PETER MORÉN - The "Young Folk" or "The Last Tycoon" ?

Hi There,

Since Peter will be tomorrow in Portugal to his last solo show from the "Last Tycoon" tour, it's the perfect time to publish this "dialogue" from last Monday.

I've met Peter for the first time while covering the Portuguese "Paredes de Coura" festival in the Summer of 2007 when PB&J peformed there. Tomorrow it'll be the first time i see him solo.

Hope you enjoy the following lines.

Cheers,

P.s. You can se the video that is mentioned bellow in the 1st question on the blog's video player.

KING_LEER (KL):

On lyrics:

"Let's call it off" is the song that uses (on the video) your record title "Writers Block". What this song is about and what's the story behind the album title?

PETER MORÉN (PM):

In the video we wanted to tie in a lot of references to other songs and themes on the album. That's why the title popped up there.

The song is about the end of a relationship that never really started. The title of the album is a pun. We did'nt have "Writer's Block" but we wrote our songs in the same block where we live in Stockholm.A block of writer's. Very clever and funny, right?

Again on lyrics:

(KL):

What song (regarding lyrics) most affected you in your life and in what way - If you can share it with us?

(PM):

Most of my lyrics are very personal so it's hard to pick. But "Objects Of My Affection" will always be special to me, since it's about the start of something new that's still going on; true love to be honest and the lesson learned that you shouldn't live in the past and well on things that went on before. Nostalgia isn't always a good thing, mostly it's bad. It's also wonderful that it has meant so much to so many people. I've been receiving a lot of mails about that particular song.

On Plagiarism:

(KL):

We all heard about the story of the supposed Coldplay's plagiarism on the "Viva La Vida" song. I really don't believe this but Peter, since i don't have the knowledge on music creation, tell me what you think about his subject? I believe is possible to create similar "atmospheres" by coincidence but they don't need this, i suppose.

(PM):

I haven’t heard that story. But I think you can borrow arrangements and ideas. Everyone does that and it's only creative and shows knowledge of music. When it comes to melody lines it's hard to do something brand new all the time, most have been done. It has happened that I've recognized similarities to other music after I've written a song even though I didn't do it deliberately. Then it depends on how much I've stolen. If it's too obvious I scrap it and do something different. But I never plan on stealing.

On creating a tune/song:

(KL):

When you wrote "Young Folks", where did that whistling came from? You write lyrics and music at the same time? Do you have an early stage version of the song that can be broadcasted to readers "see" how the process works?

(PM):

"Young Folks" was very different from a lot of our songs. It started with a melody Bjorn had written as a slow jazz piano piece. We then worked on it together in the band, did the arrangement with Johns great drumming.

Me and Bjorn wrote the lyric together from the idea that it should be a duet, which was hard. It's not as natural to write that way as writing lyrics about yourself. The song was created in the studio so there is no early version apart from Bjorn’s piano sketch which sounds like Duke Ellington.

On your visit to Portugal this week:

(KL):

The next lines are for you. Tell us about your solo work, the why's, the stories, whatever you want to say. What we'll see in the Braga show?

(PM):

After playing with Bjorn since I was 15 I really felt the urge to do something all by myself. I actually started working on my solo album before the band started touring all around the world in late 2006. But last year we had a break and it felt perfect to release it, which I did in April. It's called "The Last Tycoon" and It's a very soft, folky album, but the songs is similar to PBJ's stuff in their melodies and lyrics. The big difference is the arrangements. I love playing acoustic guitar so I wanted to base the songs on finger picking style.

It was recorded simply in the apartments of my friends. I did over 60 solo shows last year, but the show in Braga will be the last in a long time since PBJ is releasing a new album in late March so I'm gonna concentrate on the band again.

I'm coming to Braga with my good friend Tobias who's gonna play some piano and drums. It will be a very laidback personal and playful show, soft but also energetic.

I will play mostly solo songs, but maybe some covers too. I'm looking forward to it.

THE END