Time to talk: Sebastian Arnström from the swedish band Aerial

Sebastian Arnström is singer and guitarist of the swedish band AERIAL. They finished their last european tour with a show in Magdeburg at Riff - and hell: it was great! I did a small interview with him where he talks about new recordings, growing up in sweden and his musical side project Simian Ghost. Let's go...

Your last album was released in 2009. Are there any plans for a new one? Are you currently recording songs?

Since "Put it this way in headlines", we haven't really been doing much songwriting, but more improvised material and noise. This is kind of what we came from in the first place so it feels like a kind of natural progression I think.
When we play live nowadays we leave a lot of space for improvisation and jamming too. It makes it more interesting both for the audience and for us as a band, or at least so I hope.
We're kind of planning a new record in the vein of "Black rain from the bombing" and "Put it this way in headlines", but I'm not really sure when we're going to record it.
You've played several times in germany... Whats the city you like most? And how do you think is the german music/concert scene different to the swedish one?
I really love the alternative music scene in Germany and in Central Europe in general. It has a much more free spirited atmosphere than we have here in scandinavia. The audience is more open to sonic experimentation too, people setting up shows are more driven etc etc. As to which city I like the most I can't really tell. My memories from these trips are kind of hazy. I like them all.
Aerial is known as a band from Sandviken. I read it has about 22.000 inhabitants. I also grew up in a small town like that. Do you think it's different as a musician to grow up in a bigger city? Or: do you feel your home town offered you enough opportunities to do what you want?
The only opportunity you really need to do what we do is a guitar, some drums and a place to rehearse. We're playing music. That can be done everywhere and by everyone. If you're lucky like me, you have a supportive family and good friends who back you up. Otherwise, you can always rebel, find some cans or whatever to bang on. Music is communication basically. One of the oldest forms of communication, and I think we all have it in us, no matter where you live or what your do. You just have to let it out.
I like living in a small town. I like coming home from a tour, putting on some comfortable pants and ordering some sushi to go from the local fast food place. It's very soothing. I don't think that's the opinion of everyone in the band though. Some of us has recently moved to bigger cities, which is also a reason for the kind of slow pace we have now making records, as compared to our earlier works.

You have this side project called Simian Ghost. It really is kind of another musical genre right? Why did you want to do this new project? And does it change something for Aerial?
The material put out under the moniker Simian Ghost is all me so far.
I do it partly because I want to explore new directions musically, paths that Aerial as a band would have a hard time taking. I'm very interested in rythm and form and like to allow myself to work within the framework of traditional pop music. For me that's very challenging. And funny. Right now I'm very in to early Ghana High Life and Nigerian 70's Afro funk. I am a total workaholic and I constantly try to find ways of developing my musical expression, trying not to be tied down by "what is cool" for the moment.
What's your favorite record/band at the moment?
A band I really love right now is Mount Kimbie, a minimalist techno/dubstep act from London. And I've been listening a lot to the Avi Buffalo debut album recently. And Gastr del Sol. And of course Broadcast, an all time favorite, who's lead singer Trish Keenan just passed away. Very tragic. May she rest in peace.
I guess Aerials genre description changes from post-rock to indie to noise to shoegaze and so on... You want to give it a name? Or just let people interpretate your music style?
I'd like to call it weird pop. That kind of covers it i think.

Well, thanks for taking time and the nice interview, Sebastian! Just keep up the good work!



Links you have to click (!):
http://www.myspace.com/aerialmusic
http://listn.to/SimianGhost
http://www.simianghost.com/
http://www.simianghost.bandcamp.com/

PS: Thanks to Andre for the header photo!