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Karl Larsson.
 As much as the wintry weather of Adelaide gets me down, at least it's meant to be like this in winter. "It's meant to be summer here, but it's been raining all the time," remarks Karl Larsson from his home in Stockholm, Sweden, on a cold summer morning. A couple of years back he made his first trip to Australia as the singer/guitarist and key force behind indie rock band Last Days of April. They completed a national tour as the support act for The Superjesus and had the opportunity to play to crowds of thousands in Australia, despite being virtual unknowns at the time.
Since touring on the back of their complex and brilliant album 'Angel Youth', they released the stripped back 'Ascend To The Stars', followed by last years' diverse 'If You Lose It' with single It's On Everything garnering moderate triple J airplay. Larsson has continued his pattern of releasing an album a year with his new solo album 'Pale As Milk', but does this spell the end for LDOA? "Nah, I don't think this is the end. We still have plans to do an album towards the end of the year. Once I'd finished recording these songs I knew I wanted to put them out; if [LDOA's label] Bad Taste hadn't wanted to release them, I think we would have found someone. I don't think I could have done these songs with Last Days, I feel they are bit different from Last Days songs. I think I play guitar a bit different in these songs, and it's not as thought through as Last Days songs."
When Last Days of April record it is typically a long and laboured process. However, for Larsson's solo release he was determined to step away from this style. "It was actually very different but very easy; we started the recording just for fun. Me and my best friend got all my equipment together and a computer and hooked it up and started playing for fun. Nine songs came out and they sounded really good, so we sent the demos to Bad Taste and they really liked it. I played most of the instruments, except for a few keys that a friend did in a couple of songs. And I didn't play the drums, or at least not that much, just on one track, The Stalker."
After the recording was complete it was passed onto Grammy award-winner Pelle Gunnerfeldt (The Hives, Sahara Hotnights) for mixing. Gunnerfeldt has assisted with the recording and production of all the LDOA albums, but on this occasion he only mixed the final product. "For the Last Days albums Pelle has input into how we play and the song structures, but this time I did all the recording and producing and Pelle just mixed it to make it sound better. That's why this is truly a Karl Larsson album."
He's also returning to the land down under for another tour, this time solo. "Yeah I'm really looking forward to touring Australia. It's going to be lonely though, I'm more used to touring with a band rather than by myself. I loved coming down to Australia last time. It was very fun and very different from Sweden: the people are different and the animals are so different. It's a cool country." He'll be supporting Bluebottle Kiss and Matt Handley (Ex-Pollyanna), despite the fact that "I haven't heard them at all. But I've been told it will suit my style."
One of the most striking features of Karl Larsson's solo work (apart from the guitar solos, which are an obvious homage to Dinosaur Jr) is his appealing northern European accent. Larsson admits that he rarely speaks in English, but nearly all the music he listens to is in English. It's not unusual, therefore, that he writes songs in English. "It's very hard to sing in Swedish. My mum keeps bugging me that she wants me to, but there are only a couple of people in Sweden who do it and sound good. The rest sound like crap."
Scott Berry
 | Bluebottle Kiss and Karl Larsson play with Matt Handley & The Dagger Stares at Jive on Sat 13 Aug. |
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