No Fun At All has been exporting Swedish punkrock for over 25 years in the same style that Ikea has done for furniture. In that quarter of a century some members left, some joined and the band disbanded for a few years. Luckily they have been touring now and then for these last years and Groezrock was given the No Fun approach once again. Time to find out more about their latest endavours with vocalist Ingemar and guitarplayer Krister.

Welcome back at Groezrock. Can you still remember the first you played this festival in the '90ies?

Yeah, i remember it very well. It was not so big then. Hardly any backstage.

 

No Fun At All has a tight connection with Belgium. Your first show outside Scandinivia was in Heist op den Berg. Yesterday you played the Groezrock pre fest, 300 person capacity. How did it go?

It was good, a really good show. Good crowd.

 

Groezrock is celebrating it's 25the edition. No Fun At All is about the same age. Anything special planned from you to celebrate this year?

Not really, we're just happy to be here.

 

The band has become a hobby band, doing one off tours now and then. Probably in your vacation time from regular work. How does it feel to be playing this way?

Ingemar: Pretty much.

Krister: I think it's good. We choose our shows. We don't have to all the shows like we did back in the '90s.

When we had to pretty much everything because or record label you have to do this tour. And you have to do this and that. Now we just do things we want to do.

Ingemar: I think it's good. There's no pressure. We are actually doing everything ourselves. There is no else involved in anything. No booking agent, no record labels, nothing. We fucking book the shows with the clubs. I think that feels really great. Even though it's a hobby we are even more DIY now then we ever were.

 

It does get you places, last year you toured Japan with Satanic Surfers. Any places you'd still want to tour if possible?

We went to Japan before in the 90's. And now i had the idea that we should go back to Japan. And everything just clicked. Like this. In Japan we know the drummer, we just mailed him and said give my contacts to your promotor there. And two days later i had a mail, like yeah, of course we're going to help. And then he said maybe we should bring Satanic Surfers as well. It turned out to be a really nice tour.

 

Any other plans on Asia, maybe China?

Ingemar: I don't know. I don't know if we have the following at all. It's not impossible.

 

The band has disbanded and reconnected a few times over the years, this is the third incarnation of No Fun At All. Third time, good time?

Ingemar: If you consider when Steven came in as one. Yeah, we're down now to, it's hard to say, we're more grown up.

 

Of who does the current line up exist?

Ingemar: We are the same since we've been since 1999. It's me, Krister, Mikael, Kjell on drums and Stefan on bass.

 

Your last release was Low Rider, in 2008. Do you feel the urge to start writing and recording again?

Ingemar: No concrete plans, not at the moment. It's a big procedure to record a new album. It takes a lot of time. And we don't have it right now. We'll see what happens.

 

Last time you released on your own label. Would you do that again?

Ingemar: It would be on our own label.

 

One of the songs that always gets the crowd going is your cover of Alcohol by Gang Green. Why did you pick this song in particular?

Krister: It think it started with me being a big fan of Gang Green. I grew up with their first single. I don't really know if it's their first single. Skate To Hell and Alcohol. A 7”, i really liked the songs.

Ingemar: It's really agressive, it's so rock'n roll. So you die when you hear it. First time we tried it in the rehearsing studio it just like... fuck this is our song now.

 

You don't always play it?

Ingemar: We took it out of the set for actually quite a few years. Because we were tired of it, but now we took it up again.

 

Any last words?

Ingemar: Nah. It's good to be back in Belgium. It's really good to be back at Groezrock. I just hope we have a good as show as last time we were here. That was really good.

Photo by Gresle Photography
Interview by David Marote