The Sounds

Related Sites:

The Sounds

By Tiffany Razzano

After all the hype surrounding their 2003 debut, Living in America, Sweden's The Sounds were able to prove they were the real deal despite the pressure it put on them.

Their sophomore release, Dying to Say This to You, released on James Iha's Scratchie Records in March, still packs a punk rock punch while giving fans more of the catchy rock they came to love. Still, there was the very real issue of the "sophomore slump" hanging over their heads after three years of touring the world.

"We don't write while we're touring," said bassist Johan Bengtsson. "When we went home, we focused on one thing - writing. We only wrote one song in three years of touring. Our big fear going back was whether or not we could still write songs."

Once they got back to their home city of Helsingborg, the group built themselves a studio and devoted themselves to writing their next album. And once they started writing, said Bengtsson, all their fears just disappeared. They wrote all of the songs in only two and a half months.

Though there aren't any major departures from their signature sound on Dying, their sound is a bit more mature, having collected a variety of influences over the past three years. "Our first album was written five years ago," Bengtsson said. "We were unsigned and in our last year of high school. We were young when we wrote it. Now, we've been touring, have seen the world and have had personal crises. It's all affected our songwriting."

The group is currently wrapping up a summer-long stint on the Vans Warped Tour, during which they played at Nassau Coliseum, which, despite all the times they've been to New York, was the first time they've been to Long Island. The group played about six weeks of the show in 2006, but didn't play the New York show. Bengtsson decided to stay in the country an extra month though and decided to hit up the show at Randall's Island. He greatly approves of the festival's move to Nassau Coliseum. "[Nassau Coliseum] is a lot cleaner," he said. "[Randall's Island] was super dusty. I had to wear a surgical mask."

He also marveled at the music scenes in the various cities across the United States. "The music scene in Sweden is different," he said. "They're not as supportive of each other as they are here. There's a lot of competition." He said that bands in Sweden, because the country is so much smaller, will only play out a few times a week. He called America "the real tour," with bands going on the road for months at a time, bringing along bands they're either friends with or really like as their opening acts. In Sweden, a tour package like that is considered to be a "luxury."

Over the years, the group has spent a lot of time in America. "It has developed into our second home," he said. "We spend so much time here. It's like two different worlds. We have two different sets of friends. When we don't spend time here, we miss it."

As Warped wraps up, the group is heading back to Europe to support Panic at the Disco on a European tour. They're hoping to be back in the States this fall headlining a tour of their own.

0 8 . 1 7 . 0 6