Sweden has some great Rock bands but my favourite Swedish Heavy Metal band has always been BULLET the kings of old school metal (think a chillier Airbourne). Well the 23 year wait is finally over and the band is on the way over to Australia for a quick three date tour taking in Melbourne’s iconic Cherry Bar. We caught up with guitarist Hampus Klang to find out all about the trip and so much more.
Mark: Hampus how are you?
Hampus: I’m fine, I’m fine, but It’s very cold here in Sweden!
Mark: (Laughs) I’ll bet it is! It’s very hot here in the sunny West of Australia! It’s been about 40 degrees for the last week!
Hampus: (Laughs) We’re minus 20!
Mark: (Laughs) You’re in for a treat when you get here! It’s great, as someone who has been listening to the band for many years that you’re finally coming down to see us! We’ve been following the band on the website for the 15 years The Rockpit has been around, and you’re finally here in April. How did it all happen?
Hampus: (Laughs) I don’t really know any of the details, our manager has arranged most of the stuff. We always told him that we wanted to go to Australia, and we are good friends with Airbourne from there, who we’ve known for years. So it would be nice to go down and meet them and the fans. And now it’s finally happening. It was all planned to do it before corona when everything, as you know, collapsed.
Mark: So many tours got lost or rescheduled then, Sad days for live music lovers. I was just listening to your last studio record ‘Dust to Gold’ the other day which is six years old now, I know we had covid and I loved the live record in between. But is there new music on the way?
Hampus: Yes, there’s been some trouble over the last few years to get everything in order with the line-up and corona and other stuff but we have been writing lots of new songs, so at the moment I would say we have eight songs that are up to standard and some more that are maybe not! (Laughs) But we’re working on it, like every day.
Mark: Well, that’s great news, 8 songs is almost a vinyl album!
Hampus: Yeah, ten, eleven songs is enough I think.
Mark: Take us back all the way. It’s 23 years now the band has been in existence now but before that what was it that got you into music in the first place?
Hampus: I think I saw some Heavy Metal on TV when I was a really, really young child. I just thought it looked cool and sounded fantastic so when we were like ten we got offered to play an instrument in school so I just picked guitar and got a cheap crappy acoustic guitar. Then after a year or two of complaining to my father he finally bought an electric guitar and after that I was just sitting in my room all day long playing guitar. And it just carried on from that. I met Gustav Hector the bass-player at school also when I was ten and we started to play together. When I was sixteen I started to play with Hell Hofer in a pre-Bullet version of the band playing just covers, So if you count on it, it’s been almost thirty years! (Laughs) It’s crazy!
Mark: It is some time! Ca you remember who that band was on TV? Was there anyone in particular that inspired you at that age?
Hampus: I don’t know I guess it was something like Twisted Sister or something like that?
Mark: I loved early Twisted Sister – that first album for me is sheer raw energy.
Hampus: They’re great.
Mark: They are, as are Bullet. I must admit that there are very few band that I own every album by but looking through the collection all of yours are here: Heading for the Top, Bite the Bullet, Highway Pirates, Full Pull, Storm of Blades and Dust to Gold. The only one I donlt have is the live one but I’ve downloaded that one and have my eye on the vinyl. It will be great to se some of that played live!
Hampus: (Laughs)
Mark: What are you going to do with the setlist, play us a bit of everything?
Hampus: Yeah, I think we’ll play something from all the albums, some maybe just one song, but we kind of must focus on the favourites.: the singles that people want to hear and maybe a wild card here and there. Al the good one! (Laughs)
Mark: Well, they’re all good so that could be anything!
Hampus: Of course they are! (Laughs) Well not really! Most of the are though. (Laughs)
Mark: If you put out a setlist like the ‘Live’ record I’d be more than happy, three’s a lot of music on there and it sounds great.
Hampus: Yeah, I’m happy at the way that came out. Maybe we add like ‘Highway Pirates’ but we haven’t 100% decided yet. It’s a good representation of how we sound live, and I love the whole package, the artwork with Hell Hofer on the front and the gatefold cover with the shot of when we opened for AC/DC back in 2009. I think that shot of 50,000 people looks like Master of Puppets with Metallica in that arena.
Mark: Well, let’s hope AC/DC are touring again soon, you never know you may get to recreate that scene.
Hampus: Yeah, I really hope so.
Mark: As a guitarist whose sound is fundamental to the band, and I’m assuming you’re self-taught from what you’ve told me. Who do you style yourself on, who influences you?
Hampus: Nowadays I usually say that the guitarist that is the most impressive is the one that writes good songs! (Laughs) I mean there’s so many guitarists that can play awesome leads. But not all of them can write really good music, so I look at those in AC/DC, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Rose Tattoo, old Metallica, Black Sabbath, Saxon, Rush, Slayer… it’s all in there. (Laughs)
Mark: That’s a fantastic list. I’m actually talking to Biff in a few hours time.
Hampus: Say hello to him. He did a ‘whistle’ on Highway Pirates.
Mark: I shall remind him of that.
Hampus: His son has the first Bullet album in his car so he has heard it many times. (Laughs) It was so funny, he did just a whistle and we had a big sticker on the record ‘guest artist Biff Byford’ and it was only one whistle! (Laughs)
Mark: (Laughs)
Hampus: He sent us an audio file with like 20 different whistles and we considered just at the end of the album Biff doing twenty whistles! (Laughs) Then we thought maybe we could have one whistle on every album so he could guest on them all?
Mark: A different whistle on every album that would be great! I shall have to ask him for you!
Hampus: I’m also good friends with Graham Oliver because we have the same guitar bloke working for us, I got a message from him in my car and I almost drove off the road because I was so happy that he contacted me to talk about music and stuff. (Laughs)
Mark: That must have been great, I can tell you love your music. He’s a great guitarist. I saw his version of Saxon years ago support Dio year ago, that was a great show.
Hampus: Amazing.
Mark: Biff’s Saxon have another great guitarist with them now too Brian from Diamond Head, he can write a song!
Hampus: Yeah, I love him, he’s really good. We have a Festival close to where I live called Muskel Rock and both Graham and Brian have played there. I was so impressed one year when Brian was getting a bad sound through the JCM 2000 Dsl Marshall amps that sometimes you get, and he took off his glasses and sat there at his desk for three minutes and got the perfect sound from that amp! So I was like really impressed after that. Diamone Head was great!
Mark: Yeah I heard you get that shrill sound with those valve amps at times on certain frequencies.
Hampus: (Laughs) I got my album signed too so I was very happy!
Mark: We’re all fans aren’t we! I love that. It’s like when they called me to do the interview they asked if I wanted anything, and I said just get my album signed! (Laughs)
Hampus: It’s enough! I shall make sure we do that for you.
Mark: I look forward to it. In my humble opinion there are few bands out there who are as consistent as you guys are. If you love your Metal with that old school flavour. Bullet, like your friends Airbourne, play it pretty true to the roots. I can pick up any of your albums and enjoy them all.
Hampus: We try our best.
Mark: If you could have been a ‘Fly on the wall’ for the recording of any great album in the history of Rock and Roll what would you have liked to have seen being put together in the studio? Just to see how the magic happened?
Hampus: I guess I would say ‘Back in Black’ by AC/DC because there’s such a great sound on that album, it’s like impossible to get these days. The drum sounds and everything is so good. So that would really have been something to have witnessed.
Mark: It would have been one of the classics and then you could also solve that great mystery of who wrote the lyrics as well.
Hampus: (Laughs) We always used to talk about how that album would sound had Bon Scott been alive. But of course, now I’ve found it on YouTube with AI (Laughs) It does sound like Bon Scott singing and it’s quite good. (Laughs) One version sounded exactly like him, it was quite impressive.
Mark: It’s scary isn’t it, it will put everyone out of a job soon.
Hampus: It is, it’s crazy what it can do.
Mark: They can’t quite write though. I do a lot of reviews of new music and whilst AI can review an old album by stealing the best bits from elsewhere, which I think has some real plagiarism issues especially when you see some unique phrases in there that you know the source full well. With new albums it’s just generic garbage because it has nothing to steal from and no point of view or appreciation. Though as you say it samples sounds really well. So back in Black I’m with you pretty much the perfect album.
Hampus: Absolutely.
Mark: You mentioned a few Australian bands amongst those you cited as influences. Airbourne I actually accidentally saw their second ever show I think in their hometown of Warrnambool, at the Criterion Hotel, we’d been diving the Great Ocean Road after moving down to Melbourne and they were just there.
Hampus: The first time they played in Germany, we took the plane down and made this big blanket with ‘Airbourne King of Rock’ written on it! We also met them when they played in Sweden the next time – we made this banner ‘Airbourne Aussie Vikings’ – I think they took at on the bus later. It was a great show.
Mark: I remember thinking that they were destined for big things! A few years later they were playing bigger venues and heading to the US and Europe.
Hampus: The first full length was so good! I was so happy when I heard it the first time. I thought “Finally! Guys like us!” They were just doing it on the other side of the world.
Mark: And they’re such fun as well. Let’s leave you with n easy one – something we traditionally aske everyone the first time we speak: “What is the meaning of life?”
Hampus: (Laughs) The meaning of life (Laughs) Well ‘to live’ I guess. And to listen to lots of good heavy metal, enjoy life and have thousands of beers, wild women and a great motorcycle, It’s a simple as that (Laughs)
Mark: I think you’re definitely onto something there Hampus. I’ve been asking people for years and we finally are getting close! Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to The Rockpit, so nice to talk to you. Hopefully we will get a chance to catch up in April at one of the Melbourne dates. Take care my friend.
Hampus: You to Mark, stay wild!
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