You had to look very hard for a bad review of "This Is Deadheads First Album (It Includes Electric Guitars)". Metal Hammer, Rock Hard, Rocks, Classic Rock - they all loved the Deadheads' own brand of 'Boogie Punk' (that's what they call it themselves). Guitarist/singer Manne Olander finds a simple explanation for the Deadheads being everybody's darling at the moment: "People that really enjoy and understand good music always find something they like in different kinds of musical genres. Good music is good music. We just play rock 'n' roll. I don't think you have to play metal to get metalheads to like your music. I know many bands that have a 'metal tag' attached to them but they sound more like punk, classic rock or pop rather than metal. But I mean, who really cares!? Tell me a true punk who doesn't like Mot-rhead or Venom?" That's the right sentiment, no doubt. "We are very grateful for all the kind words. It's always flattering to get this kind of feedback", summarizes Manne Olander the overwhelmingly positive reactions to their debut album. Which in turn of course means, that expectations for album number two will be extremely high indeed. The Swedes do not seem to be too bothered with that: "That's out of our hands. We know that we have put together a great album so our part is done. We appreciate that people take time and listen to our music, that's all we can ask for." The new album is actually called "Loadead". Manne Olander explains this nice little play on words: "The story goes that Lou Reed made an album with Velvet Underground (many years ago) called "Loaded", because it was filled with hits. Deadheads made a second album filled with Deadheads hits, and to my ears it sounds like it should be named "Loadead"." Makes sense, doesn't it? Although the Deadheads might be the masters of understatement, Manne Olander is secretly quite proud of what he has achieved in this very short period of time: "We don't practice rocket science or claim to have invented a new genre but we know what we are doing. Both albums have been recorded live in the studio, to get the vibe we think rock music is supposed to sound like. We recorded "Loadead" with all musicians playing their respective instruments together in one room, nobody was wearing any headphones. That really gave the whole album the right vibe. Those two albums are no accidents at all. We work hard on the songwriting to get the songs and the sound we like." On "Loadead" there is a lot of fuzz and distortion, for example on a number like "There's A Hole In The Sky"... "Who doesn't like fuzz?," asks Manne Olander. "In fact it's mainly just overdriven tube amps but we worked on the sounds a bit more on this album." "Out of Here", on the other hand, is a really straight-forward number. Would it annoy the Deadheads if people start comparing them to the Hellacopters, Gluecifer and Turbo Negro? "Not at all," states Manne. "We often hear that people compare us to the nineties action rock scene and we don't mind at all. We love Turbonegro, New Bomb Turks, Flaming Sideburns, Hellacopters, Gluecifer, Gaza Strippers, Supersuckers, Nashville Pussy, The Nomads, Sator etc. We grew up with these bands and we are proudly keeping it alive, man!" "Empty Howls" is one of the slower, one of the more laid-back numbers on the album, highlighting the other side of Deadheads. Manne Olander agrees: "Yes, this is one of the darker, more bluesier songs. I don't got so much to tell you about it other than it's heavily inspired by the early days of Fleetwood Mac. Songs like 'The Green Manalishi', 'Dragon Fly' and 'Purple Dancer' made a big impression on this song. I had a hard time falling asleep for quite some time. I sat down in my living room one night and wrote down some words that came up. Suddenly Fleetwood Mac came to my mind and I started to read/write/play and listen to some of their songs." "Let Loose The Fool" sounds almost like classic proto punk rock to me, along the lines of the Dead Boys, Dictators, Johnny Thunders, New York Dolls - sort of New York circa 1976... "Spot on!," exclaims Manne Olander. "It's a classic rock riff with an energetic punk attitude. We had the idea of putting some saxophone on this song. We got heavily inspired by the Iggy Pop and James Williamsson record "Kill City" and the New Bomb Turks record "At Rope's End". Great albums." Matthias Mader
