How Peter Bjorn And John's Made Their Ikea Record In A Factory

The last time Peter Bjorn & John were in Australia, it was early 2007, and they were riding high on the feelgood vibes of instant classic single Young Folks, the standout jam from 2006's Writer's Block. Nine years on, and the Swedish trio are returning, touring their brand new LP, Breakin' Point. But, in the years since, they've never released anything that's so captured the zeitgeist as their breakout single. Seven albums and 17 years into things, frontman Peter Moren has come to peace with their best-known song.

"We actually stuck some whistling on this record as like a little hint, a ten-year anniversary nod to that song."

"At this point, it almost feels like it's somebody else's song, anyway; it feels like a standard, like a jazz standard or something, there's been so many covers of it," Moren says, walking along Stockholm streets on a fresh spring morning, having just dropped his child off at daycare. "It's almost like Young Folks would really fit on [Breakin' Point]. Moreso than it did on Writer's Block, which was more of a guitar/shoegaze/indie record. When we put out the record after, [2009's] Living Thing, that's when it started to feel really irritating, to be so known for that one song. But right now it feels great. Even with that song, we're not stuck doing some ten-year anniversary tour of that old record. Ten years later, and we're putting out a new record. We actually stuck some whistling on this record as like a little hint, a ten-year anniversary nod to that song."

Breakin' Point is the first PB&J LP since 2011's Gimme Some. The long lay-off came, at first, due to drummer John Eriksson hurting his shoulder while touring ("he had it hard, the last record was so energetic and punky, with lots of fast songs"), but only grew when each member of the trio — which is rounded out by bassist Bjorn Yttling — had children. And, then, when they started writing for a new album, they set themselves a lofty ambition: "We aimed for total pop perfection.

"We treated it as 12 singles, not an album," Moren says. "We were going to make a whole album of classic, well-written pop songs. They should all be under four minutes, medium tempo  — so no super-fast or super-slow songs — and we also talked a bit about flirting with disco. So, we sat in a room and worked on it, for years. The three of us all have wildly eclectic taste, so it can be hard to boil it down to what it is we actually want to do. Especially this time, because we had a lot of chefs involved."

Those 'chefs' involved a run of high profile producers, including Patrik Berger, Emile Haynie, Greg Kurstin, and Paul Epworth. The resulting record brings big melodies and earworm refrains, tied together with the "overarching theme" of the factory, songs like Dominos and What You Talking About? about "the grind of everyday, hardworking life". "That's why we wear jumpsuits in the press shots, and where we came up with the [album art's] tri-hammer image," says Moren. "We were going to this pop factory every day. We were working away, as if we were making good Swedish furniture, toiling away at making the best possible product. So, putting together these sturdy chairs, we started to think of what we were doing as a factory."