Torpedo

Torpedo are five Swedes collecting together to form one powerful machine, a band-as-locomotive which is now heading steadily out across the world with its motorik beat, enticing people to come on board with pop hooks. Describing themselves as “Kraftwerk with a heart”, the band also have a real philosophy behind the band – collectivity – and it’s one they wish to extend to the population of the planet, indeed they feel it’s their urgent duty to do so. For in their dark minds a catastrophe is coming...

“We’re trying to write the soundtrack to the apocalypse,” says Pontus Levahn, guitarist chirpily, “We see us as a tight group preparing for the apocalypse we’re writing about...we need to stick together, and who knows, maybe the end of the world is healthy, what we need is to break down and then rebuild.”

He’s referring to the band’s forthcoming second album, and really, if it is the soundtrack to the apocalypse then someone press that big red ‘Nuke’ button now. Entitled ‘We’ – after the famed dystopian novel by Yevgeny Zamyatin, and as Pontus puts it “the power of the collective and the loneliness of the individual” – it’s a dark, gloomy concept album which is actually huge fun too. The band bill it as ‘Kraut-pop’, and its mix of the cosmic drone of Neu! and the big choruses of Echo and the Bunnymen make for a heady, addictive music that’s impossible not to be carried along with.

Where have this lot been hiding? Well, Sweden and German squats, it seems. The band or “unit” formed in Stockholm in 2005, and consist of guitarist Pontus Levahn, singer Andreas Hogby, keyboardist Love Martinsen, bassist Erik Welén, and drummer Martin Karlsson.

“I guess we were five struggling, confused individuals searching for some purpose,” remembers Andreas, “We found each other and that was Torpedo, and we were united in creativity and the building of our own little world.”

Pontus says from the start they had a shared philosophy for how the band would work, one which reflected the Scandinavian mentality of helping each other. “We’re a team and we write songs together, carry gear together, live and die together. That’s central for us as a band. My Dad will be pleased when I say we’re probably inspired by the Swedish history of social democracy.”
With a vision for the band quickly in place the band toured Europe, sleeping on concrete floors, playing chaotic shows on the squatter scene in Germany, and solidifying their unity. The released their explosive debut album ‘In The Assembly Line’ in 2007, but it’s ‘We’ that’s set to break them big in the UK and beyond.

It was recorded at the famous Svenska Grammafon Studion in Gothenburg (home to those other beardy purveyors of Scandinavian rock The Soundtrack Of Our Lives) with Christoffer Berg (The Knife, Fever Ray), using the mixing board which was used to record David Bowie’s ‘Heroes’, with the band hoping to make use the ghosts of the Thin White Duke’s Berlin-era work. Pontus says, “We were in a small windowless room and just recorded from early morning to late at night for three weeks, not seeing or doing anything else. We wrote a lot of songs, and went pretty crazy.”

“It wasn’t easy,” says Andreas, “It was the first time we’d worked with a producer, so this was a new experience for us, having someone else’s opinions and ideas thrown at us. But he really pulled the best out of us eventually.”
The results include The Cure-meets-The Doors of ‘Corridors’, which is about the experiences of Martin working in his day job at a hospital, ‘Waiting for the Fall’ which sounds like Depeche Mode hooked on Talking Heads, as well as heavier, epic fare like ‘Dystopia’ and ‘Islands in Eternity’ which surround you in dark cosmic visions.

All the songs swirl around that central theme of impending doom. Andreas’ take on the apocalypse theme is that, “it’s something most people think about. There will be an end, and when you think about it, it drives you mad. It’s not a unique thought but no-one speaks about it. So we did this album with the awareness of our fragile world.”

Torpedo are all about death, disaster, and hellish darkness. So how in the hell did they recently end up collaborating with Justin Timberlake?

Yes, the Justin Timberlake. Eh?

“It was really weird, a bearded kraut-pop band with a super-entertainer, “ says Pontus. “Basically, a guy responsible for an Audi ad campaign about ‘the future of music’ was a fan of ours, and offered to send us to Los Angeles to record a song with Justin Timberlake. We thought it was hilarious, we thought it was a joke.” It wasn’t, and despite their reservations they decided only good would come out of their “great adventure” and before they knew it, they were in Disney’s recording studios. “We’re used to the wintry Sweden, so going to the capital of fake with all the palm trees and smiling people was a long way from home. But we had an amazing time. It was a totally natural collaboration with Justin, he was really down to ea