"He felt the need to say how it was. The conflicts, the anger, the fights - everything was going to be put in light. When one of the frontmen of Sugarplum Fairy, Carl Norén, went solo he did it without a censorship. And with a wise owl next to him."He's sitting on a chair and is watching 16 curious listeners. Above everyone else. He keeps them on the gridiron. Carl Norén’s student corridor tour has arrived in Gothenburg and the host of the evening is spirited but a bit restless.
- Can’t you play something we can dance to? I’m in a party mood!
- That atmosphere we’re going to get rid of, says Carl and a calm, acoustic version of 'The Anger' begins.
Carl was a Wednesday child and a 'middle child'. He had a safe childhood in Borlänge with his brothers and his friends. They hung out and constantly acknowledged each other. The music was also there in early days with a piano in the living room. Above the piano, you could find the cover of With The Beatles framed – four guys with the same haircut as the three boys. When mum got to decide, the style was of course the potty haircut, in true Beatles style. But it wasn’t until the first gramophone got broken that the three brothers began doing their own music.
Years past by and the safe atmosphere back home got changed into the insecure teens – knitted sweaters to wide and loose-fitting hooded sweaters in hip hop style. When Carl had reached 7th grade, hip hop was everything for the Norén brothers. They were listening to Tupac and started the hip hop band Thug Brothers. Carl and his younger brother Victor were West Coast, West Side and spent the days in the shopping mall Kupolen in Borlänge, where they were checking out girls. It was also at that point games and jokes started to get serious. Different gangs took shape, some of them more cold blooded than others. The Norén brothers stayed on their side and stayed out of it and got to see how the city started to look more and more like a lawless country. They saw 14-year-olds who started with criminality, violence and drugs. When Carl was 15 years old he got offered to deal drugs.
- It was odd. We were still messing around but had ended up in a tough atmosphere, he remembers.
Eventually it had gone too far and Carl and Victor let go of the hip hop. A movie about The Doors with Val Kilmer showed the way to the next step and at the end of the 90s the brothers had become hippies and Sugarplum Fairy began to take shape.
But the gangs were still there. Carl remembers that the fights were many between gangs and other groups, who were still pretending to be gangsters. There could be fights because of what you looked like. At the end of the 90s and at the beginning of the next decade, Borlänge had a dark chapter.
Tired of the fights
The 16 listeners have now accepted the calmness and the darkness and are now listening carefully and with wide eyes when Carl starts to play songs from the forthcoming solo debut. The lyrics which suggest frustration oaks out in the 25 square feet small room. He’s tired of hunting, tired of improving himself, tired of the anger and the fights. Everything relationships bring to you. The album 'Owls' point towards the problems and has been given the appropriate release date February 14. The line 'tired of the anger' keeps coming back. In one moment towards a girl, in another towards a friend or towards the brothers. In our meeting earlier this day I asked if the album is a kind of protest, a call for help about reconciliation, and Carl approves the thought. But the reaction from people close to him hasn’t ended up in discussions.
- No, it hasn’t. After a while it all gets better. And besides, some of the songs does show a more hopeful side. That you would like to do something about it. But most of the time you choose not to do anything about it and leave it behind instead. What’s how it works in Sweden. We’re afraid of conflicts.
Carl talks slowly. He talks about the worst sides of a relationship. With vivid descriptions, well thought through sentences and with an accent that screams Dalarna he tells us why it was time to go solo and the good sides of not having to compromise. It’s not until now Carl feels that he’s doing what he’s intended to do. Music without commercial shortcuts and music containing themes which have grown inside of him for a long time. He doesn’t want a label guy to change that.
- I don’t want the focus to be on looks or presentation. The music should be free from preconceptions and shouldn’t be in a particular 'group'.
The story about Borlänge
Borlänge is a mill city. During the 60s and 70s, boys went to the mill where they got raised by the elderly. The whole tradition disappeared thanks to commercialism, says Carl. It was a big change, people began to work more. The boys were now free and they had to take care of themselves. Absent parents contributed to young people looking elsewhere for role models. On the same time, Vänsterpartiet and Socialdemokraterna had many votes in Borlänge and people wanted to help out. Foster families and rehabs were a big part of the city during the 80s. People got treated and later on they got out to the community and many of them fell back to a destructive way of living.
- So it has been a bit of a social distress during the 80s and due to that, criminal gangs appeared, says Carl.
He got old friends who have taken an overdose; some of them have been junkies since the age of 15-16. But he chose another way. He moved to Stockholm.
At first it was only to run away from a problem which had followed him a while back and locked him up.
- When I moved to Stockholm, I was afraid as soon as the time past 10pm and I was out on the streets. I remember I initially ran. And although he left the city behind him, he had become a part of the city’s attitude.
- You looked at people in a particular way, cold and hard and with your chin high up.
Now when Carl go solo he does it with hindsight. With friends who have come and gone in fresh memory and with a way he has followed his whole life: his own. To be strong enough to ignore external pressure, but on the same time be experienced enough to be humble.
It feels natural that he takes help from one of the nature’s wisest animals. An animal which once upon a time had an important role in David Lynch’s Twin Peaks. The title 'Owl's is in fact a direct reference.
- "The owls are not what they seem to be", like they say and that’s exactly the way it is. A little owl sitting there in the middle of the night and got full control, when others don’t even dare to go out. It has become a symbol for intelligence. The owls are high up and are watching you, with some kind of solution to the problems.
But they don't tell anyone.
- Exactly, they just sit there.
CARL NORÉN VS VIKTORIOUS
There won’t be only one but two records released in the name Norén during the spring. Not only Carl Norén will release a record, Victor Norén aka Viktorious will also release a solo album: I Am Hope.
You and Victor have decided to go for two diametrically careers. As far as I understand you don’t see that as a problem, but how come the two of you took the step towards a solo career at the same time?
- Maybe one of the reasons is because we didn’t do another Sugarplum album, we didn’t have the same ideas. I didn’t want songwriters to write our songs, nur get presented as some kind of an idol, like Victor wanted.
The fact you embraced two different genres wasn’t something you taled through then?
- Absolutely not. There’s no way in hell I would do what Victor does, because it doesn’t interest me. The things I do now, Victor probably could have done if he wanted to, but that doesn’t interest him, that’s not the way he looks at music. His idea of music is having an idol, but I’m a bit too cynical to look at music that way. The only thing I see is the package, that it is a product and the majority of the artists are a bit like that. They move freely. The artists that have got me hooked stand above all that.
Published: In GAFFA (Swedish magazine), translated by Celine Jacobs
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