Even though THE BABOON SHOW is not a household name yet, they have built a long and steady career over the past two decades. RIEPU’s Nalle Österman met up with the punk rock sensations drummer Niclas Svensson in Stockholm on a beautiful spring day in March to get to know better this strange beast on the verge of making it big.
You wanna rock? I surely do. Then why only go for the well-known and safe names when you can choose simply the best, better than all the rest – like the Swedish punk rock sensation THE BABOON SHOW for example?!?
The who, I might hear you say – and I understand you totally.
Even though the band has already been around since 2003 and in that timeframe released ten full-length albums, it’s mostly with their two latest albums – Radio Rebelde (2018) and God Bless You All (2023) – that they have started to make a name for themselves to larger audiences. Their latest studio album rose even on the German charts to position 15.
I remember when I heard the band the first time in 2017, suggested to me by Spotify’s algorithm – who else? It was love at first listen. Love in such a way that I had to travel all the way from Finland to Basque Country in Spain in November 2017 to catch them live the very first time.
And lo and behold, what an excellent live entity they were, in fact, simply the best, better than all the rest thanks to the excellent songwriting and catalogue they possess – not forgetting their energetic lead singer Cecilia Boström, who jumps and stagedives here and there and everywhere.
Since that first show I have had the possibility to witness the band several times in Scandinavia, in Sweden mostly. Not in Finland though, as their last visit to my home country was in 2009 – even though we are the eastern neighbours to Sweden.
No wonder that THE BABOON SHOW is still mostly an unknown entity in Finland even though their landmates such as THE HELLACOPTERS, HARDCORE SUPERSTAR and BACKYARD BABIES are already household names here.
In this kind of situation what else can you do than to take the ferry from Helsinki to Stockholm to meet up with the band’s drummer Niclas Svensson at a nearby café for an in-depth interview, trying to get answers to questions that have been bugging yours truly already for a while now, because there doesn’t seem to be too many in-depth interviews of this band floating around – yet.
So today we are here in Stockholm, Sweden and we’re sitting with Niclas Svensson, the drummer from THE BABOON SHOW, a founding member of the band. Niclas, how are you today?
– I’m pretty fine, thank you. I’m a bit excited too because the quarter-finals in the hockey series is starting this evening so I’m looking forward to the first game.
Which team are you cheering on?
– Luleå Hockey. From the north.
Your history, actually your background comes from the north, if I remember correctly. You started in Luleå, right?
– Yeah, me and our former guitar player Håkan Sörle, we have played in… I come from Boden, he comes from Luleå. It’s only like 36 kilometers difference. So we started up our first bands and played together up there before we moved south to Stockholm.
FOOLING AROUND
How did you eventually find each other to start THE BABOON SHOW, 21 years ago?
– Håkan had a studio here in Stockholm, a small place where we rehearsed with the band we had before. He always had a dream to have a studio. So he built up a little studio there and started recording some bands and… We were pretty tired of the band we had back then. It was more like guitar-based indie rock stuff. And we… We got tired of that and just…
– We were fooling around after some beers one night with guitars and drums. And it resulted in three songs without vocals. We wrote everything in like 15 minutes. And we felt like, this is fun, let’s… We have to do something about this with this.
– So we asked Cecilia – because she had just been there a couple of weeks before – recording a demo with her first band. And we really liked her voice, so we just asked her, can you try to just put some vocals on these songs that we recorded? And there we had the first steps of THE BABOON SHOW.
You told me that you had your first gig, actually, here around the corner, at Kafé 44.
– That’s true. It’s around the corner from where we are sitting now and it was in May 2004.
Was it still as energetic and crazy as your shows tend to be nowadays?
– We’re much older now, but I think we are more energetic than we were then. But the plan from the start was to be because there were so many boring bands around at that time that just stood still and did nothing, just with the legs wide, you know, almost like that. We just thought that there must come something new so that’s what we did.
– The first 3–4 years, I think we played every little shithole in Sweden. Everyone would call or email us or whatever asking, “can you come to play”. We were just, “yeah, sure”. We had no demands because we wanted to practice to just become a great live band. We had another style back then, we were faster and was more punk based than we are now, but anyway, that’s that was the start of it how we wanted to look and be on stage.
THE NEXT LEVEL
Do you remember the first times when you felt like the band was really starting to take off like getting on the next level some way?
– I think it was in 2010 with [the fourth studio album] “Punk Rock Harbour”, because then we also started releasing records in in Germany and not not only in Sweden. We started to tour Germany and do smaller shows there and continued playing.
– Then suddenly we ended up on a booking agency in Germany that had bigger bands. Then we could support big bands like DIE TOTEN HOSEN in arenas which was completely new for us. That was a lot of fun. I think in somewhere there it took off to become something else. But we played smaller clubs for many years after that as well to end up where we are today.
It’s like thinking about your show at Loppen in Christiania in February 2024 with that kind of “back to roots” vibe compared to shows like Gasteiz Calling at Vitoria-Gasteiz in Basque Country, Spain, where I saw you for the first time in 2017. So you are nowadays confident in playing both bigger and smaller stages.
– Nowadays it’s easier with big stages because Cecilia is so used to moving around. So sometimes when we get on a smaller stage, like in Karlstad some weeks ago here in Sweden, we played at the venue that had two stages, one really big and one smaller. So we sold out the smaller. It’s better than to have a half-full big one. And it was a pretty small stage. So she went up on the bar and everywhere except for the stage. A big stage is more convenient, of course, but we also like small stages.
– And when you go to places like Denmark and Christiania, and now in a month we’re going to Poland for the three shows. I mean, we did our first show in Poland for, what was it, last year. And places you never played before, then you start from zero again. And it’s also very fun to do these kind of things.
– We were also touring in Germany years ago with a big band called BROILERS. And we played support for them in like between 9 000 and 16 000 capacity arenas. And it was Easter Friday. And they’re pretty conservative, no shows, nothing on Easter Friday, because of that guy who died, you know… And so we were in Frankfurt and had a day off. And we got contacted by a squat place where we played before, years ago.
Wow.
– And they just asked, hey, can you come and play? And we just thought, why not? Because we didn’t care about the rules. And the squats, they don’t care either. So that was so fun to go from all these arenas, from these arena shows with thousands of people and suddenly just bring our own little gear to a small room with 200 people totally shit-faced all of them, and crowd surfing and stage diving and people fading out. And the whole BROILERS crew came there also to party. Just to relax, you know, because they didn’t have to work.
Of course, of course.
– It was so much fun. I will never forget that show. It was completely crazy. So sometimes it’s really, when you go back to the smaller stages, it’s like, this is where it comes from. This is the real thing.
To be kind of connected still with your roots or where you want to be.
– Absolutely.
I found about you guys through Spotify in 2017 and started to get into the band thinking, what a funny name this band has. But then again you have a death metal background yourself.
– Yes.
With GATES OF ISHTAR for example. So you kind of met musically together in THE BABOON SHOW. Did it click right away when you started to add the vocals from Cecilia?
– I think so, because the first songs we wrote, they were pretty fast, and I wouldn’t say aggressive, but they were very pushy, and she had that voice that fitted perfectly to that. So we just felt then that, “ah, this sounds really cool, we need to do something”. Because me and Håkan had been playing in a fast punk band years before together too, so we already knew each other musically and what we could do. And so when her voice came on it, it was like, this is perfect.
– And then we found Helen, our first bass player. She was a friend of Cecilia, and she wasn’t in a band right then at the moment. And from there it went. And we all come from different styles, of course, yes. But that’s only a plus for us. It’s a plus for everything, that you can mix a lot of. I mean, the punk, the bands we were influenced by in the beginning. I mean, we still are, we listen to those bands, but now we put more hard rock clichés and metal pastiche things inside of the music, because it’s great, and it really works with what we’re doing.
This summer you’re playing some really big festivals, like Sweden Rock, Wacken, Copenhell and other big…
– Metal festivals. And that’s finally… We’ve been wanting this for years, and finally this summer is going to happen, to play those kind of shows. We’re much looking forward, so much.
PRACTICE IS BORING
What are your own personal musical influences, and as a drummer, and actually as you are a multi-instrumentalist yourself, playing bass like… Bass in bands like like SLINGBLADE and so on, among others. What got you to play drums, what gave you the kick like, hey, this is…
– I love rock and roll. I think it was when I was a teenager, when I was listening a lot to IRON MAIDEN and METALLICA, and stuff like that. I got my first acoustic guitar, started to try to learn a bit. And I learned by myself. I’m not a good guitar player, but I can the basics. I can’t do solos or, you know… I’m no Yngwie. But… That’s how I started, and still when I write songs, I use my acoustic guitar. But I think also of the bass and the drums at the same time.
– I was a young metalhead that just wanted to play, and I noticed early that I had a good ear for taking out songs. I didn’t need notes or anything. I just heard it, and then I could play it. After some practice, of course. And later on, I started playing guitar in death metal bands, but the other guys – I thought it was boring to practice – they went past me with practicing. So they became like one of my first death metal bands.
– The bass player, he practiced every night on guitar. So he was growing. He passed me, and became better on guitar than me. So we switched. So I started playing the bass, and I found it, hey, this is my instrument. It came naturally. It was perfect. And I never played drums before THE BABOON SHOW!
Mm-hmm.
– I mean, only for myself, yes, but never in a band. So…
So what took you to pick up the sticks then?
– I don’t know, but…
Somebody had to do it.
– Yes, somebody had to do it. And I was the poor bastard that had to sit in the back. No, it’s fine.
In some ways your playing reminds me of one of my own personal heroes, Nicke Andersson from ENTOMBED, because also you play with the really basic, small drum kit as Nicke did back in the day with Wolverine Blues and To Ride, Shoot Straight and Speak the Truth.
– I wouldn’t say I’m inspired by him, but he has a very personal drumming style, which I really, really like, because he’s left-handed. And in some ways, it comes across like a stretch mix of something a bit more unique than your average Joe on drums. I actually played with him live once.
Okay.
– But that was only… It was the band that he had, IMPERIAL STATE ELECTRIC. The band who became that band was originally a house band at the club at the old Debaser here in Stockholm. It was a club they had once a month, which was called Fan Club. And they were the house band doing only covers from the 1970’s. It could be any style as long as it was from the seventies.
All right.
– Once, Dolf, the bass player of THE DATSUNS and now THE HELLACOPTERS too, he was on tour with THE DATSUNS, and I jumped in for him on bass. So I got like 18 or 19 songs on a CD-R. “Learn these.” Okay. So I was practicing at home and that was a very fun show to do. Very, very fun.
I guess you didn’t have too much of time to learn those.
– No, but we rehearsed a couple of times also. It was super fun. He’s a super nice guy.
Of course. I’ve seen ENTOMBED sometime around early nineties when they came to Finland the first time, in the same wave as bands like DISMEMBER and CREMATORY.
– Yeah, I know all these bands…
Actually, I recall I have reviewed something. I guess it might have been your debut album with GATES OF ISHTAR, or some album for a Finnish rock magazine called RUMBA. And I remember that I gave you like a preposition like, “well, this could be called At the Gates of Ishtar just as well”.
– Yeah, some people said that joke, yes. I remember. And we actually recorded it in Finland, at Tico-Tico in Kemi. And released on Spinefarm, which was a Finnish label, so…
So they might have been inspiring you to come to Finland to record?
– There was a funny story about the Tico-Tico studios. When we came there, we were like, we had to sleep in a hostel that week. But we were the first band that had to sleep in a hostel because the band that had been there before us…
IMPALED NAZARENE, I guess…
– They had almost, the two brothers, they started fighting and they had smashed things and almost broken the whole studio! So, Ahti, the ownere, said that “I will never let anyone sleep here anymore in the studio since those guys were here!” And those guys, I don’t know, they were crazy back then.
I think some of them might still be when the time is right, I guess. But of course, each and everyone gets a bit older and hopefully wiser as well as time comes.
– I love these old raw bands from Finland, like IMPALED NAZARENE and BEHERIT and all these kind of things…
FINLANDS SAK ÄR VÅR
It’s actually been a while since people in Finland have seen THE BABOON SHOW. You actually did six shows in my home country back in 2007, but since then nothing. To me your music sounds like something that people in Finland would relate to very well as we have a great rock history with bands such as HANOI ROCKS and SMACK and rock bands from Sweden such as BACKYARD BABIES and THE HELLACOPTERS have a great following in Finland as well.
– It’s totally, it’s a rock and roll and it’s a metal country. Absolutely. And more and more people are writing to us. It’s just, I don’t think we got the right questions at the right time. I don’t know. But we will try.
– We have talked about this with our manager that we will try to come back for sure. Because we only did this tour in 2007. I think I even remember the cities, it was Kemi, Kouvola, Tampere, Jyväskylä, Helsinki and Oulu. And then we, in 2009, we played one show in Oulu too. I really think we should [play in Finland]. Because I know that Finland has a big rock, punk and metal history, so I know it’s a rock and roll country. And I love HURRIGANES.
Has Remu Aaltonen been a drumming influence for you?
– Yeah. And no one have ever looked as cool on stage ever as Cisse Häkkinen. Wow! What a style!
Yeah, at their peak they were like really crazy, cool and great!
– And now I really like a band, I think they are from Helsinki. It’s ROKETS. Really, really good rock and roll.
I’ve seen them a couple of times.
– I have the first album. I don’t have the second one yet, but I have the first album and I really enjoyed it. But there’s good stuff everywhere, from everywhere.
But it came kind of close as you were supposed to play in Turku, Finland in the summer of 2021 as part of the “Punk In Drublic” package headlined by NOFX, but that got cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
– Yes.
How much of a problem did it become for you as a band during that period of craziness in the whole world?
– I mean, there was nothing you could do. You had to accept it. But it was horrible. Not only economically, but also for your heart, head and soul. To not be able to do what you love to do. Yeah, it was horrible. And I also had my girlfriend in Berlin and I couldn’t go there. It was impossible. So, it was a lot of things.
– We got some support from the Swedish state, because we could put down in a file and on paper that this is what we miss [financially] to not be able to work. For this whole year. And so we got, not much, but we got some so we actually could take out a little every month just to be on our feet. But it was really, really hard.
– On that [Punk In Drublic] tour, in the end we only ended up doing some shows in England. That was cool too, but all the rules around it, just to get there was horrible with all the tests. And in the middle of the festival on the day you had to go test again even though you were outside and not even out with the people, you know. It was so sad. Later on they did the tour anyway, but with other bands because we couldn’t do it then.
Anyway, from a Finnish perspective it looked like people and bands had it easier in Sweden than many other places in the world due to easier political stance on the virus. For example me and my friend Matti were therefore able to come to see you play at the Debaser in November 2021 during the pandemic.
– Yeah, it was the month when there were no restrictions and then the restrictions were back after that.
But you were still able to that gig, wasn’t it even sold out?
– Yes, it was. And it was a very funny joke. I was reading on Facebook the day after someone wrote in a group about the show that, okay, if anyone had COVID yesterday, everyone has it today because it was so packed. That was a really, really good show. Really fun. Because we were so happy to be able to do it.
WHY DID HÅKAN LEAVE?
In the beginning when I got into THE BABOON SHOW in 2017 it looked like you didn’t play any shows in Scandinavia at all, so therefore I had to fly all the way to the Basque Country to witness you live. But since Radio Rebelde (2018) you have started to play at least some shows in your home country. However, since the pandemic ended it seems like you have started to play a lot more live. Was this the reason why you had to bring in a new guitar player in order to be able to play live more often or Håkan wanted to continue more on studio work?
– No, I think it was more like Håkan just wanted to try [other things]. Me and him, we are from the same year, we are soon, soon 49, soon 50. And he just wanted to try some new stuff. And because he thought like, I’m soon 50, I want to try this. And full support from us, of course, directly. And if you want to try, of course, try. So he was the one fixing Simon for us.
Okay. Wow.
– So, and we know Simon a bit since before, but we know him better now, of course. And so, no, it wasn’t like that. It was more like he just wanted to try something new. And yes, Simon works very well. And I don’t think we’re touring much more than we did, but maybe. I don’t know. I didn’t think about it, but maybe it looked like it. But there’s no reason behind it.
Maybe it’s also like when you had first the world closed and then were able to getting back on tour. And now it’s looking like as you have gotten more and more popular suddenly more and more people want to book you. And now you’re getting the exposure that you deserve.
– And also maybe this is a reason too why it feels like we’re touring more is that we like Germany and Spain is our two main countries. We play there a lot and we have come to a certain level where we maybe can’t tour too much there. You know, we have to wait for a while to, and we want also to build [up our following] in other countries.
– That’s why we’re also saying yes to more shows like this because now we also are more safe with our economy also so we can afford because to go to… I don’t know, we’ve been playing Netherlands two times, small festivals. But if we go on a club show, club show tour there – just for an example – it wouldn’t pay the rent. We have a whole crew and everything. The production costs are also a lot.
– So, of course, you never come home empty handed, but it’s the big shows in Spain and Germany that pay the rent. But now we feel that we can afford to, because we want to try new places and new countries and start over in some places to build an audience there. Because it’s fun.
This work model reminds me to some extent the way a Finnish band called HIM used to work some years ago when they broke big in Germany when they started to invest their wages from Germany and Finland on tours in the UK and USA, which eventually started to pay them off with big dividends. Is that something that you have planned to do as well? That you get bigger wages and then you can invest them on the band getting forward?
– Maybe not the actual plan, but this is a little bit how it works. Yes. I would say. But also we just love to play live and to meet new audiences. It’s not about the money in first hand, we’re absolutely not rich in any fucking way, we are still a fucking punk band. We just love what we do and we want to keep doing it and find new people to do it for.
At what point did it occur to you that maybe we have to form our own company to start to do this on a more professional level in order to make a living out of something that you love to do. Kafe 44 is not necessarily a starting point for that kind of an idea…
– It’s actually not that many years ago. But when it comes to a point when you realize that we’re actually getting paid for what we’re doing. We have a company, of course, but we use that as a tool only. It’s not to invest a lot of money in the company. It’s just to use it to be able to easily invoice and get invoices and stuff. Pay and get paid. It’s just a must-have. And we also want to pay taxes, of course, because that’s part of the welfare society. Everyone has to do it.
COMMUNISM FOR THE FUTURE
Being from Scandinavia it was interesting to read about your political ideals and backgrounds. In some interviews you are calling yourself as communists. So how do you define communism yourself as a musician?
– We have never called ourselves a political band, but we have called it a band with political persons in it. So we have different views of course, but everyone is on the left side. People can call it whatever they want, socialism, communism, whatever.
– It’s just that the world never gets the chance to try it for real. I mean for real what it is and not not like some power hungry super rich men, that’s not what I’m saying. I mean with more rights for everyone and more equal society. In that way we will never reach full communism and what what the word means, but we have to work against that way for equality for everyone on the planet.
– It’s so weird that people are still defending this system that destroys humans, animals, nature, everything in its way, just to earn fast money. Even some people on the left side are still defending this system we have. I don’t have the answers, but I just know what’s right and wrong and what’s fair and not unfair. I don’t know if I answered your question.
I think you answered it quite well. Well, you might have at some point seen the same crazy interview as me in the now-defunct Swedish extreme music magazine Close-Up in the early 1990’s, where Euronymous, the original guitar-player of Norwegian black metal band THE TRUE MAYHEM reflected his views on communism and how he wanted the world to become a communist society.
– His view was a bit different, yes, hahaha! He said I want everyone to suffer equally, hahahahaha! And in his office he had those posters of Honecker from the DDR… Funny. So if you call yourself a communist, socialist or whatever today people always stick out the Stalin card directly. But why look back, we should look forward instead and learn from mistakes. But that’s not what the right wing is doing. They do the same mistakes all over and over and over again. You have to learn from history and move on. “What did we do wrong there, okay, let’s not do it again, perfect, let’s move on.” Easy! What’s the problem?
Yeah, from that viewpoint there’s some massive stupidity happening over at our closest partner in the East where the leader is trying to recreate the same kind of atmosphere and environment as his predecessors some 100 years ago, which feels like total insanity.
– Also when it comes to the world politics and the biggest so-called democracy like the United States where we now have in the US elections people like Trump against Biden. Two super rich old guys close to death… I mean can they have visions about a future? No! Where are the young people that actually want to change some things to the better? Not only just for people who are super rich who have everything that just want to keep everything as it is. That’s not progress, but yet that’s what conservatism is about.
TEARS IN CUBA
In some interviews it has been fun to read about your experiences in Cuba where you have played at least four times now or and even recorded a record [Havana Sessions in 2015] there. From a Scandinavian viewpoint some people might have this idea that Cuba is some kind of a really poor fascist country but in those interviews you have described it of being something totally different.
– I don’t know. I mean, we have been there four times like you said. All countries whatever whatever kind of politics they have do have their own problems and Cuba has a lot of problems like any other country. They are poor, but one thing is that they are not as poor as some people are here in the Western world because everyone has a roof over their head, no one is starving, the crime rates are very low, because they are living more equally and close to each other.
– They’re not raised into a society where you only have to think about yourself, like we are, and in this way they are much happier than we are. They don’t have the material standard that we have with everything, but that also somehow makes them happier. Just walking around the streets in Havana on a normal Tuesday night, where people are singing and dancing on the balconies with their life partner to some really nice Cuban salsa music or something. This was nothing I would listen to at home, but when I was there I really enjoyed it because it belonged to the streets, it was beautiful and to see that…
– If my neighbour goes out on the balcony dancing and singing with his wife or whatever it’s people [in Sweden] will think they’re crazy, but that’s not the case. It’s just a different culture. Also many of the problems why they are poor is because of the US embargo – which is illegal according to the world laws, but they still can do it – and they punish every country economically that still do trading in Cuba, which that’s also illegal and against the world laws, but they get away with it because they are the world police and the biggest country in the world. But it was a lovely country.
Are you getting back there at some point?
– I hope so I hope so our old Swedish label manager is living there. Let’s see if he can take us there again, that would be really really nice. One of my biggest moments ever there, I don’t know if I told you in Denmark, but it was when I was living at the Casa Particular, this is when you live at home with people. You have the room which is much nicer than a hotel because then you can eat breakfast with them for a small money and you can get tips like, “go there today, watch this, perfect!”
– I was just going out one day on the streets to get some air and there was an old lady sitting five meters from me. I had seen her sitting there for many days in a row as she was picking up customers for her man who was a taxi driver. One day she looked at me and waved me to come to her. When I went there she asked me where I’m from and I said Sweden. Then she took my hand and put it on her heart, looked me in the eyes and said “Olof Palme”. I almost started crying, it was such a strong moment as he’s a legend there.
– Maybe not the young ones know who he is but all the older ones know who he is because he was the first Western leader to reach out the hand [to Cuba] after the revolution, “hey we’re friends”, no-one else did it. Yes, many after him, but he was the first. It was a very strong moment.
THE FUTURE
How does the future look for THE BABOON SHOW? You have some major festival shows coming up this Summer, but it’s already been a while when your last studio album “God Bless You All” came out…
– Well, it came out in 2023, it’s one year ago, on the 13th of January, so it’s not that long… But we have started writing stuff already, but nothing is done yet. But we will soon go into a studio to record some first stuff just to see what happens. We have some big plans for later this year but it’s nothing I can say right now. But also as you know it’s 20 years now for THE BABOON SHOW, as we had our first show in May 2004, and later this year we will do some things that are connected to our 20 years anniversary, but nothing is set yet.
You said earlier that you started off almost immediately by writing three songs in 15 minutes to have some good time fun. As bands tend to have their ups and downs have you had moments in your 20-year career when you have been fed up with the band. At least for me from the outside it looks that you have such a great chemistry as your gigs come across as some really fun gatherings where people can have some really great moments and a really good time.
– Very nice to hear. Thank you for those nice words. And no, we have never… I mean, we have been fighting like everyone does once in a while, but it has never been to a point that “let’s quit this blah blah blah”… No, we have never gone that far. But as different individuals with different thoughts, sometimes people think like doing something and the others don’t think and feel like doing it, so that has to be a democracy as well. Everyone needs to be happy. Yeah, no bigger things, just normal disagreements like in any other family. It would be very weird otherwise if you would just be walking on pink clouds for 20 years. I think no one does that, hahaha.
What about like, where would you like to see the band in the future yourself? Like, do you have any wishes to tour places like United States or the UK to get your music known for even larger crowds or other wishes? World peace?
– World peace, of course, but I mean, we can’t achieve that even if we sometimes get emails and people come talk to us and say that we change their lives and change their views or how to look at a certain thing and this always makes you proud and feel that you, because sometimes… I mean, everyone has doubts sometimes that “what am I doing, is this really…?” But every time we get such an email from a concert, we have a lot of reasons to look forward to the next concert or someone who had cancer or something that still got some hope back because of a song that we did. Stuff like this warms your heart and every time you feel like it’s all worth it.
– What we do is not shit if it means a lot to many people. I mean for myself as a fan I have always gone to a lot of shows and my favourite band ever is IRON MAIDEN. I’m a big collector and I had a ticket for the Berlin show that was going to be in 2019, then 2020 and then 2021 Finally in 2022 they could do it because the pandemic was over. I was standing in the audience and they came out on stage and I started crying before they even started playing. That’s what music does and should do. For me it’s everything: it is feeling, it is love, it is passion. I would be nothing without it. I love hockey too but… so what was the question again?
Where do you see THE BABOON SHOW in five to ten years?
– I don’t know, but we we’re still playing for sure. As long as we love to do this and people love what we do, we’re doing it. We want to go to the US of course and all these other places, South America, Latin America, all those countries we have never been in before. I don’t care if we play in the United States and North Korea on the same tour, people are people everywhere, it’s the politics that are not.
In many ways the antics of Cecilia on stage remind me of Finland’s own Michael Monroe from HANOI ROCKS, still one of the most energetic frontmen in rock after over 60 years of age.
– We supported them once many years ago in Stockholm at Debaser. They did a club tour, it’s over 10 years ago I think. It was a fun night
So I guess THE BABOON SHOW won’t become a lounge band any time soon – not at least in the next decade or so?
– Hahahaha, no, no, no. I don’t think so.
Punk at heart?
– Metal heart, hahahaha. Exactly. JUDAS PRIEST have done the album of the year already and it’s only March.
