St. Mikael is a captivating multi-instrumentalist based in Stockholm, Sweden, standing out as a true underground luminary in the realm of psychedelic music.

St. Mikael stumbled into music as a kid, surrounded by a hodgepodge of sounds that whispered promises of escape. In those early years, he was like a sponge, soaking up everything from psychedelic records to the odd tapes handed down by friends, each one a ticket to another world. He learned that instruments weren’t just toys; they were companions, speaking in a language all their own.

When he sits down to create, it’s like he’s rummaging through the debris of his life—every album a gritty snapshot, reflecting the chaos and beauty of the environment around him. His music isn’t just a collection of notes; it’s a conversation with the universe, a way to connect the dots between the mess of existence and the clarity of sound. Each track is a piece of his soul, layered like the smoke in a dive bar, inviting you to take a hit and lose yourself in the haze.

St. Mikael paints with sound, crafting raw, honest tale…

After a 16-year silence, S.T. Mikael emerges once more, bridging the gap between the surreal and the profound. His new work dives into the depths of the human psyche, exploring the sea as both muse and metaphor. “The Sea…the calming Sea…the frightening Sea,” Mikael begins, weaving poetic reflections on its vastness and duality. “The salty winds of the Ocean…the ever-rolling waves which travel from shore to shore. The harmony of being on a wooden boat…smelling the fresh fish caught in wet nets…boundless trips…the Sea…which reflects the sun onto our bodies and makes us daydream…making Time stand still!” But the sea is no mere idyllic image in his narrative. “The Sea which almost drowned me, dragging me down to the dark unknown, where I once fell—it’s deadly!” he shares. Through this duality, the sea becomes a canvas for his storytelling, embodying harmony, excitement, and the ominous pull of the abyss. The album, rich with Mikael’s signature instrumentation, draws listeners into “the Subconsciousness,” blending personal elements like chest and belly drumming with intimate moments—on the track The Beach, his daughter’s laughter rings out, adding a heartfelt touch. True to his mystical persona, S.T. Mikael’s return offers both a journey into the unknown and a warm embrace of life’s fleeting, interconnected moments. “Hope you like it,” he signs off, with a simplicity that belies the depth of his artistry.

Welcome back to the enigmatic world of S.T. Mikael—step into the Marine Mysteries.

“Music is sound, not notes”

It’s really fantastic to have you. Would you like to share about your upbringing? Where did you grow up? Tell us about daily life back in your teenage years.

S.T. Mikael: Hi, Klemen! It’s great that you contacted me! I’m very happy about it! As I read through your questions, I can see that they don’t necessarily come chronologically for me, and I don’t want to confuse you by jumping back and forth in time all the time! But I will try to answer clearly. Let me pretend that you are sitting on a couch in front of me, hihi.

I was born in 1963 and grew up in old town Södertälje, a 1000-year-old area with rather uneducated working-class families. I had a happy childhood, but without friends as I never attended preschool. My chain-smoking dad, a plumber, had been a jazz guy (swing), ran away from home at 13, and danced for money when he was a teenager. My beautiful mom was a singing housewife, spiritual, and liked to dance to music, although there was no religion in the house. Both my granddad and great granddad went to the USA to find gold. My grandma, on my mom’s side, belonged to the lowest class and wasn’t allowed to have a home until she got married. But she had a unique bird’s-eye view of the world and a wonderful sense of humor! There was a fantastic singer who became my first idol. We just happened to have that famous EP Tutti Frutti from 1955 by the great Little Richard, and I went wild at the age of 5, rolling around on the floor screaming. I would later always remember that I went into ecstasy while digging! We didn’t have many records at home in the mid-1960s, but there were singles like The Marcels’ Blue Moon on red vinyl, and Johnny and the Hurricanes’ Red River Valley Rock on blue vinyl. Strange! We only had a tiny mono record player where the lid was the speaker. When I was 2 years old, a friend lured me to go across the huge bridge to reach the city center with him. It’s like 40 meters down, and I was scared. When we reached the area, a police car drove in and took care of us! So, my only contact with the police ever was when I was 2, and I know that because we moved away from that area later the same year!

I seemed to have been drawn to lesser-known things, always asking questions without getting proper answers, always looking for strange animals under rocks instead of chasing butterflies, as my mom used to say! That’s how I’ve always been! But in 1st Grade, I became popular and made great friends. I drew comics, sang for my friends, and collected jungle and horror comics! I was the classic shy nerd who read books about subjects after school and made my own books but who had a wild side too. I loved having friends in school! When dad left when I was 9, I had sleep problems because of the lack of nicotine, the drug that had affected me! The school complained to mom that I looked dead tired and suggested I take amphetamines in the morning! My mom stood up from the chair during the meeting, quite shocked! She promised them she would fix the problem in a natural way, so I began drinking morning coffee when I was 9!

If we were to step into your teenage room, what kind of records, fanzines, posters, etc., would we find there?

The greatest influence when I was 13 was my big sister’s boyfriend Billy (who looked like the red-haired, mustached David Byron (Uriah Heep singer) in Ziggy Stardust hair!) and his enormous collection of rock albums. He even had 3 LPs of the Hungarian band Omega! But my focus was on practically all kinds of music from the 1960s and 1970s, like soul (Smokey Robinson, Motown, and Otis Redding), rock (CCR, The Who, Bowie), psychedelic (Hendrix, The Doors, Iron Butterfly), pop (ELO, Sparks), heavy bands (like Deep Purple, Heep, Zeppelin, Mountain, Grand Funk; Sabbath came later), and some classical music, though I didn’t like jazz until much later… And the Beatles! Love them! They became like family members to me! No one I knew had a collection like Billy’s. I’m so grateful! During my early teens, I had a lab at home with insects in an aquarium and had mapped every organism that we can see from a few drops of lake water, on my wall. I had a microscope! My friends called me “the professor,” haha! I was a nerd about life on Earth, and especially about paleontology, which was my passion. I remember bragging in first grade about knowing how to spell the flying reptile name Rhamphorhynchus! And then there were the comics and the horror literature I collected! Oh dear! Swedish Television forbade showing creepy stuff, but in the early 1970s, that changed, and they suddenly showed old vintage horror films and sci-fi movies. You could also buy model kits of monsters to build, comic books, horror literature, and lots of vampire and horror films in theaters, as it was the peak of the European film industry, which we all cherished here! My whole generation was affected by it! Sweden is a horror- and hard-rock-loving country, actually!

Was there a certain scene (maybe just a few friends) you were part of? Did you have any favorite hangout places? Did you attend a lot of gigs back then?

As a teenager, I was the only musical one in my circle of friends. I started to play around on my sister’s kid piano and my mom’s guitar as a kid, and I never had much respect for any instrument. I just had fun with music. I’ll tell you later how I started my recordings. I didn’t grow up in a big city, so there wasn’t a big “scene”—just punk bands, pop gigs, and contests arranged for amateurs. My teens were actually very boring, and I’ll explain later what happened. An old classmate called me when I was 22, asking me to join his garage rock band, the first people I ever played with. We had some gigs, but we were honestly a pretty poor band. That was 1985, after my military service as a radar observer. By 1986, I had formed my own band, where I could sing my own blues rock and harder rock songs. I really sang loudly, strongly, and with the raw energy of my old idol, Little Richard! We called ourselves The Twilight Souls, and there is an electric live performance from 1987, The Unknown, which later named my second album. We also won an amateur contest!

How did you first get interested in psychedelic rock?

I grew up in the ’60s! Even the most mainstream band, The Beatles, made crazy stuff like Walrus and Strawberry Fields, and Hendrix, absolutely! Expansion of the mind and imagination was everywhere… Although my parents were too old to be hippies, it still sneaked into our acceptance of inspired music. No one talked about “psychedelic music” as a genre; it was more like a silent secret influence in our culture, present in different musical fields, book covers, comics, etc. So, I, my mom (who loved many of my sister’s boyfriend’s records), and my friends were drawn to the more “inspired” music rather than the bland pop hits. Later, I realized that all my favorite bands and film directors/actors had used LSD in the 1960s, and I knew I wanted to try some when the time was right! It was liberating, apparently!

At the end of the 1970s, the cultural climate changed in Sweden, which made many of us feel depressed. In retreating from rock music, which had become boring, I discovered in 1980 the composer J.S. Bach, who became my star from the so-called “classical Western composer” period. I never really felt at home with the kind of music that came after the Baroque period. The organic depth of his music, the breadth of his different styles, the rhythms, the trance-like bass cycles, and the spiritual efforts—he seemed to be reaching for nirvana or something through the sounds of the organ. He sometimes made terrifying chords, and church leaders were not always happy about it. He belonged in spirit to the new line of Christianity that ignored the priesthood of the church. He believed in the spirit, and no other human could touch his. I share this belief, and I’m glad he had it because he was a rebel. A tough guy, sneaking into the church with his wife to jam in secret because women weren’t allowed to make music in church back then!

I would like to explore more of the older music from the Renaissance period of the 1500s-1600s. I’ve heard some music that sounds like jazzy folk music with intricate rhythms!

So what started the S.T. Mikael project?

S.T. Mikael was never a project; it was my life. It never came to me—it has always been inside of me. I spent a lot of time alone, hearing my mom and grandma singing all the time. I have always drawn, written, and sung constantly. Music was my thing, especially up until the mid-’70s when the music available was so fantastic! Music was definitely a soul-lifting element for secular people, often with great lyrics. I also drove my teachers crazy with my loud drumming on the school desk. I just had the rhythm inside me! I needed it to come out, and I dreamed about being a musician! Oh, by the way, S.T. stands for Sven Thomas!

Tell us about the very first recordings.

Late 1977 (14 years old), I started to record on a small cassette tape recorder, before I could really play. I discovered I could add one or two takes on the tape, thanks to an additional cassette deck and speakers from my stepdad. He was an illusionist and a medium! So, I blended acoustic guitar and his electric cabinet organ. My drum set was a pair of bongos, coffee cups, and cans—things like that. But when I took a beginner’s course on guitar to learn chords, by 18, I knew I had talent and was already good at soloing. But that was late to learn chords! In 1981, I started working and bought an electric guitar, a small amp, a fuzzbox, and a wah-pedal (wah instead of headphones between my feet as before!). With this, I stepped up my recordings and turned on the rhythm box of the organ, playing guitar for hours to those beats! I played to Latin, rock, and swing rhythms. I have saved all the tapes! In 1987, during my band years, I bought a portable studio with 4+ channels. I went into the rehearsal studio and started recording new songs. I always start with the drums. It’s like you have to have a mathematical mind and multi-tasking talent to do that. But I cannot do it any other way! I’ve tried, but I cannot play drums over a prerecorded guitar! So, when I had my “orchestra” finished, I just had to add my voice, which was the most fun part of it all! But I didn’t have any confidence to write lyrics; I was just singing nonsense-English, really. My first written song, though, was The Narko (hehe) when I was 13!

When I was 17, I noticed I started losing hair severely, so I became REALLY introverted and disappointed in life. At first, I thought I was dying, but I felt fine! I guess it was my hormones and testosterone! I hardly ever attended parties or those kinds of things. I had my closest friends, but instead of girls, romance, and parties, I had my ‘Lover,’ The Music! And I recorded a lot, and dreamed on… No wonder I became so romantic…

How did you originally meet Stefan Kéry of Xotic Mind Productions (later Subliminal Sounds)?

Before I moved to Stockholm, I already had a job there as a printing clerk at a place where Stefan Kéry also worked in an office. It’s crazy that we worked with just a wall between us. He was still busy with his famous garage band The Stomachmouths touring all over Europe but at the same time he was looking for guys with talent, like me? I mean, I truly was the only one in my hometown doing this mind-expanding rock all by myself! Don’t call that a coincidence!!! The Law of Attraction!We, The Twilight Souls, had a couple of gigs in Stockholm, where Stefan’s band, The Stomachmouths, also had played, and I guess I was sucked into the “scene.” It was simply wonderful to meet a guy like him with the same fire as me, who loved the crazy Americana stuff like wild movies, books, and all that! He was a phenomenon and knew a lot! He was drawn into the grown-up art and culture world from a very early age, while I was programmed to practice music instead of chasing girls because I was going bald! When The Twilight Souls broke up shortly after, I was already ready to work solo with plenty of songs in my bag, but I was just a beginner, ready to learn more. He asked me, and I gave him a cassette of my 1987-89 recordings, including Calling The Djinn! Within a year, Stefan had realized his dream if forming a record company! And my greatest dream, becoming a free artist and composer, started then, and with that, too!

As you probably remember, in my interview with the late Patrick Lundborg, he mentioned your name a few times. Quoting: “S.T. Mikael was a unique visionary artist, and his instant underground success demonstrated to us that psychedelic culture was clearly alive, and that our Stockholm community could contribute to it, just like it had in the neo-garage days.” Can you elaborate on those Stockholm days?

So many things happened from 1988 onwards in my life. I attended a drama school, went on an inter-rail trip to Turkey alone, and at my printing job, I made fanzines from my comics and novels, which I sold. I was also working extra as a nude croquis model in art classes, and I was catching up on experiences I had missed as a depressed teenager. As the 1980s neo-garage rock wave turned into acid-punk, soon enough it became all about psychedelic rock—liberation of rock music, so to speak!

Yes, I heard that from that crowd, that I was a pioneer! In a way, I understood that I was opening doors here in Sweden, but I didn’t dare to think too much about playing an important role in the rise of that subculture. I was afraid of becoming an ego-centered asshole, so I didn’t want to listen too much to that! Also, I was a solo artist while my fellow musicians in Stockholm were in bands or supported by a band, which set me apart from the others. I had to keep my head clear, so to speak.

I also noticed that the Stockholm crowd was more open-minded and well-read/informed about psychedelia and spiritual growth than anyone else I had met, and they inspired me and lifted me higher. But boy, we arranged so many art exhibitions, concert parties, trips, film evenings, and everything—amazing! And there were these big multicultural concerts with names from all over the world! So, it wasn’t just our crowd that flowered!

Would love it if you could share some further words about the recording of Visions of a Trespasser. What inspired those songs?

Every song has its own story. My songs are like unintended diaries! But remember, I am a “music first, lyrics later” kind of guy! I am not a real poet or anything; rather, I like to invent stories instead! I am mainly a singer and a music-man!

Visions of a Trespasser had plenty of home-recorded soft songs from my bedroom and the rock recordings (side A: Dagon, Microworlds, etc.) from my band’s rehearsal studio, recorded on my portable studio.

During the last year of The Twilight Souls, I began to hang out with the “acoustic guitar-guy” Peter, who was into folk rock, and I cherished singing softer stuff after all that screaming rock from before (we didn’t have proper equipment; I just sang through a guitar amp!). The two of us had some gigs, and we called ourselves Continental Soulsearchers. In 1988, Peter took me to a ruin with a real studio deck he borrowed, and after I programmed a drum machine (for the first and last time in my life), I performed Song For You (Lost Beyond), a Lovecraftian-inspired thing with approaching demons at the end (me, hihi)! Hear it on the Unknown LP. The year after, Peter came up with a really nice 4-chord verse on guitar, and I began to sing along and build up a whole composition from it, naming it Calling The Djinn. Peter took me to a reclusive hippie cottage in the woods, a studio called The Forest, where we nailed it! The hippie-technician Lars Jonsson helped us with the drums, Peter did his guitar harmonies, and I did all the other things. I still ask myself how it could sound so good! It was one of my best lyrics too! We also recorded In the Forest there, which was Peter’s song, and Lars played the great violin solo that raised the quality, until the guitar flies away like a seagull in the end! The Soulsearcher was a piece of lyrics on my paper, and as Peter had tuned his guitar in an odd way, we just kept the cassette-radio player on record and recorded with no clue. It was only played once in our life! Just an improvisation!

So that’s what you hear on my first album: bedroom acoustic songs, homemade rehearsal studio rock on side A, and the two studio tracks! It’s a collection of tracks that were never meant to be on an album. Same with The Unknown LP. I remember how I had my first really good acid trip in Stockholm, and during my second trip, I listened solo through the test press of ‘Visions’ and afterward sketched out the album cover with the ammonitian swirl and organic shapes. During my first three trips, I wrote “diaries” of what happened during the trip—the effects on my mind, time experience, and feelings of “contact with my child-self.” I guess I was so happy and grateful that my parents had been on the right track and not taught me superficial stuff…
I now remember that when I showed my album and put it on for my old friends in my hometown, they laughed at it! They didn’t know how to react! Then I knew I had taken a BIG step away from that town!

Visions of a Trespasser captures a unique blend of psychedelic rock and folk with an authentic sense of freedom and spontaneity. Can you share some insights into your creative process and how you manage to maintain such an organic and relaxed environment while recording your music?

Relaxed? I’ve been recording since I was 14, haha! Back then, I taught myself to hear how I sound, what I can do, etc., in music. Damn, I had way more experience in music than—love, for example! Oh, I forgot to tell you! I went to Roskilde Music Festival in Denmark for several summers, and during the 3rd time, I tried LSD, although the effect was minimal. But I still wrote 33 songs that year, in 1987! Something happened!

The ideas of my songs come right into my head, just like every other creative idea I get! When I was a teenager, I developed this weird thing where I’d get stressed out, and my head was filled with melodies, pictures, voices, and rhythms in a flow at a totally stressed speed—it was like a curse! Now that I’m older, I think it was because of my dad’s constant smoking. I was on speed until the night! Everything I did was sloppy! I was the fastest drawing artist you’ll ever see—all through my life! But often, I couldn’t sit still!

But when I started taking psychedelics, it got better, and when I began using cannabis, I received this “flow” of pictures, music, and all, at a slower pace, so that I could pick and choose what I saw inside, to use it in a creative manner, and just pick out and scribble down the ideas on paper. In this way, I produced a lot of musical ideas! After the influence of good drugs, I was able to sit down for hours and even days and paint, like making my album covers!

Your music is described as having surreal lyrics, fragile melodies, and heavy fuzz riffs that create a mind-bending experience. How do your personal experiences and spiritual beliefs influence your songwriting and the overall sound of your albums?

I was young and hadn’t even started tripping yet. Damned, I didn’t even smoke pot! But I’m glad I didn’t, because if I had used pot, I probably wouldn’t have left my hometown, being too content with what I had. But I left all my friends there when I figured my dreams were at stake!

I have some problems answering some of your questions. I guess I didn’t ponder things that much; I went by instinct. I had created serious comic books from the age of 6, so I guess I was my own secret artist, who took himself seriously in his loneliness. As soon as I opened the door to social life, anytime, I was just a nutty bum, just a happy guy! There was a huge gap between social life-me and alone-me!

In an era where psychedelic music often pays homage to its past, your work is noted for being “purely of the now.” How do you balance the influences of the classic psychedelic era with your desire to create something fresh and contemporary?

A young musician needs to deeply listen to good records and to copy others to learn and to find roots. So that is the past, kind of. When you mature, you need to trust your own ability to create your own ideas and expressions, still with the roots from the older music, to make it deep. I can hear plenty of sounds from other groups as influences on my music, but I never wanted to steal anything. I could do better than that! If the likeness to others was too obvious, I threw the song away! But especially Claustromania echoes of older psychedelia, but really, I am a stubborn ram man and always want to try inventing new stuff! And my albums should consist of different kinds of music, not just one genre! I learned that from The Beatles and later progressive groups that I adored!

At the time you also released The Unknown….

The Unknown (my horror album) was actually my second album, edited while we were preparing for the production of Claustromania. On it, there was even earlier material than on ‘Visions’ and a live gig version of my The Unknown song recorded on my cassette-radio! In 1987 I wrote about 4 “Sabbath-sounding” songs (The Unknown, The Prisoner, The Voice, and Black Sunday). That group’s influence on me might be surprising to hear (I AM a heavy rocker after all!), and it wasn’t only for the medieval-sounding guitar riffs or Ozzy’s great voice; it was Geezer Butler’s lyrics which liberated me.

His lyrics blend of Sci-Fi, acid trips, bummers, and conspiracy was very much in line with me at the time. During the late 1970s, when all music critics and mainstream media in Sweden threw hate and dirt on the long-haired hippie crowd and progressive music in general, and favorite heavy bands started having a “dance feel” to them or very flat recordings, I strongly believed that this all was arranged high up in the music industry! I became a conspiracist believer by the age of 18. I also left the Swedish Church at that age! The intro piece UFO is from my oldest recordings in 1978! The back cover photo of me at 18 is NOT me rolling a new joint while having one in my mouth! I am actually holding the info paper of a cassette, and a popsicle stick in my mouth! The front cover picture of The Unknown shows the crying eye in Cosmos! Is it the Godlike Creature that we live inside of, or is it our own eye of the lonely wondrous soul seeking answers about where we really come from?

Claustromania followed in 1991. What was the main difference, and what are some of the recollections from it?

Even if it was recorded in an amateur studio, I called it a comeback into real multi-channel recordings since the Calling The Djinn recording. But as I didn’t have a rehearsal place, I hadn’t played drums for over 2 years, so my drumming sucks! I guess Claustromania was my first attempt to make a conscious album. But I chickened out and took older songs from like 1987. These songs were Timecaravan (extraterrestrial visitors), Polaris (a Lovecraft poem), Prisoner (about the strange dumb boy Kaspar Hauser, a person found in the square in Nuremberg in the 1800s), and Venus & Beyond. I wrote Venus in 1986, first in Swedish (about the Soul and the Universe); it was rather unique for me to write in Swedish, but I think that was my best and boldest lyrics during my young years! Adding to these, I wrote A New Era, Before Your Eyes, Androgynos Song, and Claustromania in 1989-90, so they were new! The only concept for the album was the sound, and sometimes the Mellotron, which was a welcome addition to my sound. Some nonmusician guy owned that nice instrument. A Mellotron is a keyboard that has sounds made of strings, flutes, or choirs recorded on a spinning tape inside the instrument. The album has some small tracks that are very old, like from the 1970s.

The Claustromania cover is the stormy vortex inside a psychotic mind, which fits the music, full of strange impressions. The title comes from the fact that I have this weirdness of being drawn into solitude. I don’t understand how I can unconsciously lose friends because of my ability to lock myself up. That is my word, claustro-mania! Anyway, Claustromania is very moody and dark, and people took that as if I was depressed. During these recordings and onward, I started doing this thing where I stopped listening to other bands’ music within similar genres! I guess I was afraid that I would unconsciously steal something or just that I needed to be focused on my stuff and not get into other bands’ ideas. When we were finished with all recordings, I became “normal” again and could enjoy listening to records!

As a sort of celebration for the new record company, Stefan arranged a festival called Cosmic Minds at Play. Some bands released on the label played, and I remember Stefan also played along with guys from Stomachmouths accompanying on Androgynos Song and then I also played solo.

Moving on with your discography, in 1994 you released Psychocosmic Songs… how did your sound evolve? What do you think inspired this transition?

With every album I made, doing all artwork and layout myself, it was as if I made a movie or a symphony or something. It was a great task and a childhood dream, so I took it so seriously! I walked around or was at my job, scribbling out lyrics or the tone names of melodies (I can’t read notes), making sketches of the cover, and so on. Also, I now rented a house where I could have my own drum set in the cellar, which finally made me a real drummer! Already in 1991, I bought a sitar, and while improvising, I seemed to shape a song intuitively from 4 different melody parts. Sitars are very much a “singing instrument,” so it fitted me as I was not a very technical musician but preferred to sing through my fingers, and I always loved classical Indian music. Anyway, I can’t wrap it up in my head that I pulled it off in the studio with playing 2 sitars, tabla drums, and 2 voices only! That shows that we humans can do things we had no idea we could if we just concentrate on it and believe in the task! As Claustromania had such a thick, fat sound with intense feverish songs, I wanted a different approach to Psychocosmic Songs.

I chose, together with Stefan, an airy, calm, and open sound. My girlfriend back then played some flute on Psychocosmic Tree, and on Fire Soul I could do my soul funky thing that I hardly ever showed. And the song with the greatest guitar solo of mine was, of course, The Veil, which shouldn’t have introduced the album but rather ended it, with that gut-crunching solo! That mistake, and all the unnecessary minor tracks, could have been left out, leaving only the good songs! Another thing with the recordings was the fact that the technician, who was programmed to record modern heavy metal only, had no clue about this kind of free music. In the end, we found that we couldn’t do anything about the awfully thin drum sound and weak bass. You have to crank up the bass volume when listening! In my journey with LSD, I still didn’t use any pot, just alcohol. I couldn’t smoke because there wasn’t any pot around! Recorded in 1993, the album has the cover showing the reincarnation process of the human spirit from the Eternal Vagina and the free Leopard of Nature, which is our physical roots!

Maybe your most well-known album is Soul Flower. To tell you the truth, after hearing who knows how many albums, it’s on my desert album list. What are some of the strongest memories from recording it?

I am very surprised to hear from you about that weird album, haha! Thank you so much! Who are you really? I’m actually impressed that you like it so much!

After the success of Claustromania and Psychocosmic Songs, I insisted on having these hashish-inspired home recordings released. In 1994, I borrowed a guy’s super tube mic as I explored different kinds of music together with my newly found hashish at home. I improvised on my organ like in my teens, drummed for hours, and did a lot of instrumental stuff, all on my old portastudio from 1987. On Belly-Drumming Soul, I did what I often do at home: I drummed on my chest! I wrote Godly—an organ track without an organ (I didn’t have one yet, so I used my old synth)—crooning the Evening Bossa and the folky She Came With The Spring. Summer In My Life (a green leaves song) was recorded in 1995 with the help of the wonderfully cheerful Adam on congas and some other friends! It’s like a summer dance song where I play three solo sitars in the third section. Only the falsetto singing midsection was recorded at home.

Anyways, I see the home recordings as an installation of scenes and performances with no concept binding them together, really. Well, imagine Godly in a studio version? I guess I wanted listeners to hear a guy improvising freely like in my old times!

Anyways, it’s wonderful that you like it, man! The picture is very simple, just like The Soul is a Flower, hehe, drawn with dry watercolor pencils as always! The album was released in January 1996. We also had a project called The Entheogens that Stefan came up with, an acoustic group with percussion, guitars, and sitar, and we (Stefan, Adam, and many more) played several gigs and accompanied several performances of Aleister Crowley’s Gnostic Mass. It was great to play both tablas and sitar in the band because we switched instruments! There was also an LP release with the Entheogens.

What about Visions Of The Unknown?

I think Stefan has more info about that, as it was he who connected with the guy who released that in the first place. We went to London in 1997 to see that cool American/Greek guy Gallium Arsenide, who wanted to release my two first albums on CD as they were so rare! I am very grateful for that! It was the first time on CD and with some homemade materials on it as well. They were kind of really sloppy but fun stuff! These included the Claustromania outtake Universe (1990), the country song Where Can I Go, Why Can’t I See? (1989), the organ-based improvisation My Vision, funky Swapping Partners (from 1996), and my old friend, Peter’s folk ballad Take Heed (from 1994)!

Do you feel that psychedelics had any impact on who you became as a musician?

I tell you, if you take LSD, the time that comes after the trip is important. You first want to wash out the trash you were taught, wash out all hang-ups, bitterness, jealousy, worries, etc., down the drain and become your own doctor, a more wholesome person. As a kid, I was bipolar, either immensely happy or rather melancholic. I had problems with my social life. Of course, I got better at my instruments and my voice and softened my artistic hand, not doing things so sloppily and hurriedly anymore, like in my younger years. Later, at the end of the 1990s and onward, I tried Swedish and Mexican mushrooms, Syrian rue, and crushed Amazonian virola (ancient psychedelic snuff), which you suck up into your nose through a straw, as the natives do! I lay down in my flat before I was encircled by jungle “crabs” in procession! What a guy I was! Later, we took DMT, which is something totally different! If you feel that the existence of “aliens” is possible, then you know it’s true after a DMT trip!

As I’m a bit younger than your generation, the first time I heard your music was in 2007 when you released Mind of Fire. What was the main idea behind this record?

A comeback! After Soul Flower in 1996, I entered a really dark period. My girl and I separated, I was poor, and I quit my job to see if I could catch up on my studies, only to find I couldn’t find a good job.. It felt like a dark void in my soul. Of course, I made a bunch of home recordings, like always; music was like my diary, actually. It only cost cassettes! Some of these crazier recordings ended up as extra materials on the Mind of Fire CD! That was before my organ collapsed, and I was living in a small apartment with no access to a drum set. I was poor, and I hated being offered free beers from my friends, so I started to close up my social life, actually.

The only good thing during this period was the formation of a band where I, Stefan, and a couple of other friends gathered and improvised. We had some gigs too under the name The Xotic Mind Band, including one together with the band Dungen. But in the year 2000, I noticed the pain in my fingers. I always had really slim fingers and hands, and with all the heavy-duty industrial jobs I’ve had, along with all the wild playing on both guitars and drums, I had exhausted my hands and developed arthritis. That took away much of my ability to play for longer times… I couldn’t trust myself to play my own songs live. In 1999, I put together a double CD, home-burned with lots of stoned home recordings, to my friends in 30 copies. I called it Mind Evolution, and some of these recordings showed up later on the CD release of Mind of Fire!

Mind of Fire features collaborations with Reine Fiske and Fredrik Björling from Dungen. How did these collaborations come about, and what impact did their musical expertise have on the overall sound and feel of the album?

By then I didn’t have my own drum set anymore, and these expert musicians were a delight to play with. Stefan suggested I try work together with them. But honestly, they just had one week to do the recordingsof two albums, and that’s insane. So, there were some tracks I had to do alone because there was no time to make the guys understand everything! These were Are You Dreaming Again, Gyrax, Lay A Bridge, and Higher. Are You Dreaming Again came from an organ improvisation in 1998. My Into Your Mind sketch took as long to make as the length of the song. The music was already done somewhere in the ether. It could have fitted the “psychedelic pop charts,” hehe! Gyrax was about an ancient winged, god-like mushroom deity of huge size that would be expected to return in anger to destroy the elite who disturb the peace and freedom of the people! It featured a gong that John Bonham used when Led Zeppelin were in Stockholm for their last album which Stefan owned. Also, my girlfriend Cheska was playing maracas and a beautiful wooden flute on Gyrax. The cover is an eye on fire, with a guy in the center wearing flare pants, making a comeback—it’s me! The album also shows another lighter and humorous side of me, with some bossa nova rhythms, which I like! Recorded and released in 2007.

With nine previously unreleased vintage recordings included on Mind of Fire, what inspired you to revisit and share these older tracks? How do they complement the new material on the album?

You know, when you listen to my first four albums, they are really very serious, but I, as a person, am very humorous; I laugh a lot and love to fool around with people or in music. On these really stoned homemade extra tracks from 1994-1999, I really do what I always love to do: pick up the guitar (or organ) and just press Rec on the tape recorder, get into it, and pretend I am playing a good song to see what comes up! Often, I fail, haha!

Did You Feel from 1997 was such a recording, but it had a real feel of secret love; it’s a true feeling here. I would have loved to expand that song further! Dr Terrors Chamber of Horrors from 1994 was like a fun radio show with bats and spiders, and a cellar with a giant troll. You can actually hear rubber bands across a metal box at the end! The Preacher was actually a four-minute drum solo where I just added instruments intuitively to make it a “thing,” a “song.” I have done that several times before! Organ Mission of Love, a favorite, was one of the last recordings on my Malmsjö cabinet organ before it broke down in 1999. Subwater Journey comes from the same 1994 session as Worlds Within Worlds. We enter the surface of a small lake surrounded by flying insects, dive underneath, and meet bubbles and organisms! Sinbad Song from 1997 ends as a stoned micro-rock opera, opening with some party preparation, and then Sinbad the Sailor comes in, telling about the old man who became a parasite on the back, giant eggs that hatch, and a giant bird called Roc, Family Rock ’n’ Roll, haha! But Sinbad is on his way, and he’s never coming back! Nonsense!

In Harmony serves as a natural conclusion to the recordings you began with Fredrik Björling and Reine Fiske on Mind of Fire. How did your collaboration evolve between these two albums, and what new dimensions did it bring to the music in In Harmony?

To save time, and because it was more practical, we recorded all 10 songs featured on these two albums during the same week in 2007. Fredrik, the drummer, was also the technician. This album was released in 2008. First, we (Stefan and I) planned a double album in 2007, then we changed our minds. The cover is a combination of Cheska’s photo of a California beach during sunset with a natural olive-colored tint, on which I colored my nature picture with dry color pencils! Mother Is Calling, for which I made a musical video, was my environmental/protest rock song! ‘Black dragons with dark secrets!’ But that intro is, of course, Paul McCartney’s Live and Let Die intro, which I understood about 10 years later! I had no clue back then; weird, as I both have that film and the album! Lay A Bridge was an all-loving song but with mysterious lyrics. Soul Power was written and first recorded in 1990; it’s old! When we released the In Harmony album, I also had a couple of solo gigs. It was nice, but I really prefer having a full band, with drums and all. I’m just not that good a guitar player to entertain people with my songs alone, like a troubadour!

The album is dedicated to Mother Nature and explores its treasures and mysteries. Can you elaborate on how your connection to nature influenced the themes and compositions of In Harmony?

That album, with its recordings from the year before, stood as a statement like ‘Thanks! I’m alright! Love!’ I think! It’s hard to summarize something that I thought would have been a double album in the first place! But the album is not only about going out to fellow organisms, but harmony—the feeling that everything is okay, unstained by the awareness of dark politics, warning prophecies, the increasing decline of our freedom, etc. And I received a child for the first time in my life, actually! So, I felt… peace of mind, actually.

The track Higher, which you perform as a one-man band, is a significant piece on the album. What was your creative process for this song, and what message or experience do you hope to convey through its fifteen-minute journey?

Well, formally speaking, I wanted to do a mix of a rock and a soul song, with the inclusion of crooning and hard rock as well. But the track is simply about the importance for humans to get high, revitalize, and find inner knowledge. It all starts with a real recording of electric flashes of thunder from the Ether, a ground element that was removed from the periodic table at the end of the 1800s!

About my album covers: To simplify what they represent: Visions is Nature, The Unknown is Cosmos, Claustromania is the Mind, Psychocosmic is Spirit, Soul Flower is Psychotropica, Mind of Fire is a comeback, and In Harmony is saying “All is fine, and thanks! Love!”.

You mention the importance of partaking in the psychedelic communion and listening to each other in a rapidly changing world. How do you see your music, especially on In Harmony, contributing to this idea and fostering a sense of connection and understanding among listeners?

Something I haven’t mentioned before is that after the release of Claustromania, I actually received paper-mail letters from listeners in different countries in Europe. People gave me paintings and stuff they created while tripping to my album and showered me with the most wonderful words from sweet strangers, and I almost broke down in tears. THIS is what it’s all about! Connections. All music, from the beginning, certainly before there was a record industry, was about communication. When you listen to mainstream music through the years, it’s exactly what is missing. With present “rules” about click-baits and auto-tune, you know it’s a musical dictatorship out there. No communication. No one is playing and communicating with each other. And no musician communicates with the listeners. And everything is damned digital. Small particles of 1s and 0s!

Now, a few years ago, around 2010, there was this British sampler/musician, Paul White, who contacted Stefan to ask if he could do a collage of tracks from my albums. Now, I am no fan of sampling, but the result was so nice, fun, and warm that it could easily be taken as a sort of homage to my music. I told him I liked it a lot! So, I guess he actually helped spread my name and the sounds that came all the way back from my bedroom recordings in the 1980s. Unbelievable!

What followed for you? Are you still an active musician? What else occupies your life today?

Life changed dramatically. I was in the middle of a new album called Marine Mysteries with a complete song list when my oldest companion, my porta studio, died! From 1987, I had built more than 150 songs and compositions with it. And I couldn’t find spare parts for it! The other thing was that the key to all songs of Marine Mysteries came from an extremely down-pitched acoustic guitar I loved, so I couldn’t just solve the key problem without making it impossible for me to sing in it.

But the breaking news is that now finally the Marine Mysteries album have been readied and finished and will be released right now. Stefan asked me to write a few words about it: I am no poet, but water can be used to tell different stories, where the sea can be just that…harmony…excitement, but also doom…being stuck in that hungry element and then…release! Welcome to the subconsciousness! The first and the last song, both, feature my chest and belly drumming. And on the track The Beach, you can hear my little daughter laughing! Check it out and I hope you like it!

As I never educated myself seriously at the university, I never had a profession and never secured a solid economy. I am still glad I have a job as an office clerk for an Indian family company. In fact, the first job I had at 18 was in an enormous industrial bakery, where there were workers from the whole world. My mentor was from Malaysia, and I became used to talking to people from other cultures. I still have never had a job at a place with only Swedish people!

My daughter and her mom moved back to my flat this year so that I could help secure my daughter’s future in high school here in Stockholm. I’m not touching my guitars very often, but I sing every day, drum on tables, and dig music. I am that guy who has way too many hobbies that I shouldn’t have time to go to work, haha! I love to take walks in the nature reserve where I live. I never wanted to live far away from any forest, actually! I have collected horror, sci-fi, and fantasy movies since 1980 when videos came out. I have a collection of books and comic magazines. I make board games and card games, crosswords, and quizzes! I write and I draw and spread my artwork in a magazine for my friends. This started when Cheska told me to do something after a year when I didn’t create anything! It’s not good for me; I go crazy! I read about animals and prehistoric life. I study forgotten history, and alternative takes on everything because mainstream media sucks. Actually, since I was very young, my dad kept telling me one thing! After a drink or two, he told me to become a professor so that I would be able to find the real answer and solve the mystery of the origin of the human species. No kidding! He wasn’t really satisfied with the current explanation of us being just “apes!” What a pressure, haha!

<a href="https://stmikael.bandcamp.com/album/marine-mysteries">Marine Mysteries by ST Mikael</a>

Which songs are you most proud of? Where and when was your most memorable gig?

Good question! Let me pick four tracks in no order:

Calling The Djinn: It just sounds like a classic recording, and everything is so perfect with it. No intent to brag, but—

Thousand Dreams of Love (sitars and tablas): Ok, I had a sitar for two years to practice, but still, it sounds so good and actually has an Indian feel to it! My tabla baya has some deep sounds too.

Summer In My Life (joined efforts): Warm! Great shape of the song and structure! Three soloing sitars at the same time; I have never heard anyone else doing that!

The recording of the electric The Unknown was done on a small cassette radio player, and it shows how energetic I was and what kind of ecstasy I went into when soloing, throwing my fingers by instinct on the guitar strings in total all-feel, no plan. That’s what I tried to do whenever I have a guitar solo. Just throwing yourself out from a cliff and KNOWING you are going to land safely and even in a grand way! That’s the method of all improvisations I’ve made throughout my life since 1978!

After The Twilight Souls, I never got together a band on my own, which is the only dream that never came true. With all the different albums to choose tracks from, it could have been an interesting live album!

Gigs: With The Twilight Souls, I played about 15 gigs. One of them was in a punk rock cottage right outside Stockholm in 1988, famous for the crew baking their own cinnamon rolls with the beer they sold! We really played hard; my fingers were bleeding, I gave it my all, and we managed to turn on an audience that didn’t know who we were! We were playing before an American band, and I remember they were blown away by our energy and that the audience went crazy! They were actually nervous to enter the stage! That was a good gig!
The best, most relaxed gig I had was at The Happening festival that Stefan arranged in 1999 with the Xotic Mind Band! We had a wonderful time, and we even had two go-go-like dancing girls with us! We have it on videotape! Absolutely supercool!

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?

Not really! I prefer to dig in the dust of time, hehe! I can find records I love, but I am not sure if anyone else likes them. I listen to all kinds of inspired music, not only Psychedelic rock. I will list some records here that are very famous because they have given me a lot of inspiration through the years! And if I had been a record collector of psychedelic albums, I probably wouldn’t have become a creative musician.

It’s a pity that J.S. Bach didn’t make any albums, but he died 274 years ago! Anyway, excuse me for allowing myself to be a little nostalgic, too! Let’s go after it!

The Beatles – The Magical Mystery Tour 1967. I was so disappointed when the expected Strawberry Fields was never included on Sgt. Pepper. But here it is together with The Beatles’ most dreamy recordings, including Walrus and Fool on the Hill! I love the TV movie as well! I know this is not a real album but a mixture of the soundtrack songs and some singles! But as the Beatles’ albums had much weaker B-sides, I pick this one because it does not!

Uriah Heep – Look at Yourself 1971. The most beautiful sound of a hard rock album! The heat of the guitar sound blends magically with the Hammond organ; even Purple didn’t have this! And the July Morning riff, my life’s first heavy rock trance! It’s heavy baroque rock! The most beautiful sounding heavy band! And the choirs! Ode to producer Gerry Bron!

Grand Funk – Live Album 1970. Not only the first hard rock live album released, but the wildest, most “live” feel ever with the thin wasp-like guitar fuzz of Mark Farner and the great rhythm section of Don and Mel! And Mark sings with gutsy soul against a screaming crowd totally in ecstasy. The live version of the track Paranoid (not the Sabbath song, but their own forgotten and far superior 1969 song) is one of the 10 greatest vintage hard heavy rock recordings ever! Please listen to it!

The Doors – The Doors 1967. Actually, The Doors never did anything close in my world to the very first two albums of 1967. I normally don’t like gloomy rock, but this is so beautiful; Morrison’s voice is so clear still, before he destroyed his voice and personality with excessive alcohol use. And the other three guys form a unique sound! Even The End is like a great live number with a thick, exciting atmosphere!

David Bowie – Diamond Dogs 1974. After Bowie became a chameleon, he made quite aggressive music. I would rather prefer the sweet Hunky Dory 1971, BUT this is his most insane masterpiece. He does all the guitar work here, and he’s doing the Hendrix thing of painting colors and sounds with his guitar. Apart from the Jagger Stones-sounding singing style of the A-side, it’s the failed rock opera 1984 on the B-side that stands out! His brain is filled with coke, pot, and amphetamines and exists in a different dimension here, and as an artist, he creates miracles even as a vocalist. Sweet Thing and We Are the Dead are vocalist treats, I tell you!

Deep Purple – In Rock 1970. Shamefully close to Uriah Heep, it’s still the most powerful aggressive bombardment of heavy rock in its essence. This amazing band with the greatest drummer in business explodes with sounds and emotion already during the first minute. Not all tracks are top-notch on the B-side, but Child in Time is a world-stand-still track painted with Blackmore’s guitar shapes and Lord’s powerful organ. Gillan, the greatest and the most soulful vocalist, makes that track a soul-shaking experience. Bloodsucker is a masterpiece of heavy rock, and the last track, Hard Loving Man, makes my soul run through rain and storms, through forests and fields, to that pumping pulse beat like a body on the run! I guess I want to hear this at my funeral! Hehe! It’s a pity they didn’t have a longer career with these members!

Crosby, Stills & Nash – same 1969. The Suite and Long Time Gone were featured in my favorite music film, Monterey Pop 1968! Wooden Ships and Guinnevere are mesmerizing, and even three of Nash’s songs are cool and sweet and his best! Very influential! Incredibly, I didn’t buy it until five years ago!

Electric Light Orchestra – A New World Record 1976. Where to draw the line between rock and pop? The progressive ’60s pop band The Move kind of took the premise with I’m The Walrus and made a whole band sound of it! In the ’70s, Roy Wood left the newly formed Electric Light Orchestra because he thought Jeff Lynne was talented enough to make it a success alone! After several albums of really screechy dry strings among folk tunes and stealing almost every trick of McCartney and even Lennon, they still managed to create an absolute masterpiece of imaginative pop filled with wonderful melodies, inventive arrangements, great soulful voice of Jeff, and enormously creative effects. Mission and Shangri-La are something to dream to, absolutely beautiful, and I am not ashamed of telling you!

Funkadelic – Free Your Mind…and Your Ass Will Follow! 1970. My problem with this list is that it leaves a lot of soul music out because it was mainly a record industry for single releases in the 1960s. I haven’t been into funk that much when it comes to albums, and I haven’t heard the whole album of the black super queen Bette Davis! But I pick George Clinton’s old soul band, which stepped up and became a psychedelic funk band before they turned into hard technical progressive! Their first album had the super cool and my all-time favorite Momma What’s A Funkadelic? But this, the second, is more even and has great energy all through! Great lyrics too!

Omega – Timerobber 1976. This Hungarian band’s most inspired album. An old 1960s rock band that grew into the hard rock scene, and further, when they broke through the Iron Curtain and released albums in English, they were heading into symphonic rock until the end of the 1970s. In 1971 they suffered from losing their composer and censorship from the regime. This is actually pot-friendly and has lots of dynamics and nice sounds. I have heard them since I was 13, and they played in Sweden that year. They were active from 1964 until the singer died in 2022 at the age of 78! Unbelievable!

Pugh Rogefeldt – Pughish! 1970. The coolest and funniest of my Swedish albums. He was the only Swede in my teens I listened to, and I was blown away by his ability to play around with words and sounds! He was a kid. But also a wonderful songwriter. Jojje and Loffe together with this crazy kid could do magic with songs in an organic and funny way! His albums were great until 1975! See The Light…come in the Morning!

Kate Bush – The Kick Inside 1977. Genius kid! An inventor and a pioneer! This is her first album when she is just 17 and has great numbers like Moving. The best are the two tracks from ’75 when she was 15, together with her stoned brother’s band performing Man with The Saxophone! Warm, trancy, lovely! And is Wuthering Heights the greatest hit single? Very advanced pop for the late 1970s, and eight of the 13 tracks are masterpieces! I know that The Dreaming is supposed to be her LSD album, but I found this work less hyper and more serene and beautiful here! She is a goddess!

Jimi Hendrix Experience – Are You Experienced? 1967. Like with The Beatles, I thought Purple Haze was featured on this album when I was a teenager! But it is still a hell of a debut! There is no doubt that this guy is the best in solo guitar-land! With a guitarist like him, you only need one in the band! Foxy Lady and Third from The Sun are my favorites here! I always said to myself: How hard heavy rock music would have sounded if Jimi hadn’t been around? He missed so many years of creativity!

The Strawberry Alarm Clock – Incense and Peppermints 1967. This album sets the mood of my new life in Stockholm and the first experiences! Like, at last, I found my way home! Home to the right people for me! To rise and develop! A wonderful party album with a heavy, moist atmosphere, like during a rainy summer evening festival! Definitely makes you feel you belong with the band and everybody in a Happening! ‘Happening’ – Truly, a word from the 1960s!!

Russ Garcia and his orchestra – Fantastica – Music from Outer Space! (1959)
I must pick one instrumental album! Stefan and many others treated me to Exotica music, so at last, I got it, haha! Among all the great albums of the king Lex Baxter, that I adore, I still can only pick this one as an example of Exotica! And in space—not on Earth! Among our fellow planets and their worlds, the Sun and the Moon! Shapes and forms, gasses and moods create characters of these bodies in space! Music like this, even if Kraftwerk was an earlier influence, fits my instrumental imagination perfectly, especially when I sat by the organ! Perhaps it made me make Worlds Within Worlds?

Magic Carpet – same (1972)
I love this one too. One of the best folk music albums with sitars! But the list has way too many records!…

Thank you for taking your time. The last word is yours.

Thanks! To all who want to learn an instrument: Play! Just play without fear of the instrument! Never say, “That was wrong!” Music is sound, not notes. We talk in sounds, and our words are meaningful sounds; it’s not letters! If you tell someone to learn reading notes first, then would you teach your toddler to learn to read before talking? Just “fool around” first, so you will become acquainted with the instrument in front of you!

I usually have a great memory, but I am only human, and during the success with Xotic Mind and Subliminal Sounds and the people who were involved, I wasn’t always part of it. So, there are many things that maybe Stefan himself can add, for sure! I haven’t mentioned much about the psychedelic rare records that I bought or listened to in Stefan’s home. But he gave me great collections on cassettes of the rare masterpieces in the genre, which I still cherish gratefully! At least, I have tried to map out my own life, career, and albums as well as I can, and it was a really nice experience, now this late in my life, to tell you about it all!

Of all the 170+ recordings and songs I made with a name, I should be enormously happy that I managed to get 81 released!

I wish to forward a question to you, Klemen! If you were to make a ‘Golden Album (CD) of S.T. Mikael,’ which songs (like 10) would YOU pick?

I am nowadays really healthy, eat well, hardly any carbs, no ball-belly. I love to run and walk in the nature reserve I live by here outside my flat and feel, in a way, younger than I have for a very long time, especially after my life’s first fasting! There are many things I am now convinced of about this world that I cannot reveal here, but it has lifted me up into a new shiny state of mind! If I have to die tomorrow, I will lift my face in happiness and harmony towards my end because that should be the best thing to do when/if we reincarnate!

Next to last: If I hadn’t started to turn bald as a teenager, I would have been sucked into normal teenage life, developed a slightly different personality, and maybe we wouldn’t have had this interview in the first place! This could be true!

Anyways, I love Stefan, Adam, Anna, Stefan S., Reine, Måns, Patrick, Cheska, Vovven, Max, Ida, Patrik, Jerry, and all the other people who supported me and were so nice to me during this period! That was truly the happiest time of my life!

Klemen Breznikar

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