Mixtapes and Cellmates - A silence full of desires

A band of very young musicians. Formed almost by chance. Two EPs that sold out in next to no time. And growing interest from labels and industry insiders. This is Mixtapes & Cellmates. Starting out from the sound of their countrymen Radio Dept., from the feedback of My Bloody Valentine and Jesus & Mary Chain, within just a few months they arrived at a rather personal and original take on indie-pop, showing, despite their tender age, an uncommon degree of personality and initiative. Thanks to the interest of the excellent My Honey, a small but feisty Italian label heavily invested in Scandinavian pop, the debut album by Mixtapes & Cellmates is now available here too, and the Stockholm band will be touring the country for their first proper tour on our shores.

We took the opportunity to chat a bit with the band members, hoping that word of mouth will allow Mixtapes & Cellmates, and all the young and promising bands like them, to bring their interesting musical offering to the stage in our country.

First of all, tell us something about the band. How old are you? Where did you meet? How did you start playing together, and what's the story behind your name?

We're a band from Stockholm, Sweden. All born between 1987 and 1988, so all of us between 19 and 20 years old. Two of us (Robert and Johan) met online, and the other two (Matilda and Henning) knew Robert because they went to school together.

We started in 2005 with three members: Johan, Robert and Olle, who's no longer in the band. It all began in a bedroom with a synthesizer and a drum machine.

We stole the name from a Rocky Votolato song, since we couldn't come up with an idea ourselves. But little by little the name found its own meaning, and now, sometimes, it even seems to make sense.

You're about to embark on your first real tour of Italy. What do you expect from the shows? Do your live sets sound similar to your studio recordings, or do you leave room for improvisation and a rawer, more direct sound?

We expect to meet a lot of friendly Italians at our shows - the one time we came here it was all really great, so expectations are very high. Our shows are absolutely much noisier than our studio recordings, precisely because our intention is to bring something completely different to the stage. That's exactly the point of playing live: trying to create that energy that a record just can't convey.

How did you get in touch with your Italian label My Honey? Do you know anything about the independent music scene here in Italy?

Actually it was our Swedish label, Nomethod, that sent out some inquiries about having our record released in Italy, and My Honey was kind and interested enough to respond. We have to admit we don't know much about the Italian indie scene. We just know that My Awesome Mixtapes are a truly great band.

You're a very young band, just starting out. What pushed you to write and play music? Do you think there's still a valid reason to start playing music today? What would it be?

That's a really tough question. Our desire to write and play music isn't something we can easily describe, it's just something we feel. We want to write and play music because it's what we love, and we love the feelings it gives us.

There's always something worth writing about, and for us, right now, there are plenty. Big changes in everyday life, frustration, finding a job and still having no money. Anything that has an effect on us pushes us to write music.

Are there any bands or musicians who have influenced you? Is there a band you consider a mentor?

We all listen to a huge amount of music, which inevitably gives us lots of influences, but we're not influenced by anyone in particular, and we can't really say we have a mentor or anything like that.

Your early songs were very guitar-driven, full of feedback and quite close to the sound of bands like My Bloody Valentine, Jesus & Mary Chain or The Radio Dept. But on your debut album there's a greater focus on melody, it's more pop. Was that a deliberate, conscious choice, or did it happen almost by chance? Do you think that as you become better songwriters, little by little, you'll need "effects" less and less?

The debut album was more "thought out" compared to the EPs that came before it. We tried to move in the direction that felt most natural to us. We were a bit tired of having to rely only on feedback. We'd like to be able to write whatever music we feel like, without necessarily being labeled and pigeonholed into one genre or one fixed way of writing songs.

What's your relationship with production and recording gear? Are you comfortable with someone telling you or suggesting what to do? Do you think having a producer's help can be positive for a band's sound, or does doing everything yourselves leave more room for your creativity?

We recorded the first two EPs ourselves, but for the album we brought in the excellent Oskar Sandlund to record it. Even so, even though Oskar always showed up with ideas and suggestions, we played all the songs more or less exactly as we'd envisioned them, and he just made sure they sounded right. In the end, the whole thing is the result of a great mix between Oskar's skill at capturing sounds and our own natural sound and use of "effects".

What are your songs about? What influences you when writing lyrics?

The lyrics of our songs are, for the most part, about our relationships with people, whether they're friends or romantic relationships. The usual stuff, obviously.

Are you happy with the final result of your first album, with how it sounds and the songs that make it up? And what do you think of your label's idea of releasing a collection of your early EPs so few months after the album? Do you agree with this move?

Looking back there's always something that could have been done differently and could have been improved, but we're pretty proud of what we did. And yes, we agree with our label. So far, luckily, we've pretty much always agreed with them on everything.

Which direction do you think your music will take in the future? Will the next songs be closer to the early EPs, noisier and full of feedback, or will they lean more towards those on your self-titled debut album?

Maybe they'll be a combination of both. Or maybe they'll be something completely different from either one. We don't know yet. Time will tell.

Sweden in particular, and Scandinavia as a whole, are currently among the best places to make and play independent music. Do you think the Scandinavian scene can be considered a real scene in its own right? And is there any band in this context you particularly love?

Well, are they really such good places for independent music? Great. Honestly, we don't really know what to say on the subject, and we can't say whether a scene exists or not, but it's certain that there are a whole lot of great bands in Scandinavia these days.

Do you think there's still something interesting and worthwhile in the world of indie-pop, a genre you're often associated with?

We believe there's still a lot of interesting music, or at least a lot of good music, in the indie-pop scene. And we happen to get associated with a lot of bands. Some excellent, some far less so.

Looking back, are you satisfied with your musical output so far? Is there any track you love more than the others? Any you'd rather have never written or recorded?

No, there's no song we'd rather have never written: every single track is proof of the band's progress and a snapshot of what the band was like at the moment it was written. What we mean is that even the tracks that don't seem so good matter to us, because they're part of our history and evolution.

The most classic of questions, to wrap up. What are your plans for the future?

Make more records, write better and better songs, and try to get rich. Ha ha.

Ride the wave of great music

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