Interview: I Love Your Lifestyle

On the back of a couple of rather excellent EPs, Sweden’s I Love Your Lifestyle made the cut in our huge 50 bands to watch in 2016 feature. Now they’ve backed up the hype with ‘We Go Way Back’, an album so infectiously brilliant it’s destined to be the feel-good soundtrack of your summer.

Formed by guitarist Joel Bjurbo and vocalist Lukas Feurst, the five-piece (completed by Joel’s brother Jonathon (bass), Fredrik Dahlqvist (drums) and Oscar Johansson (guitar, tambourine “dancing”) have quickly garnered huge appeal thanks to a couple of stellar EPs and an unbelievably limited lathe cut single as part of the Art Is Hard singles club (good luck getting hold of that, vinyl nerds…).

With the quintet’s new album set to send the group stellar, Joel Bjurbo took some time out to answer some questions on I Love Your Lifestyle, Sweden and wizards…

AH: So what’s the background to I Love Your Lifestyle and how did it all start?

Joel: I love your lifestyle came about when me and Lukas decided to start a band at a party. I´ve played in bands with Oscar and Fredrik before and Jonathan is my little brother so we´ve been rocking out to Iron Maiden since we were kids. It all came together very easily.

AH: Are you still split across two cities (Gothenburg and Malmo), and how does this effect band business? Is it hard to practice?

Joel: Yes we are! Of course it´s a lot harder to get everyone together, but on the other hand we don´t take anything for granted and always make sure to plan ahead. And it´s really cool for us in Gothenburg to be able to go to Malmo every once in a while. Having two home cities is not all bad. And it´s only a 3 hour drive.

We Go Way Back by I Love Your Lifestyle

AH: You’ve got a couple of short releases to your name, so why did you decide to record a full length at this point and how long have these songs for the album been kicking around?

Joel: Basically we had too many songs we liked. Some had been laying around since the first EP and some were brand new. It was either do an album or do 5 EPs!

AH: What was your hopes for ‘We Go Way Back’ when you started recording? Did you see it as a chance for you to push yourselves or as a chance to really solidify your sound?
Joel: It´s mainly a bunch of cool riffs and melodies we were able to come up with. It´s a little bit of both I think.

AH: I can remember when I was younger (well, like 15 years ago), bands like Last Days of April and Starmarket were a big deal for me, were those ‘classic’ Scandinavian emo bands influences for you?
Joel: Not really. We´re slightly too young I think. I was all about heavy metal until I was like 15, everything else went under my radar.

AH: Who else should we be paying attention to from over in Sweden at the moment?
Joel: You should check out Care, Trachimbrod, The Dahmers, Tomorrow st Peter, Rome is not a town, Knivderby.

AH: How did you hook up with Darren and Dog Knights for ‘We Go Way Back’?

Joel: I think we e-mailed him when the LP was finished and he already knew of us somehow. Probably from our tour in the UK or something. Then we just said “cool! Let´s do this!” He´s a really cool guy.

AH: what’s the story behind the artwork for ‘We Go Way Back’?

Joel: Jonathan just made a feel-good cover that we all liked. There might be a story behind it but foremost it captures the vibe of the album I think.

AH: Has the buzz around ‘We Go Way Back’ taken you by surprise? I remember Noisey got really excited last year, so did Washed Up Emo, so it feels like things have been building for a while?
Joel: Definitely by surprise. We are very lucky that some people seem to care about the band. It´s quite hard to feel though cause there isn´t really a scene for our type of music were we live. Also, I really hate the internet so the others have to let me in on what´s going on most of the time!

I Love Your Lifestyle EP by I Love Your Lifestyle