”I think our big goal in the future is to play at Tavastia, I will buy a tiger jacket and play an Epiphone bass like Cisse Häkkinen”: The Drippers’s frontman Viktor Skatt interviewed

Swedish action rock band The Drippers released ass kicking album ”Scandinavian Thunder” on December. Chaoszine had opportunity to ask few questions from band’s vocalist-basist Viktor Skatt by email. On interview Skatt told album song writing, swedish underground rock music scene and mention what are next goals for The Drippers.

Hi Viktor! First of all how is The Drippers doing right now?

Viktor: We’re doing great! Sure, the pandemic is affecting us all and we’ve already had several gigs cancelled in January, but it’s the same for everyone. We just try to focus on what we can change, and try to do as much work that can’t be done when the schedule is full. Song writing, doing interviews, filming music videos and those kind of things. We keep ourselves busy!

That sounds good attitude! The Drippers’s ”Scandinavian Thunder” was released in end of 2021. The album sounds really energic and I can imagine that album’s sound like as The Drippers’s playing on gig. Could you tell me album’s writing and recording process?

Viktor: Yeah the album kinda sounds like we want to sound live, but of course you can’t distort everything (including the drums) like that live cus it’d just be a feedback catastrophe. But live there’s so much noise going on and it’s so extremely loud, you can’t really get that feeling on an album so you have to add the chaos. We try to do that as much as possible. Although we record the songs track-by track because the recording room in Sunlight Studio is kinda small, we always line in guitar, bass and vocals and play along to every drum take.
We don’t use a clicktrack, every drum track is recorded while the whole band is playing, but with the guitarist and basist in the control room. So there´s still a live feeling to it.

The writing process is different depending on the track. Often me or William will have an idea, and we’ll do a home recording of the tune that we send out to the others. William likes to do rough demos and then build it together in the rehearsal space. I tend to prefer to write a full song, record all the guitar and bass parts as well as programming the drums. Then I’ll send it out. I like to finish the process and do a quite exact demo of my song so they really understand how I see it. I’m also a quite inexperienced song writer, so to me it’s important to show to myself that I can come full circle with a song project.

The recording process is that we go to Sunlight Studio and record with Tomas Skogsberg. His studio is out in the middle of nowhere so it’s really peaceful. We live in a small house next to the studio which is built in his barn. For the debut album we had 10 songs, then we wrote one more in the studio. For ”Scandinavian Thunder”, we brought and recorded 16 songs and narrowed it down to 11, so it took a little longer. First we tracked most of the stuff in 9 days. Then me and William went back a month later and added vocals and guitars for another 3 days.

Tomas really took on the role as producer this time, on the debut we mostly just recorded the stuff but this time he knew us better and really went into the arrangements and came up with great ideas. We really enjoyed it, he really knows his stuff after all these years so you really listen. In the evening when we called it a day, we’d have a couple of beers and shots of rum, just talking and listening to music. So nice and relaxed, it’s great to just be in that creative bubble.

What kind of things inspire you to write music?

Viktor: We get inspired by people we meet, music we hear and places we see. Just like every other band. I wouldn’t really say that we’re a lyrical band, we’re more about the music. Sure, we’re somewhat intellectual (our drummer is even an author) and interested in history, politics and philosophy. But we’re simple people who enjoy simple pleasures. We want Rock N Roll to be an escape from reality, a place where we live out our fantasies.

I would say that from the beginning, we’ve been inspired by the great bands that came before us. Without them, we wouldn’t have been interested in writing music ourselves. The power of music is incredible, we live our lives for music and have done since we were small.
We still buy records, we still check out everything new that comes out. There’s still that curious nature in us that just takes over. That’s probably what drives us.

”Scandinavian Thunder” has definitely features from action rock and punk rock. What kind of bands are your main influences?

Viktor: To name the obvious ones: Gluecifer, New Bomb Turks, The Hellacopters, Turbonegro, Radio Birdman, The Stooges, MC5 and Motörhead. I think our sound is a mix of all our influences, not just the action rock ones. That’s just how we channel it out.

We’ve dug deep into the roots of the blues, 70’s hard rock, heavy metal, punk, pop, 50’s Rock N Roll, 60’s garage rock nuggets. You name it. We’re influenced by anything, good songs are good songs no matter what genre. I could listen to Roxette or Bruce Springsteen and get inspiration from their compositions. Genres are just dialects of the same language, you can get inspired by anything and turn it into whatever. In this case – action rock.

What do you think are the main things in band that make writing music and playing together as smooth as can be?

Viktor: The main thing is that you all enjoy what you’re doing, that you’re going in somewhat the same direction and that you’re open to ideas. To have discussions and sharing opinions in a respectful manner is super important. We often disagree musically in the band, but we try to not just shoot each other’s ideas down bluntly. Instead we present alternatives, there has to be an agreement that what’s best for the song is more important than ego. What does the song tell you that it wants? That’s also why we give our producer great power over the process and decision making, so we don’t have to fight.

There is coming plenty of interesting rock and metal bands from Sweden including The Drippers. I bet you know better the rock scene over there so I’m curious to ask that which bands are also worth of checking out?

Viktor: We know the rock scene very well! We have some great bands here in Göteborg: Åskväder, Hot Breath, Scumbag Millionaire, Deadheads, Acid’s Trip and Upploppet for example. In Örebro there’s a great band called The Boatsmen, in Skåne we have Liar Thief Bandit and The Dahmers, aswell as the band Bomber that just put out their first single ”Zarathustra” from their upcoming debut album. It’s fucking awesome! And then there’s of course Doojiman & The Exploders from Stockholm. I’m forgetting so many bands right now that I’d love to give a push, hope they’ll forgive me.

Well, that’s quite many bands you mentioned. Thanks for sharing this, I’d better check few of them or all!

Gathering restrictions has been part of the our lives almost two years now. Some bands have done stream gigs. Has The Drippers done any of them? Do you consider them if restrictions carry on till summer?

Viktor: Nah we don’t do streamed gigs. We did a “live in the studio” thing once, but that was before the pandemic. We don’t feel that our music works well in that format, since it’s built around the energy that’s created with a live audience. The restrictions will hopefully fade out soon, we can wait. 

I understand very well. You can’t get the same feeling from live stream than from gig – obviliously. The Drippers has released two albums right now. What would be next step for band?

Viktor: Our next step is to get out and tour in Europe. We played our release gig for the debut album in Hamburg. That was our big goal, to play at Reeperbahn like The Beatles. So on the release date of our first album we reached our goal. I guess everything from here on is just a bonus, haha.

But after that we did a quich UK tour with The Hip Priests, which was amazing. Just as we were getting down to Europe, the pandemic struck. So that ruined the last album. But soon it’ll start opening up again, so we’ll hopefully be able to get it going. We’ve got a Spanish tour booked, and a week of gigss in Germany and The Netherlands.

I think our big goal in the future is to play at Tavastia, I would buy a tiger jacket and play an Epiphone bass like Cisse Häkkinen. So if there are any bookers out there that need us as a support band, we’re up for it! Helsinki is one of our best cities according to Spotify, so don’t be shy!

Sounds good goals! And thanks for you time Viktor! Would you like to send some greetings to readers?

Viktor: Thank you very much and kippis! I would like to tell the great people of Finland that we love you, and keep on rocking! We hope to visit you soon so we can drink some Jaloviina and talk about Hurriganes and how Wayne Gretzky would never have reached the same heights if it wasn’t for Jari Kurri. Because it’s true.

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Interview: Aleksi Parkkonen