‘I Have To Go Rogue Every Single Time’: Peach PRC Reflects On The Past As She Steps Into Her New Era

The Hives: Band New.

Chris Ryder
Originally Appeared In

How Swede It Is.

More The Hives The Hives

Your New Favourite Album is in stores now.


Howlin´ Pelle - put it down to Swedish flair - is installed in the LA offices of The Hives' US record company, Epitaph, "chewing gum and getting free stuff".

The Hives have been swept up by the new cool thing vibe surrounding ‘rock music’ - yeah, it's back in fashion - catalysed by the success of The Strokes and White Stripes. This probably makes The Dandy Warhols laugh as they've been rocking since 1994 and determinedly so. It would also probably make Jon Spencer's Blues Explosion and its offshoot Boss Hog smile albeit rather sickly - they've been doing the blues-driven rock snarl thing for a decade. Of course, The Hives aren't quite as rock - more punk, thank you. Well, at least, Iggy And The Stooges meets The Saints and the Flamin' Groovies. Not a bad list of outfits you'd wish to sound like.

In fact, they're quite furious on Your New Favourite Band (a compilation of tracks and singles from their first two albums Barely Legal and Veni Vidi Vicious) - lots of energy slamming down the quicksilver rhythms with Howlin' yowlin' away on top. It isn't hard to see why they're popular.

"There's a bunch of brains behind the energy, as well,” Howlin' says. "The fact that the music manages to be both stupid and smart at the same time which is what we're shooting for here. We come from punk rock but it's pretty much rock music.”

Actually, the truth about The Hives can be found in a list of 13 (deliberate) of their favourite albums: AC/DC, For Those About To Rock (We Salute You); Dead Boys, Young, Loud and Snotty; Sonics, Here Are The Sonics; Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels, Detroit Breakout!; Little Richard, The Specialty Sessions; Cyndi Lauper, She's So Unusual; MC5, Back In The USA; Johnny Cash, Solitary Man; The Saints, Eternally Yours; The Ronettes, The Best Of The Ronettes; New Bomb Turks, Destroy O'Boy; The Strokes, Is This It; Dead Kennedys, Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death.

"That's a list of albums that are really good; maybe not our Top 10 best of all-time but certainly of our favourites," Howlin' says. "Two Australian bands - you're well represented. I was first exposed to AC/DC by my brother when I was about seven years old - to that record. I loved it. Then I had a sort of falling out with it and didn't listen to much rock music for quite a while. And then I relapsed and now I'm on it again. A bunch of Swedish punk stuff got me back in."

All part of the under-estimated Swedish music scene, now the third biggest market - in terms of sales - in the world. Not only does it have an obviously strong pop scene - born of the ABBA years - but it has excellent punk, metal, hip-hop and alternative scenes, each producing some highly original music.

It's from this rubbery musical shrubbery that The Hives have bloomed and, unlike the Strokes and White Stripes, they aren't overnight sensations. In 1993 five adolescents in the small industrial town of Fagertsa, Sweden, each received a letter with a time and place. A year later they, led by the genius of a Mr Randy Fitzsimmons, began to appear in various public places in and around Fagersta. The response was one of confusion, excitement and contempt. By 1995 word had spread throughout the middle part of Sweden about these kids with strange haircuts that played really fast and short sets that sometimes just fell apart in arguments and sometimes were pure magic. Record company exec Peter Ahlqvist heard of this and while intrigued remained a little uncertain: he didn't really know what to make of them. However, he eventually decided to release them on a side label to minimize damage to his own label, Burning Heart.

"It's not really eight years, you know," Howlin' says, "because the first five we didn't do anything."

Now that's honest. I laugh. He laughs.

"If you're not on a major label it takes more than one record to just let people - outside your home town - even know you exist. There's so much music out there that people have to have some time to sort out the nuggets. But it was only with our last album Veni Vidi Vicious that it all happened. Now it's all crazy but I'm happy about that."