Interview: Spotlicks

Spotlicks from Stockholm, Sweden is one of my favorite bands and their punkrock appeal to me very much. They went out on their second euro-tour this spring 2013 and did a couple of gigs in the UK. The song they participate with on Schizo Punk Comp is called Apati and here is the link to that song on Schizo Punk Comp. Spotlicks – Apati

1. I think that everyone who read Schizo Fanzine and Schizo Blog have heard about you, but please write a brief history about Spotlicks
Spotlicks have been together since early 2010. Staffan and Rikke had been fiddling about a few times but it all came together when Elin made her entrance. We hit our spot straight off from the start and have been playing our brand of melodic punk since then with a 7" and a 10" under our belt along with some compilations. Two European tours but we keep yearning for more.
    2. You did a UK tour this spring 2013, what's your best memories from that tour?
The best was to hook up with the wonderful Buiten Gebruik again! Too bad they couldn't play any gigs, we would have loved to see them live again. Apart from that it was great to be in Brighton, London and Leeds and to meet lots of great people. Thanks to everyone involved, really!

3. I know that you are gonna record (or have recorded) a few tracks, what will you do with those tracks?
It totally depends on how well we manage this time as we've gotten more picky and want a Good result before we decide to share it. Possibly there's a new record to come in the end.

4. How many copys have you sold of your 7" and your 10"?
Oh, a couple of hundred at the most.

5. What about the future, any plans?    
The usual: recording and touring. Improve our songs, recordings and concerts. We're putting together a tour package for Sweden in september along with Head-ons, Smash it up and Suicide syndicate. We hope to return to England aswell. If you have any ideas for gigs then please get in touch!
   
6. Contact info:
You can reach Spotlicks through our Facebook profile or just send us a mail: spotlicks@gmail.com

Thanks to you Schizo!

Interview: Spotlicks

1. Hey Spotlicks, you are the band of the month which means that you are the band
on Myspace that I've found most interesting for this month. Please describe your
music and let me know some interesting info about the band?

We play traditional punk in Swedish. Rikke and Staffan started the band, and through Mattis
Ruwe (Makabert fynd) Rikke got in touch with Elin, who joined the band in February 2010.
We’ve been in the studio two times during the year, we recorded six songs in July in Mattis
studio and those are the songs you can hear on www.myspace.com/spotlicks . We had our
first gig in May at Club probation (Snövit, Stockholm), and we will probably play at Kafé 44 in
Stockholm, sometime in the autumn. We love to play live, and we hope to get more gigs soon.

2. Your lyrics are pretty personal, what inspire you when you write the lyrics?
And when it comes to the music, let's do some traditional namedropping of bands
that influence you

We get inspiration from everyday life: newspapers, friends, books, relationships etc . Some
bands and artists that we like are the Damned, Hüsker Dü, Ebba Grön, the Freeze, Rattus,
Poison idea, Misfits (danzig-era), Operation ivy, Dinosaur Jr, the Rezillos, Buzzcocks, the Clash,
the Vibrators, 999, and many more..

3. It was not too long time since you formed the band, what have you done before
Spotlicks? Staffan and Rikard have been in the punk scene for a long time, what do you think about the scene in Stockholm and what is the biggest changes that you can see?

Both Rikke and Staffan have played in different bands since they were teenagers. Elin started
playing guitar when she was 14, but she hasn’t played in many bands, mostly rehearsing
with friends. Staffan has played in Kurt i Kuvös, Hux Flux, Browneye, The Crooks and Stajnas
Lobos etc. Rikke has played in Sighstens grannar, Bong Hit, HCHC, etc. and is now playing
bass in Makabert fynd.
The biggest changes that we can see in Stockholm’s punk scene during the years are that there
are more people playing in bands, going to gigs, and that there are more gigs in general. In the
80’s it could be that you had to suffer through some old boring blues band before the punk
band you wanted to see finally played. These days the gigs are better organized. Looking back
we think it has been different kind of “waves” in the punk scene in Stockholm, at the moment
it is a lot of D-beat bands.

4. What do you think and feel about the election in Sweden 2010? It's the first time
we have a party with neonazi roots in the government, why? How could that happen?

Total fucking disastrous, it is really sad. Why it happened? Probably the conservative
government the last four years, in combination with the economic recession, people wants to
find someone to blame. We hope that the anti-racist movement will grow strong again, and
that people will become more tolerant.

5. Do you think that you can take any advantages because your lead singer is a female? And also, do you think that you will be treated different in any way because of that?

We haven’t thought about it really. We look at ourselves as three friends who like to rehearse
and make music together. We haven’t noticed any advantages, but if there are any, we would
like to have them (laugh).

6. Well, I hope there are people out there that will be curious of Spotlicks and especially
show up at the euro tour we are planning for the spring 2011. Is there anything you wanna add? Feel free to write what you want.

We would like to thank Schizo Fanzine for the honor to become the band of the month. All the
best to you Micke, thanks!