This interview was made by Po Tidholm and was published in 'Dagens Nyheter' 970415. I have only translated it.
Atomic Swing don't exist anymore but have a new album out
in the stores. The question is if anyone has noticed. Niclas
Frisk seems to think 'the less, the better'. He has devoted the
last years trying to pick down his star.
- My biggest ambition right now is to be completely forgotten.
On October 27th, 1994, Niclas Frisk came out on stage wearing Donald Duck-outfit and a slovenly Kiss-makeup. It created confusion. Atomic Swing had earlier been on the right side of the subtle border that divides comedy from seriousness. Micke Lohse, the keyboardist, was dressed up like Uncle Scrooge and the horn-section looked like the Bear-gang. Everything was Niclas Frisk's idea. He wanted to provoke the journalists who had described him as a rock-clown.
Atomic Swing began their second tour on Palladium in Örebro. It was no grandiose event, not a big place, and not even sold out. Atomic Swing had already lost the grip of the masses. After a tremendous success fall 1992 with the single "Stone me into the groove" and the following album "A car crash in the blue" the road was open.
It began on Skånegatan in Stockholm. Niclas Frisk had, after a couple of years as guitarist in Perssons Pack, started his own band. He knew since in his teens how it was going to sound and how they were going to look, and he had the songs. Atomic Swing made one of their first appearences on Hannas Krog in front of an audience consisting of business-people and media. Soon the name showed up in the chronicles and next time they were playing it was almost impossible to enter the place. When the first single "Stone me inte the groove", came it was embraced with open arms. It only took a couple of weeks before the song was a question of national concern. Every townpub and smalltown-disco were playing it. The album came and sold large quantities. Atomic Swing had became popular and made a tour that could have went on forever. At the same time the album was released abroad and even there were positive reactions. When the band toured Asia and Australia they were big. Really big.
Home on Skånegatan they were fidgeting uncomfortably. It was not possible to like Atomic Swing anymore, not since they had became popular. When 1993 was to be summarized not a single of those who had given the album 'classic' included the album in their 'best of the year' list. When Atomic Swing first came they thought they were funny and great. When it showed that 'everyone' could like them they were placed in the same category as Sha-boom (norweigan band who were popular at the time. I wouldn't for my life compare them to Atomic).
-"Noone dared to put an OK-stamp on Atomic Swing",
says Niclas Frisk. I was accused of being populistic. Some kind
of Dag Finn-guy (the singer in Sha-boom).
-"What the media didn't seem to understand is that
you only give them selected parts. I never felt like giving them
what is me. I gave them what they thought they wanted."
Niclas Frisk is more than anything a craftsman who has spent his entire youth playing guitar and dissecting music. He is a purposeful, analytical and careful musician. Simply a perfectionist. In his work he seems to go from ideas rather than whims. Atomic Swing was a product of his imagination.
-"But Atomic Swing is the wrong vehicle for me to go in today. It doesn't give me anything anymore. I don't think anyone is sorry for that."
Niclas Frisk lives in a two-room apartment in Hammarbyhöjden. The decoration consists of some furnituring and a lot of amplifiers and instruments: guitars, a piano, a recently bought pedal steel-guitar. Outside the house is the Volvo 850 he bought when he was tired of rock'n'roll. Niclas Frisk is systemathical.
-"The Volvo was a philosiphical idea. I was so tired of rock'n'roll that I wanted to puke. I thought if I had an 850 it would affect me in the right direction. I wanted another life."
-"I've been experimenting with myself to see what you become like as person, with different conditions. It's like when you do a record, you go into a mood."
Life hasn't been the same since fall 1992. Even if Niclas Frisk wanted respect and fame, the feeling of success is hard to predict or master. It was good in the beginning and Niclas Frisk made a lot of money and got lots for free.
-"You get a superfluity of things you usually have one of", he says "and you can get lazy. But you can't go into goal just because you have one hitsingle. It takes more than that. For me it has never been important to sell a lot of records. Even if the company probably would like me to think so."
To emphasize his artistic integrity the band did the follow up to "A car crash in the blue" to a more reserved album. The sound is thin and scratchy, the opposite of heavy. There were hits on "Bossanova Swap Meet", but they were dressed in an artistical apparel. Niclas laughs:
-"The success broke us. That's probably how it is. I'm not an entertainer."
The music Niclas Frisk really wanted to do was not successful with the "Stone me"-audience, and the smart popaudience turned their backs on him when the big public breakthrough came.
-"You cannot choose your audience. You cannot stand on a stage and say 'Go away, you're not good enough!' Ace of Base, for example, are on the same level as their audience. I've always felt like I'm on the side somehow. We were misunderstood. Our reason was not to be trendy; it was more a reaction on what was in 1992. It just happened to work."
"Bossanova Swap Meet" was a successful album in the way that it scared big parts of the audience away. The recently issued "Fluff" has flopped, which doesn't concern Niclas Frisk. The contract he had with Sonet has decayed. Atomic Swing has made their three albums.
-"It's just as fun to destroy a sandcastle as building one. I thought we had nothing to lose. In the lights of the successes with the first album everything looks like a failure, even if it actually isn't. It might look as if Atomic Swing won on lottery, but it was the results of hard work. Musically we wanted respect, give people goosebumps and breath-shortness."
What few musicians expect when they enter the business is that they will, if they succeed, be exponated and analyzed. Half of the time consists of answering medias' questions, and here somewhere arises an addiction, the artists are put in an existential and economical dependence towards the media. If you cannot be seen you don't exist, perhaps not even to yourself. "Don't get high on your own shit", as it's said in the movie 'Scarface'. It's hard to avoid becoming a sexsymbol if you're under 25, and have eyes, a nose, a mouth and a hitsingle.
For many reasons Niclas Frisk chose to try to become less famous, and to minimize his audience.
-"We have only made records. It was media who created us. Suede came at the same time but Brett Anderson was, in difference to me, the person he was described as."
-"There is no self-purpose with starship. There are easier ways to make money. You are what you do and if you're going around in the friday-supplements it has its consequences."
In may, Atomic Swing make their last tour in Japan, booked since long. Niclas Frisk is planning to produce and to stay away from friday-supplements and TV. Perhaps it will be a soloalbum somewhere in the future. The title is already done: Niclas Frisk plays "Heart and Soul, the Rythm and the Blues".
