FATAL SMILE - Swedish Power, Swedish Glory Page 2
by Martin Popoff

Y goes a little further on the adjustments from the Beyond Reality debut, which is perhaps a more conservative and riffy record. "I think that the main difference between our first album and Neo Natural Freaks is that we have better songs, better performance, better sound, better production, better mix. We just feel that we have a complete 'in your face' album that kicks ass. I think this is a natural step for us since, like you say, it's been four years. You always have to develop as a musician and as a person and not just stay in the same lane. You sometimes have to change lanes on the highway to hell (laughs). But no, writing music isn't difficult at all. It's a damn pleasure, man, that's for sure! We've just been taking the best songs we've written and put them together as always and with no specific changes compared to the first album. It's only some old school rock 'n' roll mixed with some of our new influences and sounds, and there you have it..."

Why this title?

"H.B. came up with the title while watching TV," explains Y. "Neo Natural Freaks... it's a kind of tragedy-comic about all these reality shows we have in Sweden - I'm sure that you have them in your country as well - when they take a bunch of 'wannabe people' and put them in a house, jungle or a island and so on. We do feel sad for these people that wanna be a 'famous' person or a 'star' but without having any quality in what they're doing. And if you ask them what they are good at, the answer is 'Don't know...' I mean at least you're good at something like football, music, sports or whatever but these kinds of people just wanna have the life of the rich and the famous without having any talent at all. That's what Neo Natural Freaks is about - people after their 15 minutes of fame."

Back to the music, H.B. says that, "The first single, Learn - Love - Hate, is just a single type of a song. No extras or no difficult stuff, just a plain and simple rock song with two verses and two choruses and a guitar solo. Quiet Chaos is the heaviest song we've written and recorded' it's a kind of an old Black Sabbath/Candlemass type of song, very, very heavy and the lyrics are about fighting your inner demons or conflicts all the time, what's right or wrong, what's good or bad etc. Lyrically, it's various themes as usual. But, it's about life in general. Things you have to go through and things you choose not to be involved in. But sometimes my lyrics can be too deep and thoughtful like, 'I can make things happen to make them undone' which is in 11th Hour, the last track on there (laughs)."

In closing, Y charts the band's future plans, "Right now we're touring in Sweden but we're gonna hit the road in Europe during this spring/summer together with a headliner. And we also have plans for Japan and the US later this year. So, to throw out another rock 'n' roll clichˇ... lock up your daughters (laughs)."

See www.fatalsmile.com for more.