Swedish indie pop quartet Hater return this week with Mosquito, their fourth LP and the first since swooning 2022 album Sincere. The new record sees them hone the hazy shoegaze instincts of their previous work, blending in a few dabs of slacker rock, post-rock and post-punk, a swirl of alt country, and injecting the whole thing with melancholic pop melodies to create a collection of dreamy lovelorn beauties.
“I don’t think we strove to write love songs really; I was surprised when we stood with a whole bunch of them.” Says singer Caroline Landahl. “There’s no song about ‘smootchy smootchy love you to bits’ on Mosquito. More about having your heart scratched, butterflies in your stomach, feeling empty and heartbroken, the physical feeling and rollercoaster of being.”
We caught up with guitarist Måns Leonartsson ahead of the album’s release and a tours of Sweden and The UK (full dates at the bottom of this article) to find out more about the songs that have laid the path for his musical journey.
What is your earliest music-related memory? What do you remember being played at home when you were a child?
One of the first cassettes I had was Born in the USA. I was about six and someone had left it in my cassette player. I remember listening to rock was almost overwhelming at a young age. Sometimes when I hear live music coming from a distance I get the same feeling today, when it is muffled and you don’t really hear what it is. It’s almost a mythical feeling. There is something special with it. We also listened to a lot of reggae at home. RIP Jimmy Cliff, my father’s The Harder they Come vinyl was very important to me.
What was the first record that you ever bought? Where did you get it and do you have any recollection of the experience?
There was a big record store in the city we sometimes went to. I think the first CD I bought was Americana by the Offspring. I loved their videos, we didn’t have MTV but we had a show called Voxpop at the Swedish public service. I was a bit scared of the cover. I still have warm feelings for Offspring, but have not listened to them since.
When did you really start to develop a passion for listening to music? How did that come about and what were you into at the time?
I have always loved it, hard to say when it started. Like for a lot of people I went through many phases from age 13-18, listening to everything from hip-hop to metal.
What was the first gig that you went to? Where was it and what was it like?
One of the first shows I went to on my own was the Skatalites at KB in Malmö. I was 15 and it was two very sweaty hours of ska. When I went to high school we were very lucky to have many great indie bands coming through Malmö – Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr, Built to Spill. This was very formative. Growing up in Malmö was very good for live music. We also have Copenhagen 20 min away by train.
What are your memories of starting out making music? What was the first song that you learned to play?
I started to learn guitar when I was 14. I joined a couple of friends who played rock songs in the basement of a parish home. They let us be there for free for 5 years, eating their cinnamon buns straight from the freezer. In return we had to play two songs in the church once every year. Once we were asked to play ‘Highway to Hell’ at a Hells Angels wedding. Sadly that never happened. Someone had second thoughts.
What was your first band/musical project? What music was influencing you at that time? What are your memories of playing your first gig and are there any recordings out there?
That basement band is classified. We were influenced by The Who and Pink Floyd, sung both in English and Swedish. It was ridiculously ambitious, the singer wrote a 20-song rock opera when he was 16 which we performed live once.
What are your memories of starting Hater? What was your first release and what do you think now when you listen back to it?
We first had a band called Kust, with Caroline playing synth and doing backing vocals. When the singer left the band we said: let’s have fun and try to write some indie songs. We wrote some songs and recorded an EP with Joakim Lindberg, who we still work with, right away. I think they still sound great. Songs came very easy to us in the beginning, they still do, but it was so easy and fun. I think you can hear it in the recordings. Almost every idea we had turned into a, more or less, great song. As I remember we wrote our first album You Tried in two months.
Which band/artist do you think has had the biggest influence on your music over the years? What is it about them that inspires you?
For me, The Radio Dept. The great songs, the integrity, the guitar work, the absolute focus on how the music feels. They are also from Malmö/Lund which has been very inspirational.
Who are some of your favourite current artists? What do you like about them?
I think Ought was superb. We had the privilege to tour with them for a week in 2018. There are so many great bands out there.
You have a new album out soon, how has your approach to making music changed since you started out, and how has your sound developed over that time? Is there a particular song on the record that epitomises what you’re aiming to achieve or that is particularly special to you for any reason?
There has been one big practical change working on this album: we have much less time together in the rehearsal space. It’s just how life has panned out. It’s an impossible thought that we still should be able to jam two nights a week after almost ten years of playing together. Not with working and having other commitments. So we write more songs apart nowadays, but always do the arrangements together. This forces us to not rely on miracles in the rehearsal space, which we have done before. For this album, I don’t think that we were aiming for anything in particular except to just keep the band together and keep making things happen. I wanted it to be less shoegaze, any other change of direction is random. If I should mention any song in particular it would be ‘Stinger’. From the beginning, I made a demo that sounded almost like a country song. In the studio we shaped it to something raw and very different, which to me felt pretty special.
Mosquito is out on 6th March via Fire Records. Order now on vinyl or CD, including deluxe bundles, directly from Fire Records or stream at all of the usual places via this handy LinkTree.
Catch Hater live in Sweden and the UK: Tickets here
02 April: Plan B, Malmö, SE
02 May: Nice N Sleazy, Glasgow, UK
03 May: Sounds From the Other City, Manchester, UK
04 May: The Cumberland Arms, Newcastle, UK
05 May: The Library, Oxford, UK
06 May: Hare & Hounds, Birmingham, UK
07 May: Signature Brew Haggerston, London, UK
22 May: Oceanen, Gothenburg, SE
23 May: Kollektivet Livet, Stockholm, SE
Hater: Facebook / Instagram / Bandcamp
Fire Records: Website / Facebook / Instagram / Bandcamp
Interview by Paul Maps
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