda, except for our bass players (first Pekka Häkkinen, then later Erik Norinder) who were from other parts of Gothenburg.
++ How was Gothenburg at the time of Saliva? Were there any bands that you liked? Were there any good record stores? Or what about the pubs or venues to go check out up and coming bands?
There were some great record stores in Gothenburg for sure, with lots of import albums and lots of different genres. In that aspect we were really lucky living in Gothenburg. The venues for up and coming bands on the other hand were not that many. Underground, Magasinet and Kåren were the main three venues and quite hard to get to play for local bands. Then there was a place called Valvet that was a bit easier to get to play but very scruffy. It seems to me now that the likelihood of a fight breaking out was constantly imminent at Valvet.
There were some good bands and some bands and artists that made it big. Me and Erik Norinder (bassist) went to school with Henrik Berggren and Håkan Hellström in Broder Daniel. Håkan went on to become Sweden’s biggest and most popular artist. Which feels a bit strange to me and at the same time totally unsurprising. He had quite a unique talent. He is probably the most gifted musician I ever encountered. Believe it or not – this is actually a controversial opinion in Sweden. We’re a horribly jealous people. *laughs*
++ How did you all meet? How was the recruiting process?
The band that was Jelly Roll, but we were probably named something else by then, gradually turned into Saliva. The first version of Saliva had me, Erik Jacobsson (vocals) and Per Strömberg (drums) and added a friend named Fredrik Berggren (guitar) to it. Fredrik brought in his friend from school – Pekka Häkkinen. We still played some sort of rock music, I guess. It was a bit more experimental than the Jelly Roll stuff. We had begun developing a taste for jazz music and Frank Zappa, but also alternative bands like Jane’s Addiction and Mr. Bungle. This was probably around 1992.
++ How was the creative process for you? Where did you usually practice?
I wrote most of the lyrics for the band from early on. In the later days me and singer Patrik Landgren worked on songs separately for the most part, even though Fredrik Berggren and Erik Norinder also brought in song ideas occasionally. But all the songs were very much finished by the group collectively. We rehearsed in Torslanda on what used to be an old airport. We were kicked out of our first rehearsal room by the members of a horrible old bluesrock band who lied to the owners and said that we got drunk there regularly which was totally untrue. The old guys wanted the rehearsal room for themselves. Fortunately Patrik and Fredrik had kind of a small barrack close-by which they had made into a rehearsal space for their previous band. So we moved there.
++ What’s the story behind the band’s name?
I saw some graffiti at a bus stop which said Saliv (which is the Swedish word for Saliva) and I thought it would be a good band name. The idea being that it’s intimate and a bit sexy, but also kind of disgusting! I still think it’s an okay name even though lots of people back then misspelled and mispronounced it as Salvia, which is the Swedish word for the herb sage. In 1998, two years after we split up, I saw a poster of another band called Saliva outside a venue in Memphis, when I was there on vacation. They became quite famous for a little while. They played some kind of Nu Metal… not my thing at all. We’re the Original Saliva.
++ Who would you say were influences in the sound of the band?
We had too many different influences. That was always part of the problem. The jazz influence always stayed in the music but we shifted from rock band to a more poppy sound in 1994, partly because I discovered The Smiths and Morrissey and became obsessed with them. This also coincided with britpop becoming popular in Sweden. Suede was probably our biggest influence out of the britpop bands. We were also listening to a lot of 70’s Bowie and 60’s music like Scott Walker and The Walker Brothers which you can hear in Patrik’s vocal style on the EP.
++ You only released one record, the “Hooligan at Heart” EP in 1996. I was wondering if before that perhaps you had made recordings? demo tapes?
There is the A Chance To Shine-compilation with one song (Tender Castration) which predates the EP and the Rockslaget compilation that has two songs on it. We made a couple of cassette demos that had several songs on them. In Between Smiles was a great song. There was another one called Lovely, Lovely which we later re-wrote for what was to be our last gig… I haven’t listened to those songs in years. Oh, and there’s a song called Making Annie Glad… And Swell and If I Only Knew (What I Know Now)..
++ The “Hooligan at Heart” EP came out on the fine Dorian Records. How did they hear about Saliva? How was the relationship with the label?
Our bassist Erik did his military service in Halmstad with Roger Gunnarsson (who started Dorian Records). Roger was heavily into britpop so I guess he approved of our music taking a poppier turn. Roger was a really enthusiastic guy. I have nothing but fond memories of him. Our EP was the first on Dorian and then we split up so we didn’t have much of a relationship after that. I did run into Roger in 2003 or 2004 when I lived in Stockholm. He was as affable as ever.
++ And speaking of labels, were there any other labels interested in putting your music out?
We sent out several demos to record labels in Sweden, the UK and probably the US too. We got some polite rejection letters and some not so nice rejection letters. So, no, unfortunately not.
++ The EP has a few photos, one on the front and another on the back of the sleeve. I was wondering who is on the photos? Is it one of you? Someone you know?
The man on the cover is Patrik’s father, Guy. If my memory serves me right the photo was taken on his honeymoon in Italy back in the 60’s. There’s another picture of him from the same vacation laying in a sun chair on the back of the sleeve. The photo of the huge boat engine was ”borrowed” from some book about the shipbuilding industry in Gothenburg.
++ How was working at studio Lare? Was it your first time at a professional recording studio?
We recorded several demo sessions at Studio Lane. For me personally as early as the Jelly Roll days in 1989. We were quite used to recording in that studio. I always felt terribly claustrofobic at Studio Lane. It was really small and situated in the cellar below the famous rock club Errols (later Magasinet) in the central part of Gothenburg. The air was stale down there and it smelled of garbage and exhaust fumes from a close by car garage. I was much more scared of being trapped down there and never seeing the light of day again than the actual recording process.
++ The third song on the EP is titled “Polyester Convention, (Des Moines)”. I just have to ask it even if silly, have you ever visited Des Moines?
No, I haven’t. But there was an actual polyester convention in Des Moines. At least according to a news segment on ZTV (which was kind of the Swedish MTV). I remember that I saw the footage and thought that it would make a good title, since the song is about people I perceived as fake or phony. Where would fake people gather? At a polyester convention, of course. The comma in the title is a misprint by the way. But we had commas in most of our titles so it was an honest mistake.
++ And there was yet another compilation called “Rockslaget 1994” where your two rockiest songs “Twinsoul Lulu” and “Coming Home Being Good”. I noticed that this compilation featured more hard rock bands. Was this a natural evolution for the sound of the band, towards a harder sound?
That was earlier. Hooligan At Heart was recorded in the autumn of 1995 and released in January 1996.
++ Are there still many unreleased songs by Saliva?
There was one additional song that we left off the EP called Silicon Teens. I haven’t heard that one in years either. There was the new version of Lovely, Lovely (only the title was the same as an earlier demo song) and a song called Man in Uniform and possibly a late song called Young Women. But there are probably a few more from earlier on.
++ And how come there were no more releases by the band?
We split up a few months after the release of Hooligan At Heart. First our singer left to pursue his dream of becoming an opera singer, then the drummer left as well. I guess it was down to musical differences. Me, Erik and Fredrik tried to audition new members, but Patrik’s distinctive voice was really hard to replace. We couldn’t find a new singer that fit, we tried a young female singer who really wanted to be in the band but she was so shy that she wouldn’t sing into the microphone. Then we wanted Christer Lundberg, who was later in Universal Poplab to join, but he turned us down after one audition. We auditioned a few drummers as well, but nothing fell into place so we eventually gave up.
++ At some point I noticed that the band lineup changed too, right? What happened? Who left and who came to be part of the band?
Me and Fredrik were in the band the whole time. Our first singer was Erik Jacobsson (who sang for Jelly Roll) and drummer Per Strömberg (who was also in Jelly Roll). Pekka Häkkinen played bass for a brief period. Then Patrik Landgren (vocals) and Erik Norinder (bass) joined, which was kind of when the band got more ambitious. Later on, Tobias Mattsson replaced Per Strömberg on drums.
++ I think my favourite song of yours might as well be “Turn Off the Engine, Dear”, wondering if you could tell me what inspired this song? What’s the story behind it?
It was probably an attempt at writing something that I thought could be played on the radio. The song has a disco feel to it, which was in part inspired by the band Blondie but probably also Girls and Boys by Blur and to some extent Pulp. The lyrics are about someone trying to convince his girlfriend not to commit suicide. But it’s a bit too irony-laden in a 90’s sort of way to be heartfelt, I think.
++ If you were to choose your favorite Saliva song, which one would that be and why?
Probably “Whoever You Are, I’m Your Neighbour”. I think that song captures what we, or at least I, wanted to achieve musically at the time. I remember being really proud of that song listening back to it in the studio monitors.
++ What about gigs? Did you play many?
Not too many. We played Underground and Magasinet which were the two premier indie clubs in Gothenburg at the time and a couple of other venues in the city, as well as a city festival. I don’t think we ever played live outside of Gothenburg, although there were talks of gigs in Halmstad, Malmö and Stockholm that never happened.
++ And what were the best gigs you remember? Any anecdotes you can share?
In 1994 we performed in front of a few thousand people at Liseberg amusement park. We had reached the final in the band competition Rockslaget and performed two songs live on the biggest stage. It was brief, but the closest I got to feel like a real rock star. I don’t think it was our best performance, but it was by far the most memorable as the crowd was so large. Even though we didn’t win the competition it seemed we made an impression on at least parts of the audience as well.
++ And were there any bad ones?
Early on we had a concert where only two or three people showed up, one of them was my then girlfriend. It was in a café. I do think we did go ahead and played even though we felt humiliated. Frail young male egos being tested. It was probably a good thing.
++ When and why did Saliva stop making music? Were you involved in any other bands afterwards?
We had one gig early in 1996 after the EP was released. We had a written a couple of songs after the EP but they were only played live once and we didn’t demo them before we broke up.
I was in a band called Housequake (before changing our name to Emission) a few years later. We had three female singers and played music inspired mainly by Phil Spector and the girlgroups of the 1960’s.
++ What about the rest of the band, had they been in other bands afterwards?
Fredrik Berggren was (or is, I’m not sure) in a band called The Elliots. They have released two albums to date – Bullet For Pretty Boy (2007) and Love/Decay (2011). Erik Norinder played with a shoegaze band called Shallow Soundwave (that are featured on the A Chance To Shine compilation) after Saliva split. Nowadays he’s making music on his own as St. Levene.
++ Has there been any Saliva reunions?
No, not really.
++ Was there any interest from radio? TV?
A couple of our songs were played on national radio (P3) in Sweden in 1996 and we were interviewed by a college radio station that also played our songs.
++ What about the press? Did they give you any attention?
The local newspapers (Göteborgs-Posten and Göteborgs-Tidningen) wrote about us a few times. And we were featured in some fanzines, but we were hardly media darlings.
++ What about from fanzines?
A few fanzines, yes. I used to collect everything that was written about us, but I’ve not been able to find the collection of articles. Or the old demo tapes…
++ Looking back in retrospective, what would you say was the biggest highlight for the band?
Playing at Liseberg and recording and releasing Hooligan At Heart. But it was such a bitter ending soon after releasing the EP when everything broke down so quickly, which left me quite depressed for some time afterwards. What I miss nowadays is not that we never made it big, but rather going to rehearsal several times a week with my friends, making music together, being sort of a gang.
++ Aside from music, what other hobbies do you have?
Music was always and will always be my number one hobby. Listening to music, reading about music, writing about music, visiting places of interest when it comes to music, going to gigs, going to record stores, buying physical albums, and to some extent playing guitar and writing songs. But I also like reading in general, I like watching football (soccer), I like craft beer, I like Larry David and I’m fascinated by American history, culture and politics.
++ I’ve been once to Gothenburg and I really enjoyed, still I will take advantage ask a local for some recommendations! What are the sights one shouldn’t miss? Or the traditional food or drinks that you love that I should try?
Oh. I’ve lived here for most of my life (except for a few years when I lived in Stockholm), but these are really tough questions. First of all you should visit Gothenburg in spring or summer time. Autumn and winter are a nightmare in all of Sweden, if you ask me. I’m not an outdoorsy type at all but I like strolling around the city when the weather’s nice. Nowadays there are lots of good restaurants and bars in lots of locations. I like the neighbourhood of Mariaplan in Majorna a lot. The craft beer scene in Gothenburg is also good, if you’re into that sort of thing. The best microbrewery in town being O/O Brewing.
++ Anything else you’d like to add?
Yes, our biggest fan was a friend called Björn Boman. He supported us from the beginning. Hung around at rehearsals and saw most of our shows. I’d like to give a shout out to him!
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