Shout Out Louds are due in Australia later this year for another whirlwind tour of club shows as well as a coveted slot on the Pyramid Rock bill.
How lucky we are as punters that a sunny season of the best international and local acts awaits us, a summer already revealing its splendours to a once barren Melbourne. A short chat with Shout Out Louds’ guitarist Carl von Arbin confirms a shared anticipation.
“I enjoy coming to Australia for the warm, when we’re having the worst time in Sweden, so that’s going to be really refreshing actually,” he declares, fondly. “Me and Adam (Olenius, Shout Out Louds singer/guitarist) are staying a little longer actually just to hang out, just to fuel up. It will be a hard contrast I guess!”
The band are due in Australia later this year for another whirlwind tour of club shows as well as a coveted slot on the Pyramid Rock bill. The idea of spending New Years abroad in a land far, far away isn’t fazing Carl, however. “To me it’s just one of those things with too much anticipation and it becomes nothing, really. It is just another night!” he posits, with dry humor, before reaffirming his excitement. “But I am glad to spend it in Australia.”
The Swedish troupe are all too familiar with the demands of such committments, well-accustomed by now to a grueling, self-inflicted work ethic. It is, for better or worse, the norm for a group that have spent nigh on a decade together. “It’s both good and bad, being on the road,” Carl muses. “You just have to be up for it in a way. If you’re not up for it, it will be…”
He groans, but only before paying tribute to the bright side of life as a travelling musician. “I like it because there’s no real problems… your days are all about one thing, and that’s the show. Until that one hour of the day, you can do whatever you want. It’s a very free way [to live] and nice and you get to see a lot of things and it kind of takes you away from everyday life.”
Following the release of Our Ill Wills in 2007, the band’s willingness to tour the album extensively proved exhausting, necessitating time to recharge and escape, as Carl describes it, “feeling a little like cirus people”.
The brief hiatus raised questions as to the future of Shout Out Louds, but the break was in their best interest. “We were touring so much and we just needed a break from everything. We got caught on this carousel of touring. As soon as we were done we all kind of left to see our loved ones, wherever they were in the world. Adam went straight to Melbourne, Bebban went to Los Angeles. Me and Ted and Eric had our loved ones in Stockholm. So I was here, trying to figure things out and started working with non-musical stuff.”
As Carl reveals, the group never faced any real danger of a split in the face of time away from their music. “We knew it wasn’t like we were going to regroup any time soon, but we just needed some time to figure things out.”
The time would eventually come, however, for Shout Out Louds to go back to, well, Work – that is, their third studio album. One that happily boasts a name that’s indicative of the band’s new mindset.
“We felt like coming back,” Carl explains. “We wanted to make a record that was just us –nothing extra, just performed by us, just a foundation of what a band really is. A proper old school record, you know?” he grins. “Not bringing in any strings or anything, just being us.”
“We did a record that kind of contradicted the other one,” he adds, comparing their latest release with its predecessor. “You need something the total opposite. When you’ve done one thing, you want to go to the opposite place the next time, to find new ways.”
Though Work has been received well – particularly in their home country – Carl remains diplomatic concerning their latest achievement. “It’s a little more of a grown up album, in a way, and a grower, I guess,” he muses of Work’s charms. “It’s not been the same, and I’ve kind of liked it in a way.
“I’m very proud of of this record,” he adds. “Some people love it, some people hate it but it’s been exactly what we needed to do, you know?”
SHOUT OUT LOUDS play the Pyramid Rock Festival alongside N*E*R*D*, Arrested Development, The Temper Trap, Chromeo, Xavier Rudd, Mystery Jets, Midnight Juggernauts,, Gyroscope, Little Red, Lightspeed Champion, Basement Birds, Future Of The Left, Born Ruffians, Operator Please, Urthboy and heaps more on Phillip Island across December 30-January 1. Tickets and info from thepyramidrockfestival.com. They also play a sideshow at The East Brunswick Club on Monday January 3. Tickets from handsometours.com, eastbrunswickclub.com, 9388 9794 or The East box office. Work is out now through Dew Process.
