Q&A
Playing guitar, keyboards, organ, and a bass (or two), not to mention singing and producing his own albums, the multitalented Swede is in particularly adventurous form with his third solo release.
“I’m a big music nerd,” says Per Wiberg. The Swedish multi-instrumentalist has done everything from prog to death metal, stoner to heavy blues with artists from Opeth and Arch Enemy to Kamchatka and Spiritual Beggars. With his third solo release, The Serpent’s Here, Wiberg gives vent to his progressive impulses, throwing in everything from two basses to freaky jazz breakdowns.
“I would like to think it’s an ongoing process,” he says about his developing sound. “You start out listening to music and playing music when you’re a kid, and then you build from there. The backpack gets bigger and bigger every year.”
What’s changed in your creative process since your solo debut, 2019’s Head Without Eyes?
On the first two solo releases, I recorded everything on my own and added drums last. The big difference this time was that we recorded it live in the studio as a band. I only gave Tor [Sjödén], the drummer, and Mikael [Tuominen], the bass player, rough sketches of the songs. I wanted to keep it loose so we all could improvise, then I added keyboards and guitars afterwards. I wanted the recording session to dictate where it would go instead of having all the ideas down before going into the studio. That made it a little more adventurous. When we recorded, both me and Mikael played bass, so no other instruments, just drums and two basses in the studio.
What inspired that approach?
When you play keyboards or guitar, then you’re always going to listen to the chords and melodies, but if you only have two basses playing with the drummer, you interact in a different way because there are no melodies or chords to think about. I would like to think that you play more freely. It’s obviously a very different type of music but if you listen to some of the old jazz players like Ornette Coleman, when they did a three-piece without piano, they play differently compared to when you have chord progressions. I wanted to try that and see what came out of it.
What did two basses mean for mixing?
Jonas Kjellgren, who mixed the album, asked, “Why?” When you listen to the album, I don’t think people will go, “Oh, it’s two basses!” Instead of layering guitars and guitars on top of each other, I wanted to use at least one of the basses in a different way, more distorted. You pan the two basses left and right instead of the normal way where you’d have it upfront.
In the title track, there’s a squonky breakdown that seems more inspired by jazz than rock…
I listen to a lot of jazz
