Swedish Classic Rock band Heavy Feather got started in 2016, gathering as a group of experienced musicians to form a new collective based on similar interests. Their goal was to build on their mutual Blues roots to create new music emulating the sounds of the 1960s and 1970s. In 2019, they released their first album, Debris & Rubble, and dug down into the Blues-Rock origins of many classic bands like Sweet, Free, and Cream. With their 2021 album, Mountain of Sugar, arriving from The Sign on April 9th, the group has moved into more free-flowing, psychedelic territory by bringing in harder and more layered sounds, all while still staying true to their biggest inspirations. Heavy Feather will also be playing a record launch show, including a performance of the full album, on May 2nd, which you can check out here.
Guitarist Matte Gustafsson and drummer Ola Göransson joined me to talk about the origin of the band, the ties that bind the members together stylistically, and why Classic elements paired with a live sound are so very important to the band in the music they create and perform.
Hannah Means-Shannon: I understand that you’re going to be doing a livestream concert in May to celebrate the release of Mountain of Sugar. Are you teaming up with a venue to do that or will you use a studio space?
Matte Gustafsson: We’re going to play the whole album right through for the livestream. Actually, we will play in the studio where we recorded the album, No Regrets Fonogram Studio .
Ola Göransson: It’s the same studio where we recorded this album and our first album also. The Producer of both albums, Errka Petersson, is going to be the sound engineer and is going to guest on keys and organ.
HMS: That location must feel like home by now to you.
Ola: Yes, having the same sound, the same room, and the same engineer feels good. It’s kind of a home for Heavy Feather since that’s where we started.
HMS: I understand that the band members have all had experience in other bands before forming Heavy Feather. Had any of you played together before?
Matte: Yes, me and Lisa [Lystam] and Morgan [Korsmoe] had played together four or five years before Heavy Feather. I think Ola and Morgan had played together before.
Ola: Yes, we had played a couple of gigs in a tribute band. And one day in 2016 he said, “Come on Monday, and we’re going to play with Matte and Lisa and jam on several songs”. That was almost the first time I met Matte, in the rehearsal space. We just started jamming songs and kept on rolling.
HMS: It sounds like you were tricked into that, Ola!
Ola: It wasn’t like, “We’re going to start a revolutionary band! We’re going to take over the world!” It was more like, “Let’s see what happens if we just get together…”
HMS: Was the music that you were jamming on Blues music? I know you all seem to have that background.
Ola: Yes. It was the band Free. What other bands were there, Matte?
Matte: I think we always talked about Free and Cream, but of course there were many others. All that 60s and 70s scene.
Ola: The Allman Brothers.
HMS: What types of music were you playing in other bands before? I know that Lisa had a lot of experience in Blues music previously.
Matte: Kind of Blues-Rock and heavier Rock, but not this kind of Classic Rock. For me, Heavy Feather was the first time. We talked about starting a Rock band playing this kind of music for a long time, me and Lisa and Morgan, but then we are all Blues musicians from the beginning. We wanted a band to play 60s sort of Rock.
HMS: How did you discover Blues music and Classic Rock? Was it usual in your social circles to hear it?
Matte: In Sweden, it’s totally normal, pretty much, to hear Rock music everywhere. It was quite common growing up to hear KISS, for me.
Ola: But how did you find the Blues, Matte?
Matte: I think it was Cream and the British Blues scene in the UK, which was big in Sweden. My father was listening to that. It was common to hear British Blues.
HMS: Even though I grew up partly in Memphis and had that Blues connection, I feel like I forgot about it later, until I rediscovered it through British bands and living in the UK. It took me back to my own background to listen to The Rolling Stones and The Who, particularly. It made me start thinking about it again.
Ola: Matte knows everything about British Blues. He’s like a history book.
Matte: I’m a fan of that scene.
HMS: Does that mean you also know about Early Beatles music?
Matte: Yes, but for that you should really talk to our bass player, Morgan. He knows everything about The Beatles. Everything.
Ola: If I ever have a question about what year something was released or what The Beatles were thinking about when they wrote a particular song, I always contact Morgan. He’s the one.
HMS: For your first album, I imagine there was probably a lot of thought given to the way in which the songs suggested your identity. When I look at the two albums together, it seems like Debris & Rubble is more traditional and Mountain of Sugar is a little more experimental. Or maybe like Debris & Rubble is early 70s and Mountain of Sugar is later 70s in sound. Were you more comfortable as a band making the second one?
Matte: Maybe you’re right. Maybe this one is a little bit later 70s because it’s a bit tougher and harder in sound.
Ola: But we’re definitely more comfortable on this one, as you said. When we recorded the first album, we had never ever played together on a stage. When we wrote the songs, we just went out in a cabin in the woods and wrote some demos. We rehearsed before the album recording, then recorded the album, and then had our first live performance. Before recording this second album, we’ve been on four tours together, have written many songs together, and are more comfortable as a group and in our friendships. It’s definitely more comfortable.
HMS: That’s really interesting to hear because the kinds of music that you’re working with are usually so focused on live performance. The music of the 60s and the 70s was so fan-oriented and live concert oriented so it was brave of you to record before you’d done that on the first album.
Matte: Yes, but I think we recorded the first album in something like three days, with 90% of it live. You had this live feeling in that kind of way.
Ola: On both albums, every song is a live take, with whole songs done as live takes. The only things done afterwards were lead vocals and, of course, some overdubs. Though the second album is much more produced. On the first album, we had rules, like only doing overdubs for tracks that were actually played the first time. The only overdubs that weren’t things that Matte actually played [on the guitar] were the backward solos. There was always a trio feel on the instrumentals to sound like early 60s recording. But the second album is more produced, with more overdubs.
HMS: I know that the goal has been to achieve a sound that was originally recorded through live takes, but does that correspond to a particular philosophy or feeling about why that is important to you? For instance, some of those older bands chose to do things that way because they thought it had particular value, not just for practical reasons.
Ola: Yes. In a way, it’s harder to get the right take, but it’s easier if everyone is on the same page, focusing on getting one feeling throughout the whole song, and doing it together. The bands we like the most did it that way, and we want to do it also. There’s something magical happening in the air or in the moment that you can’t produce by doing takes one more time, and one more time, and fixing this, and fixing that. Then it would be perfect, and nothing could be more boring than when something is 100% perfect.
Matte: It’s really psychological. To hit the old school sound, you have to play it live, and you can’t really do more than three takes. But you have to play together, and that’s the most important thing. I think we did that, especially on the first album.
HMS: So do you think there’s a value in capturing a moment in time in that way? When you make these recordings, do you like knowing exactly the moment in time that they come from, looking back?
Ola: Right, yes. Definitely. There’s a time capsule recorded in our situation that we can listen to afterwards. I always listen to live recordings of my favorite bands and wonder what they would think about me standing here, in 2021, listening to this live album on an iPhone while doing my work? But they hit that stage in 1973. It’s all in the feel and the moment. If you can capture that in the studio, it’s so valuable. Sometimes Errka, the Producer, wants to do even fewer takes.
HMS: Wow! He’s even more hardcore than the rest of you. I assumed that he must think the same way or you wouldn’t work so well together.
Matte: That’s why the studio is called “No Regrets Fonogram Studio”.
Ola: I can give an example from the album coming up. The song “Too Many Times” was captured in three takes. Errka said, “Right now, you have a great sound and a great energy. But let’s see if we can all imagine a club in Barcelona, and see the people jumping up and down.” For me, personally, I’m very into visualizing. I get such a kick out of that. The takes that we did with that feeling, the fourth and the fifth take were faster and sweatier. He also told Matte to play the riff with the slide, which he hadn’t done before, and said, “You’re going to try it and you’re going to like it.” In that take, we really got that moment captured thanks to psychology.
Matte: Yes, that’s a good example.
HMS: That story is going to make readers nostalgic for live shows. Though hopefully it won’t be long now.
Ola: We recorded the album in January last year, just before the pandemic.
Matte: We were lucky, because we recorded in January, and then went on tour in Germany in February.
Ola: I kept touring with Stacy Collins, from Nashville, and I was so lucky because all my gigs fit perfectly before everything was shut down. It’s crazy that we haven’t played in almost a year now.
HMS: Did you play any of the songs from Mountain of Sugar live in that time right after recording?
Matte: Yes, we played one or two at each show.
Ola: We played “Love Will Come Easy” and “Bright in My Mind”, also “Lovely Lovely Lovely” and “Mountain of Sugar”.
HMS: That’s a lot! A lot of those are your singles. Are you going to have to rehearse a lot for the album livestream?
Matte: Yes, we’ll be rehearsing a lot the day before, and at home before that. Hopefully we’ll find ways to get together.
HMS: What sort of size clubs do you usually like to play? Are you happier with smaller ones?
Ola: I would say small clubs and big festivals. You get the small club feel, but when you play festivals, you play in front of a lot of people who may have never seen you.
Matte: I think, from an audience perspective, the best live feeling is from those 300 capacity clubs. For me, as a musician, when I see a band in those clubs, those are the greatest.
HMS: That’s very on-brand. That size of club is where the acoustics are going to work for the sound, and again, with festivals, that’s very much on-brand for the 60s and 70s, since they invented them. You’ve gone vinyl on both of the Heavy Feather records, with the new one in black vinyl and in orange. Are you vinyl collectors?
Matte: Yes, definitely.
Ola: Yes.
Matte: Actually, I like different colors because the fans like it, but I’m a little bit conservative. I like the black ones.
Ola: I try to collect vinyl records from the bands that we play with, and from the bands where I go see them in concert. Because I know that when you’re on tour, a lot of the money you make is from the records. You know that if you want the album, so you should go get it when they play, that way there’s no middleman. Also, you can capture that feeling of, “That was the concert where I saw them.” It’s also like a time capsule.
HMS: It’s great to know you are supporting bands directly through records and merch.
Ola: It’s gas money. But Matte collects old vinyl records, and Morgan has too many records.
Matte: He has the problem buying the same record three times by accident.
Ola: Yes, I have two copies of Dutch Courage by AC/DC.
HMS: I always end up with doubles of George Harrison, Bruce Springsteen, and The Allman Brothers. I always think I don’t have the live records, then I find that I have them already. I have to ask: What led you to use a kazoo on “Love Will Come Easy”?
Matte: I always wanted to have a kazoo. Of course, it makes people think of “Crosstown Traffic” and that’s cool. It’s not many bands that do kazoos, so I think it’s nice. It was my idea. It fits perfectly on the song. I don’t think that people get it’s a kazoo, actually. If you don’t know it’s a kazoo, it sounds like a fuzzy guitar.
HMS: You gave it away by putting it on Instagram!
Ola: We had to get it out there.
HMS: I think that’s Psychedelic Rock credibility. Now there’s no argument that’s your Psych Rock because you used a kazoo at least once.
