Peter Bjorn and John talk new instrumental record :: Music News :: Articles

Currently playing a run of shows that will find them hitting various U.S. sites and a couple cities across the pond, Swedish popsters Peter Bjorn and John took a moment to relax and catch up with Paste's Jason Killingsworth at this previous weekend's Austin City Limits festival. Even though the band's current release Writer's Block is still winning over new fans (Pete Yorn took his turn covering PB&J's hit single "Young Folks" during his own ACL set), it turns out the guys already have another record in the can.

"We have recorded the new record," Peter Morén told us. "It's almost finished, but it's a bit of a secret. It's a special record."

"It's for special kids, made by special kids — us," John Eriksson continued. "It sounds like special kids playing on it."

Hmmm...apparently vague is the new vogue. So we twisted the tip of our long white beard, reclined slightly in our armchair, adjusted our specs and prompted the band to "talk more about 'special.'"

"We're doing an instrumental piece," Bjorn Yttling clarified. "It's a great record, but it's without vocals so we'll see what the people will think of it. We've always wanted to do that, and we thought this would be like the great time to do it when we actually have a career going — to kill it. Kill the career. Make an instrumental one that no one will play on the radio. We just wanted to do a record that we liked, and we wanted to do an instrumental one this time."

PB&J are in the mastering stage of this as-yet-untitled, career-ending record, with no release date set at this point. With details still so scant, Morén indulged us with some influences to try and attempt to describe the new record's sound.

"For this album we listened to lots of different stuff like Carribean, Brazilian, African, world music basically, and also like old soundtracks, and Langley School of Music Project," he said. "I think it was a British school in the '70s. The teacher learned the kids to play like 'Band on the Run,' and Elton John songs, like the hits of the day. But it sounds really weird when they play the arrangements, like kids playing. So we wanted to have that spirit, so that's why I play a bit of violin, Bjorn plays some saxophone. We can't really play those instruments, so it sounds like kids."

Special indeed, and hardly blue-light. Peter Bjorn and John play in San Francisco tonight at The Warfield, and the remaining dates of their tour can be found on the band's MySpace page.

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