“The ideas of what we wanted [True Brew] to sound like, those ideas came right after we finished the album Machine 15,” he says.“Even before we released Machine 15, I said to Mathias [Färm, guitar], ‘The next album, we’re just going to have 12 songs, and they are going to be Bad Religion songs.’
“For me, I guess every album you do is sort of a reaction to what you have done before it. And we just felt like with Machine 15 we didn’t take our sound as far as we could have. With True Brew, we wanted to go back to where we started and dig a little deeper. It wasn’t a conscious decision to go back to our roots. We just felt like we needed to just make a Bad Religion album. But for me it was just a reaction to the previous album.”
While a major departure from its predecessor, True Brew is by no means a reinvention of the wheel. The album clings closely to Millencolin’s signature sound, with bountiful sing-along choruses and punk rock abandon. It’s a re-ignition of the fire that burned bright in the band’s beginning years in the early-1990s. It’s the best studio sound the band has achieved to date, an especial feat considering the band took production into their own hands. As with Machine 15, the band worked out of their very own Soundlab Studios before sending the record off to famed metal producer Jens Bogren for mixing.
“On previous albums we wanted a producer to come in and do miraculous things, like come up with genius ideas for vocal harmonies or other ways to sing a song,” Šarčević says. “This time we thought, ‘Why not do it ourselves?’ With all the experience we have from recording albums together, and the experience Mathias has as a producer and working with the Soundlab studio, we didn’t see any reasons as to why we would pay a lot of money for something we can do ourselves. For the first three albums we were all living in our hometown. We were rehearsing and jamming on the songs regularly in the same room and that’s how the songs would develop. With True Brew, no one was ever in the same room at any one time.”
Traditionally, Millencolin’s songs have been a collaborative effort, with Šarčević and Färm bringing in song sketches to complete with the rest of the band. For True Brew however, Šarčević crafted would-be songs on acoustic guitar, sending the early incarnations to Färm to work on further in the studio.
“I sent over a demo to him with like 17 songs with just acoustic guitar and vocals. He added another two songs, and we then boiled the lot down to 15 tracks we were happy with.”
Färm spent the next six months developing the demos in the studio, creating prototypes for what would end up on True Brew. Once completed, the remaining members individually tracked their parts in the studio. The result is 12 punk rock bangers, with little time spared for filler.
Social commentary makes up the bulk of the lyrical content. In particular, comments on the increase in political opinions online and the recent political climate in the band’s homeland and around the world.
“Usually the lyrics are the last thing I write, but during the time of writing these songs, we had the elections here in Sweden. I was inspired by things I saw on news, and on social media among people I know. With Facebook and social media, everyone is expressing so many opinions. There is this pressure for people to have an opinion on everything. Before you really didn’t [before], people were just living, now everyone has an opinion online. Some of those opinions got me inspired to write some of those songs. Before I was writing about things going on in my head and what I was doing, and now it’s less about what I am thinking and more about how a community is thinking and working together as a society. And I think that is the reason this album is more political, because I’m talking more about society than my own mental state.”
The Swedish foursome will be back on Australian soil this month, which marks the beginning of the True Brew world tour. Over the years, Millencolin have been regular visitors to the antipodes, so Šarčević knows what to expect. “You have to do a lot of training to look good on the beach. We’re not 20 years old anymore, so staying in good physical shape is a big part of it. Being on tour it’s very easy to gain weight and on stage you want to be as light as possible.”
BY AARON STREATFEILD
