Catching Up With... Peter Bjorn and John

Think of a hit single by a band that seemingly came out of nowhere. You probably heard it all over the radio, heard it embedded in advertisements, TV shows and movies, saw the music video (maybe even thinking it was cool the first couple times before it hit that point), and even caught bits of it while shopping.

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Usually, the one thing the masses tend to overlook in this phenomenon is the band that came out of nowhere. Peter Bjorn and John sort of qualify as one of these groups after their 2006 hit "Young Folks" whistled its way into just about every store, home and pair of earbuds. Still, not many people knew at the time that Writer's Block was not the trio's debut album. In fact, it was the band's third.

Stranger yet, most fans will almost surely believe the upcoming record, Living Thing, is the follow-up to Writer's Block. Wrong there, too, technically speaking. The band released a nearly-instrumental album called Seaside Rock in 2008. But for all intents and purposes, the March 31 release is the continuation everyone has been waiting for.

With about a month before the three hit the road, touring in Europe before hitting the States and Canada, Bjorn Yttling has got the right attitude in late-January: He and the guys are thinking about starting rehearsal. Hey, it's a start. And, he doesn't sound worried in the least bit about living up to hype or outdoing certain past successes with the new batch of 12 tracks. Actually, he just seems all-around relaxed and quite satisfied with the new record.

Paste: You guys are about to hit the road, or you’re on the road right now?

Bjorn Yttling: We’re in rehearsal mode at the moment.

Paste: How’s that going?

Yttling: Well, we started talking about rehearsal yesterday, and today we might start rehearsal. It’s going quite well so far.

Paste: What kind of surprises should we expect on Living Thing?

Yttling: Hopefully, maybe a new tone. It’s a bit more grown up.

Paste: A bit more grown up than Writer’s Block?

Yttling: I don’t know. It’s a very delicate and focused record. It’s like we decorated the whole house this time.

Paste: Are there any particular parts you’re really proud of off the new album? Anything that you guys maybe couldn’t do on the last one that you were able to do on this one?

Yttling: Yeah, I think all the songs are exciting, and no song is left out to be, like, plain and dull. There’s a lot of variety, as it was on the last record, but it’s kind of mixed together with a certain, cool atmosphere that runs through the whole album.

Paste: Some of the songs on Writer’s Block had a very dreamy, atmospheric tone to them. Are you continuing that in this album, or are you going for a new sound?

Yttling: I think it’s a bit more dark and a bit more rhythmic. We kind of looked into a lot of Prince stuff, Depeche Mode stuff, some African late-’70s music and Celia Cruz—stuff like that. A bit more rhythmical and dark.

Paste: Are you worried at all about being typecast? You had two bigger songs off the last one, and one of them was a relatively huge hit. Do you feel any pressure to outdo that?

Yttling: I think it’s safe to think that you can stay in the same position a couple of records. You’re always gonna be something else on the next record, you know, because people have heard your stuff. And then again, you’re gonna maybe come across some new listeners that kind of think, "This is the debut album from the band." So it’s always gonna be different in different parties of listeners. So, it’s hard to try to avoid that. It’s better to go somewhere than to try to stay in the same place. It’s hard to control your career. You can’t really do that, so it’s better to just control your music.

Paste: So you guys don’t feel any pressure to live up to hype. It’s more of a natural progression for you.

Yttling: I don’t think we’re too aware of what to live up to because there’s different feelings in different countries. It’s hard to come across such a huge song again, maybe. But then again, we didn’t expect that from the last album. It could happen on this album, too, you never know. We don’t think too much about that, actually.

Paste: Is there a best or a worst part of having a song like that, that comes out of nowhere and grabs people? Is it a double-edged sword?

Yttling: Well, if I would feel bad about it, then I would want less people to like the song. That seems stupid. If you want to be a mainstream artist, it could be a problem that you only have one hit. When you do your show in Las Vegas in 20 years, you’re only gonna sing one song for two hours, that’s gonna be a bit boring.

Paste: Could you describe “Blue Period Picasso”?

Yttling: It’s like a hit single from the ’80s that never got to be a single. It’s a really cool song. Maybe you mean more lyric-wise?

Paste: Just anything.

Yttling: It’s like an old Paul Anka song, but played by Prince. So, it’s basically an old ’50s evergreen sort of song, but we use some modern sounds and also some ’80s sound styles on it, which I think was a good collision.

Paste: Any other songs that stand out to you?

Yttling: I think actually “It Don’t Move Me” is a cool song. We’ve been working a lot with the lyrics on that one, and the instruments used are basically just bass and drums and some extra keys. There’s not too much going on, but I feel it’s kind of a really good atmosphere and it really goes where we wanted it to go. That’s a cool song to check up.

Paste: Were there any notable difficulties that stood in the way of getting the new album completed?

Yttling: Well, you always forget how hard it is to make good music. You really have to work a lot. You always think that the last one you did was so easy, and then when you check back in your calendar, you see that it was a lot of stuff and disputes and shit going on—I think it was the same now, but we had the opportunity to work with a budget for the first time. And that made it easier, because we could decide when to be in the studio and stuff like that. Before, we had to do it in our free time. So, that was easier. We went to L.A. for some initial sound execution stuff and then we recorded it in Stockholm and then we mixed some stuff in New York. That’s exactly where we wanted to be and do this album. I’m happy we could do it in the way we wanted.

Paste: Going forward, how do you plan to use the Internet to your benefit?

Yttling: I think it’s changed a lot since we came out with Writer’s Block. And, when we came out, there wasn’t even MySpace, and now it feels like an old man’s apartment if you go on MySpace sometimes. We don’t really know. We have to ask our little brothers and sisters what to do. But they say we should put out video clips of us being made fools of. [Laughs] That’s how you work the Internet. But definitely, we like to video stuff and we have a really, really good video coming up for the new single, which is made in Tokyo at this moment. I can watch that like a hundred times in a row. It’s really, really good.

Paste: Cool. How would you describe it?

Yttling: I don’t wanna reveal what’s in it, but it’s like if you take Swedish midsummer celebrating—you know, like jumping around the poles—and cross that with like suicide or something really dark and brutal, but in a documentary, interesting way.

Paste: Wow, that’s cool. What song did you say that was for?

Yttling: “Nothing to Worry About.”

Paste: Being from Sweden, do you ever feel immense pressure to do a dance, electronic-pop record or even a black-metal record?

Yttling: That we should do that?

Paste: [Laughs] Yeah, because there are a lot of bands like that from there.

Yttling: Yeah, maybe…I feel pressure from my little brothers. They’re twins, and they play—I don’t know if I’m saying the wrong thing, they play death metal?

Paste: [Laughs] Yeah.

Yttling: And if I say they play "metal," they’re gonna kill me. They think I’m lame, but maybe I’ll start producing them or something.

Paste: Do you ever shred?

Yttling: I would shred if I could shred.