THERE'S NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT...REALLY !

Usually i don’t use this space to criticize records. I rather prefer to discover what the artist point of view is. Off course that we all have our favorite records and make out judgments on what we listen. Nevertheless I asked Peter Morén to talk about their last record and specially that fantastic “Nothing to Worry About “video. I’m okay with this and hope you are too, because as I told before, there’s really “Nothing to Worry About “…

 

King_leer:

PJ&J have a new record. Verdicts, we can read all over the press. Explain me in your own words the meaning of this record, your main goals.

 

Peter Morén:

 

We always try to do something different from the record before.

It's important to grow and change even though we have a constant core of classic pop songs   and melodies. But you have to frame them in new and different ways otherwise it would be boring for everyone. There are easily songs on this new record that would have fitted on our earlier ones, but then we would have played them differently. Before we started we talked a lot about rhythms and were discussing about working with them deeper on this records. We listened to a lot of 80's music, synthpop but also mainstream big hits like Fleetwood Mac and Paul Simon. We also listened to a lot of different older African and Brazilian music and also old funk and soul and some early hip-hop. We tried loads of different things in the studio and played the songs in different ways. We wanted to get away from the classic indie rock-sound and do something a bit retro futuristic, sci-fi almost, some ghostly spookiness to it. A lot of people think we used a lot of drum machines and synths, but 90% are acoustic sounds like popping balloons, matchboxes beating on film cans, opening umbrellas, ripping paper etc. We just didn’t use the regular drum kit so much but created beats from unusual sources and then messed around with a lot effects. I think the end-result is really special and unique and although we experimented a lot to me it sounds like a really big pop record with loads of hooks, very accessible perfect for the stadiums we're playing with Depeche this summer. We have always made good songs, but I think as a whole album, as a piece of art I think it's by far our strongest yet.

 

King_leer:

 

On "Nothing to Worry About":

Tell me the story beyond this song and how did the video turned out to be like that. It's awesome - as I told you before.

 

Peter Morén:

 

That was the last song we recorded for the album and it needed a bit of edge so we added the kids chorus at the very last minute.

The video was made by the great director Andreas Nilsson who has done all of the Knifes videos. He had heard about this greaser/biker/rockabilly-gang that met up and danced to 50's rock'n'roll in the parks of Shibuya in Tokyo during the weekends. You know how the Japanese take their subculture very seriously. Anyway he had this great idea of following them around and doing like a mini-documentary. So he did. So there no actors, it's the real deal. I think it turned out great.

  

Links : http://www.peterbjornandjohn.com/

                http://www.nixonnoxin.com/

 

 Now, watch the video:

 

THE END