Loud & Proud

Shout Out Louds have just finished their soundcheck at The Village, and I’m trying to get frontman Adam Olenius to explain exactly what it is about their home country of Sweden that inspires so many to pursue music as a career.

“I don’t know exactly,” muses the singer, choosing his words while nursing a pint of Guinness. “We’re forced to learn an instrument in school – we start with the recorder, and then you can choose another instrument. Sometimes it felt like you were in The Sound of Music, or something.”
What he likes about Swedish bands is that they’re not afraid of making no-holds barred pop music albeit with an art school twist – or, in Adam’s words: “To mix that tradition of ABBA, but to work with great producers.”
One of those presumably great producers is Bjorn Yttling of Peter Bjorn and John, who oversaw the recording of Shout Out Louds’ second album Our Ill Wills.
“He came up to me at a festival,” Olenius reveals. “He was really drunk and told me that he hated the production on our first EP – a typical producer pick-up line. Both his band and ours are influenced by beats and rhythmic patterns, so we were on the same level. It was before they’d released ‘Young Folks’ too, so he was home a lot more back then!”
Can we conclude, then, that the Stockholm scene is quite chummy and supportive?
“There‘s a really good scene there at the moment,” he confirms. “Over the past 10 years, there’s been lots of little labels popping up. When we started the band, I was more influenced by the local scene, rather than what was going on elsewhere.”
Our Ill Wills hit shelves in Scandinavia this time last year. Olenius says it’s frustrating to have to wait for the record to be released in the rest of the world.
“That happened with the first album, too – it was released at home two years before anywhere else. Repeating yourself is quite frustrating from a creative point of view. I don’t get tired of the songs, just of the travelling. But I’m really happy once we’re all on stage. It feels new every night.”
The album sleeve, with its images of maritime signal flags, has a special significance, he reveals.
“We rehearse in a basement underneath a hotel where a lot of people in the Navy live and work, so there are old paintings with ships and nautical themes everywhere. We borrowed it from our surroundings. And being on tour, in a band, you feel sometimes like a sailor. You go away for long periods of time, you come back with treasures, you miss your family...”
“We always thought a cool way to tour would be to get your own boat and go from town to town that way,” chips in bassist-cum-video director Ted Malmros.
With a tour itinerary planned until September, Shout Out Louds won’t be dropping anchor anytime soon.
“We can’t really complain,” concludes Olenius. “I’m really happy this has happened”.

Our Ill Wills is out now.