New Rose is a band that defies easy categorization, blending a rich tapestry of influences into a unique sonic experience. Their latest album, ‘Hold No Grudges,’ showcases their ability to balance raw, live energy with meticulous studio craftsmanship.

The trio, consisting of Gustav Nygren, Niklas Korssell, and Daniel Bengtson, often ventures into experimental territory, weaving free jazz spontaneity with indie rock sensibilities.

Nygren, a fan of bands like Television and Sonic Youth, brings a distinct edge to the band’s sound, influenced by his experiences with bands like Kungens Män and Automatism. Their creative process involves recording live as a trio, adding overdubs, and often surprising themselves with the results. For ‘Hold No Grudges,’ they even incorporated a powerful baritone sax solo by Mats Gustafsson, adding a fresh layer to their evolving sound.

In addition to their own innovative work, New Rose is deeply connected to a broader network of musicians, with members actively participating in a variety of projects and collaborations. Their work ethic and passion for live performance drive them to continuously explore new musical landscapes, making every release a testament to their artistic journey.

“Playing live and getting the sound to evolve—that’s my main goal.”

How much time and effort went into the creation of your latest album, ‘Hold No Grudges’?

Gustav Nygren: Well, where should I start? The first recordings were actually done a year or so after the release of ‘Tracklist Within.’ I had ideas, both song structures and some finished songs, that we started working on immediately after the first album. Bass player Daniel Bengston has his own recording studio, a great studio in Stockholm called Studio Rymden, so we had the luxury of beginning the process of recording and mixing very early on. We did all recordings as a trio with Niklas Korssell on drums, Daniel on bass, and myself on guitar and vocals, with Daniel doing double duty as recording engineer. Many of these songs and recordings were scrapped when we finally sat down to edit the final version of the album. That being said, some of the first recorded tracks are still used on the record, while a couple of tunes were re-recorded live in the studio immediately before we did the final mixes of the album. On those re-recorded tunes, even the lead vocals were done live, and there are hardly any overdubs.

It’s funny because a couple of tunes were almost recorded “on a whim.” Like ‘Silver Forest’ or ‘Three Piece Suite’—those are, like, “Here, I have this idea; let’s see what we can do with it,” and in most cases, first try-outs like those wouldn’t be recorded. But we did record them! After the recordings, we let them rest for some time. Coming back to them again, we did some overdubs, like I played tenor sax on ‘Silver Forest.’ On ‘Three Piece Suite,’ I had a song melody, but we decided to keep it instrumental. We recorded the song melody with Daniel playing vibraphone and marimba, and myself on acoustic guitar, as a way of contrasting the power trio sound of the original recording. I also added a saxophone solo, but Daniel had a surprise up his sleeve: Swedish improvising musician and sax maestro Mats Gustafsson was recording a project in Studio Rymden and was asked if he would like to play on the next New Rose album. He kindly obliged and laid down a massive baritone sax solo! Another great contrast to the sound, and I really think that the tune seals the record in a perfect way.

I notice that I didn’t answer your question. As you can clearly see from my rambling, it has been quite time-consuming, and a lot of effort has been made to make final decisions about each track and the album as a whole. The actual recordings, on the other hand, were done quite fast and swiftly.

<a href="https://realnewrose.bandcamp.com/album/hold-no-grudges">Hold No Grudges by New Rose</a>

Can you share some of the influences—musical or otherwise—that have shaped the sound and ethos of New Rose?

I have been a massive fan of Television since my early teens, after experiencing a Richard Lloyd gig as my first real rock concert at age 13. As the youngest of four siblings, I was already drenched in rock music from the ’60s and ’70s, like Lou Reed, Bowie, Stones, etc. But it was that concert with Richard Lloyd that made me want to play music as a way of life, whether or not it would make me rich and famous. A couple of years after this, I heard Sonic Youth when they had just released ‘Sister.’ Then the whole alternative scene from the US and UK opened up for me, and that was a big part of my life as a young music maniac in the late ’80s and early ’90s.

In my early twenties, I saw a concert with the Swedish free improvising trio GUSH (featuring the aforementioned Mats Gustafsson on tenor sax) that really blew my mind and also made me pick up the saxophone again—an instrument I had learned to play quite well throughout my youth. From around 1995 and for ten years on, I listened to free jazz almost exclusively.

As for the sound and ethos of New Rose, I hope that our collective influences are shown and that the listener can connect to whatever he/she hears. But if anyone thinks that we sound a bit like Television, it only makes me proud.

The band itself has been active for several years now. Would you like to discuss your background and what led to the formation of it?

I had been playing guitar and bass in rock bands in my teens and early twenties, most notably Borås Energi (with two basses, drums, and textless vocals) and Monoshock (a Sonic Youth-inspired rock trio not too dissimilar to what we do in New Rose). When I moved with my girlfriend to Stockholm from Gothenburg in 1996, I was heavily into free jazz, and I had gone from playing guitar to practicing the saxophone on my own. The late, great German reed player Peter Brötzmann was playing a solo gig at Andra Jazz (a legendary jazz vinyl shop in Stockholm). I met Niklas there, we started talking, and immediately hit it off. Niklas had the most amazing collection of free jazz albums. When I understood that he was also a free jazz drummer, my biggest goal was to play together with him. He already had a free jazz thing going on with cellist Christian Hörgren. We began improvising as a trio, rehearsing and doing concerts in the basement of a jazz record store called Anagram. The trio was called Apan. We did quite a lot of gigs around Stockholm in the late ’90s, but unfortunately, we never made an official release.

The members of Apan played individually with other people, both on the indie rock scene and among the free improvising circle of musicians in Stockholm. I can’t really tell you how it came to be, but somehow Niklas and I started to meet in our practice space on weekday mornings, just freely improvising as a duo with electric guitar and drums. I had some skeleton ideas, rock riffs, that we combined with the free improvising. Our free jazz duo more or less morphed into “indie rock” or whatever you want to call it. We had made one or two gigs as a free jazz duo, and we ended those gigs with a loose version of The Damned’s ‘New Rose,’ a song we both loved. Thus, the name of our band was born. (A really silly name for a band in our digital world—try any internet search engine and I assure you it’s not our band that comes up!)

New Rose played gigs in Stockholm as a duo, and we also recorded demos in Studio Gröndal. The demos are still floating around on Myspace, I think!

Anyway, Niklas knew Daniel Bengtson, who had his own recording studio called Flipside Recording, which later became Studio Rymden. Daniel also had a background in the Swedish indie rock scene, playing in the band The Kooks among other things. When we did the recordings as a guitar-drum duo, we all felt that “well, why don’t we have some bass on this and turn the songs into proper rock music with some loose improvising bits still on it?” As it turned out, Daniel was a monster bass player, and since he is also one of the nicest and most easy-going people ever, it was no hard decision asking him to join the band. Luckily for us, he said yes!

Tell us about your previous releases and how would you compare them to your latest release?

Daniel shared studio space with Ronald Bood, who is a great producer and engineer. I must say that, apart from Ronald Bood being there as a general good spirit, helper, and adviser while recording ‘Tracklist Within,’ the process was very similar to that of the new album. We recorded every song as a trio with all members playing live together. Then, we did some overdubs like adding an organ, percussion, or an extra guitar. Maybe I will do the lead vocals again, or maybe we’ll add backing vocals.

For the ‘Tracklist Within’ album art, I had the vision of making it into a really identifiable, low-budget yet still effective cover, similar to those early FMP (Free Music Production) LP covers made by Peter Brötzmann. I asked my artist friend Thomas Elovson, and I think he did a brilliant job.

Jonas Yrlid did the smashing album cover art for ‘Hold No Grudges.’ He decided to keep Thomas’ handwriting from the first album cover, thus creating a “band logo”.

What was the creative process like for your latest album?

The main process is already described, but I would really like to give credit to Daniel as mix master. The process of sending mixes back and forth between the three of us, with Niklas and me responding and having our say, has been very time-consuming. Niklas is also a very sharp listener with a high level of capability to notice details in sound.

What are some future plans for you?

With all of us doing so many things outside of the trio, I must say that if we can get a gig anywhere, we’ll take it! Playing live and getting the sound to evolve—that’s my main goal.

You are all coming from a rich background. I would love it if you could tell us about some other recent projects you are working on.

I’m a member of the free rock band Kungens Män. Since I started playing with that band around 2017, we have released 9 studio albums and have been doing a string of tours around Europe and the UK. Our next album, ‘För samtida djur 2,’ was released this August.

Another band I’m playing with is Automatism. That’s Hans Hjelm, Mikael Tuominen, and myself from Kungens Män, with Jonas Yrlid on drums and sometime member Per Wiberg on keys. We are just finishing our next album, which is scheduled to be released next year.

Then we have Eye Make The Horizon, another band with Mikael Tuominen and myself, together with Niklas from New Rose and Mats Dimming on double bass. That’s more like a free jazz, psych rock band. We call it Free Rock / Psych Jazz, just to be extra distinct! Our third LP is to be released in October, and we are planning gigs in both the UK and Germany in November. As of yet, we have London and the Psychedelic Network Festival in Würzburg booked.

Yet another band that has been really fun to play with is called Fast, Cheap and Out of Control. It’s a trio with me and Leif Jordansson on de-tuned electric guitars and Anders Bryngelsson on drums. Anders also plays with the legendary punk-noise band Brainbombs.

That’s only four of the bands I’m in besides New Rose. Of course, the bands are not all active at the same time. Almost every member juggles different projects. But anything can happen with every band; suddenly, it becomes the main focus for a period of time. They are all very rewarding in different ways.

For the other members of New Rose, the list of projects could surely be at least as long as mine. I’ll just give you some examples.

Niklas is drumming with The Holy Ghost, a great noisy band with songs in the vein of Hüsker Dü. They are playing live and will release new stuff soon. He is also playing with Nicolai Dunger. Almost every time I meet Niklas, he tells me about a new music project he is invited to play live or make recordings with. So I’m probably already off.

Daniel is working with loads of artists in Studio Rymden. He is often involved both as engineer, producer, and musician. Recently, I know he’s been involved in SunYears (solo project by Peter Morén from Peter Bjorn and John), James Yorkston, and Julia Logan. He has also worked with and recorded the last couple of albums by First Aid Kit. His studio and his engineering expertise are also very in demand among contemporary avant-jazz musicians, like Ghosted (with Oren Ambarchi, Johan Berthling, and Andres Werliin), Goran Kajfeš, Christer Bothén, and others.

“Finding gold in different places, like the Peel Acres program, really inspires me.”

Let’s end this interview with some of your favorite albums. Have you found something new lately that you would like to recommend to our readers?

What’s new? I’m not sure. I’m going to gigs all the time. I go to improv concerts. Some bands that I get inspired by are from another era, but they keep coming back and doing super great stuff both live and on record, like Swans or Einstürzende Neubauten. I like Dry Cleaning for their amalgam of sounds and styles. I like Lana Del Rey and Weyes Blood. I was blown away by a gig with The Sadies recently. I’m buying old cheap jazz albums by Lester Young or Zoot Sims and getting super inspired.

Lots of great music is coming from friends and acquaintances, like the new records by Henrik Palm, Mikael Tuominen (as Solitär), Per Wiberg, and the upcoming release by Hans Hjelm. Broken Filters is a local garage/psych band that I sometimes play sax with.

Recently, I’ve been listening to the BBC program Peel Acres, where artists are invited to roam around the John Peel record collection and find interesting stuff. Those kinds of things inspire me—finding gold in different places!

As with most music obsessives, the “favorite albums ever-list” is almost like a millstone. I’ll give you four that will probably always be in my top ten: ‘Daydream Nation’ by Sonic Youth, ‘Fun House’ by Stooges, ‘Marquee Moon’ by Television, and ‘Conquistador’ by Cecil Taylor!