What was your earliest recording experience?
Just my brother and me. We lived in the country, nothing to do, and we happened to have two cassette decks. We "discovered" that you could plug one deck into the other while recording something else. We had instruments at home, but he also had DJ stuff, so we were making techno and hip-hop mix tapes. Then I plugged my keyboard in and played over some of the beats. I bought a Fostex 4-track after that, around 1998. I loved the sound of it! It was dirty. There were punk rock bands in my town and they did serious stuff like go into a studio to put down their tracks. They would spend all of this money and it would sound like crap anyway. Too bright, too nice! I thought the dirtiness of a 4-track would have sounded better.
Did you feel it was essential for you to then learn more about recording so you could make records that sounded correct to you, unlike those punk bands?
I wanted to learn how to get that great, old drum sound, so I went to school for a year. In Sweden we have these folkskola ["people's schools"]. They are free and you can study something for a year. I chose to attend a music school, and I played piano in an ensemble; but my main instrument was the mixing board. By mid-year all I was doing was hanging out in the studio. There was a great old tape machine in the attic, but they had just put in a new Mackie board and Pro Tools so that's what we learned on. I asked if I could learn how to use the tape machine, but I was told it wasn't used in "The Business" anymore. A lot of the songs that ended up on our 500-copy, self- titled LP were recorded that year.
Did Dungen start out as a solo project or did you plan on having others involved when needed?
From the beginning it was a solo project, because there weren't people around who knew how to play my songs the way I wanted. I had friends who played, but I wanted the songs to sound a certain way.
When and why did you decide to get others involved?
I had friends who I'd 4-tracked with from the beginning. Three of us worked on each other's songs and we called all of it "Dungen." When it comes to my songs I've always been a control freak. [laughs] So, while I played on their songs, when it came time to record mine, I played all of the parts most of the time.
Do you still play music with any of those people?
Reine [Fiske, Dungen's guitarist] has been with the project for almost 10 years. He's also part of the live formula. Over the years there have been many people involved, mostly in the studio. I would play most of the parts myself, but I would have people come in to do a guitar part, or something. I use acoustic [guitar] a lot, but the lead guitar has never really been part of my palette.
What about sitar? Did you play that on those early tracks?
Oh no, that's an instrument I don't play! I had someone else do that.
Have you started to let your bandmates in, now that you've been working with the same people for many years now?
A little, but I still have that insane control need. For Skit I Allt I had more help in the studio. I had an engineer available, which helped because I could do proper ground takes [bed tracks] with me on piano, Reine on bass and Johan [Holmegard, also part of the live band] on drums. I would take that into the studio to do overdubs, and then Reine would come in and add some guitar. One track on the new album started with just a chopped up drum take and grew from there. I took sections from a 10-minute recording of Johan just trying stuff out. I cut, pasted and edited; "Soda" came out of that.
Did you feel restrained when you were signed to [Virgin Sweden imprint] Dolores?
Not restrained. We did a 500 print release then hooked up with the Virgin people, who were really nice. They wanted to "take it far" and make it the "next big thing!" I was young so I thought, "Yeah, let's put a band together!" When we did that one [Stadsvandringar] we recorded everything at the same time and had a producer [Matthias Glavå], who is still a very good friend of mine. He's one of the best producers in Sweden and highly regarded. He had pressure from above, so we had discussions about, "Maybe you should do it like this or like this." Small stuff, but [it happened] all the time. It's okay, because I know their job is to sell records and it turned out to be a good album, but it wasn't what I felt like I was supposed to do.
So you made Ta Det Lungt.
Yes! That was my attempt to make "one more record" to show everyone what I was trying to do. I got a digital Fostex recorder that was purple. I bought it from a friend for cheap because I had no money. I did Ta Det Lungt on that one.
You did that record on a Fostex personal studio? It sounds great!
Yeah! It had some great presets in it that I used. A compressor setting called "'60's mix" or something like that. It sounded pretty amazing. Then I brought it into a proper studio to mix it.
Do you credit the vintage sound of that record to what you did when you were recording or to how it was mixed?
Oh... that's a hard one. I rented some good preamps, like two [Telefunken] V72s. I borrowed two [Sennheiser] 421s. So that all went into the Fostex and probably had a big affect on how things sounded.
The legend is that Ta Det Lungt was recorded in a barn in the Swedish countryside.
My mom has a farm, and she lent me a house on it. We could make noise 24 hours a day.
Where did you mix it?
At Konst & Ramar studio in Stockholm. We also mixed Tio Bitar and 4 there. We used a different studio for Skit I Allt.
Why the change?
Well, I was planning on working with Matthias Glavå again, this time having him engineer. I know how to do what I want to do, but, unfortunately, I'm not always patient. He has this amazing studio and nothing is broken. [laughs] We were watching these videos of Serge Gainsbourg recording and, in the studio, there was the engineer, the producer, the arranger, a string section and a choir! So I had this idea that I'd like to put money into something like that. I could concentrate on producing and he could put the mics up the right way.
He didn't end up doing it though. What happened?
He was busy when we needed him, so I ended up doing it myself again. Then it was mastered by Håkan Åkesson [at Cutting Room Studios].
Dungen records have a particular sound. Most people consider it to be "vintage," but it can also be described as very "real" sounding. Most notable are the drums. How do you mic them?
One [Shure] SM57 between the snare and the kick, with the membrane here. [Indicates capsule above bass drum hoop, 90 degrees to the side of snare's shell, aimed at the floor tom.] I know it sounds like nothing special, but it gets the perfect blend between the kick and the snare. The earliest recordings I did just used that one mic and people thought it sounded great! It grew from there. I added one mic [Sennheiser 421] in front of the kit. Not in the kick, rather in front of it, but pointed right at it. Then one more over the drummer's shoulder, "looking" at the kit. On the new record I thought I should try a more dry sound, so I close mic'd the kit with 421s. I never use more than four mics though. Of course none of this matters without great playing!
The bass is pretty rich too; how do you do that?
I line [D.I.] the bass, but sometimes I also put a 421 on it.
