Shout It Out Loud: Indie Darlings Tell All
The Swedish quintet Shout Out Louds have moved from unknown basement jammers to indie-stardom in a few fast years. Shout Out Louds is an admirable band not only because of their music but also because of their creative integrity. In a sea of artists who let themselves be engineered by expert producers, stylists and trainers to both look and sound like marketable (and often predictable) mass hits, Shout Out Louds remain in control over every last bit of their careers. Not only do they write their own music, they make their own music videos and design their own graphics as well. When I ask about potentially lucrative ways to use their brand name, they cringe, explaining that they’d rather their music be art than commodity. Naïve perhaps, but the world is stock-full of sagacity, and I’m ready to salute them for giving honest idealism a shot.
The band’s name is misleading. Though their songs certainly seduce an audience to make some noise, the band members themselves are surprisingly soft-spoken and unassuming. Shouting out loud seems to be the last thing that Carl von Arbin, guitar, and Bebban Stenborg, vocals and keyboard, want to do. Ted Malmros, bass, has a voice that carries but it may be, as Bebban remarks with a twinkle in her bright blue eye, because he wants to show off the perfect American accent he’s been cultivating. The Lattice Group sat down with these three Shout Out Louds members in a Paris café before their show at the jam-packed La Flèche d’Or to talk about working and living as touring musicians. 
The Lattice Group: What were your dream jobs when you were younger?
Ted: The first thing I wanted to do was be a road construction worker, and then I wanted to be a baker. I was four or five. When I went to high school I didn’t really have an idea. There were just so many different things I could see myself doing. I played ice hockey so I thought for a little while that I could be an ice-hockey player. But it was just on a week-to-week basis, then everything shifted. You don’t know, you’re very confused. I was, in that sense. But it didn’t matter, I felt it would sort itself out.
Bebban: I wanted to be an actress.
Ted: (laugh) What?
Bebban: Yes, an actress.
Carl: I used to read and study a lot of history and, I wanted to develop that in some way. But, that never happened.
TLG: What is your dream job now?
Ted: I’m kind of, I guess, in the same position as I was before: a bit confused and I can see myself doing a lot of different stuff. It would be great to be able to continue to do this, and make some money out of it, and then maybe open a bar or maybe one day become a baker (laugh). That’s still there. I direct films and stuff already so that would be fun, to do some movies. But I think my dream job would be to do a bit of everything. To be my own boss and do a couple of different things, like different projects. Not to have one job for the rest of my life.
Bebban: I want to be a writer. So, I want to write a script for Ted to produce and direct.
Carl: Now, more what I see coming is to try to get a normal job, just to get a little bit of stability, maybe start a family, but not too rigid. I could consider myself working for a design bureau for a few years and then me and Adam (Adam Olenius, lead singer) could start up something of our own. I want to be in charge of what I do. But it’s also really hard to have something on your own; it’s both good and bad. It would be nice to just be an employee for a year or something. You know, not have to care too much. Have a desk!
 TLG: How did you decide to go on a creative career path, and how has that been received in your family?
Ted: I think for me it was kind of the norm, to do a creative thing. Not that my parents ever tried to point me in any direction, but that was what was going on and that has always been there. Dad’s always been an entrepreneur doing different stuff, he pretty much never really settled in anything. Which is positive in the way that he seemed happy and inspired, and not be too worried about the future, just that things will come if you just go out and get them. So I think for me it was just very natural. With the band we didn’t really choose, we just started and then it rolled on. We never made a decision: “This is what we are going to do.” It just happened. But for me it worked perfectly and my parents have never opposed. They just thought, you know, that this would never work. Sometimes they ask, “okay, okay, it’s going well, but else do you want to do?” But always on a nice level. They don’t interfere, or even really say what they think. They kind of adapt to anything.
Bebban: When I was a kid my Dad was really trying to push me towards lines of work that were familiar to him. Because my dad is a hard-working person. He believes in making money and in making a material life that works well to provide for a family. My mom never really cared if I did homework, she was never educated at university and she never really had a job so, I never really got any advice from her, work-wise. They are divorced now, but as individual people they are very encouraging of this. Because I think my dad realized, in time, that I wasn’t going to prosper as an economist. So, they’re very supportive. Especially my dad. Which is interesting.
Carl: Well, it seemed like my mom, especially, decided when we were kids what we were going to be when we grew up. My brother should be an engineer and my sister should be an economist and Gustaf (his younger brother) was the artist and I was supposed to do computers, or something. My mom said not too long ago, a couple of months ago actually, that I should apply for a computer course. I mean she’s still on that track. She hasn’t really understood that that is not what I am going to do. So me and my younger brother kind of helped each other. Besides my brother, I think my friends helped me a lot to see that there are other options than doing things the normal way that my mother wanted.
 TLG: You’re all nearing thirty. Ten years from now, in an ideal world, what will your lives look like?
Ted: I like Stockholm, but you never know where you’ll end up. But I’ll probably be living there still and in an ideal world, I really like the band, I like playing in a band. Hopefully, it’ll just be a bit more structured so that we can do it on a little more structured basis. You know, live and record on set times, focus tour every now and then but not as heavily as now. Have a family, and be able to have both and also do other work. Maybe directing some movies and having a restaurant. Having a few different things and, you know, try to work it out, and be kind of busy, but you don’t have to be too busy because the band is doing well, and the films are doing well…
Bebban: And the restaurant is taking care of itself…?
Ted: (laugh) Yes, I know. But you don’t have to be too busy…
Carl: Like your dad.
Ted: Yeah, I guess. Like my dad. I will be married and have kids. I would love that. I mean, I don’t necessarily have to marry. I’m not very traditional like that, that I have to get married. But kids, I want kids. That would be fun.
Bebban: I hope that in ten years I will have found a place where I feel like staying for a long time. Because so far in my life, I’ve never found a place where I’ve felt like staying and making a home. So, I hope that I will have found a place like that in ten years. And I think I will. Because I have learned, just in the recent years of my life, that people are so prone to change, no matter how strongly you feel like you think something. I’ve always felt like I will never find a place that will feel like a home, like I’ll always have to move and travel and never be content where I am. But I have also learned that all the things I say about myself: “I am not like this, it is not in my character,” always suddenly turn up in my character, not too long after I’ve said that it won’t, So, I hope that I have a small family and geographically a place that I feel like staying in. And that I can do creative work and make money enough to get divorced if I want to…!
Carl: In ten years I’ll probably have a few kids. Three. And, still have the band and…in ten years? Ah, this is really something….Well, maybe have my own thing, like me and Adam (Olenius,) work well together when it comes to the graphic stuff so maybe have that and do the band on the side. Not being a slave to when the release dates are all over the world but more like tour a little bit and kind of have an established audience so that they’ll show up if we come around. Tour enough so that we in the band feel like it’s good. Have a normal life too. I just miss having stability, in a way.
 TLG: How do you think having a family will affect your careers as musicians?
Ted: We have plenty of friends who play in bands who have families too. So it’s doable. But everyone in the band has to agree on the terms and everything. I just think that if you’re open and talk about things then, of course it’s doable. Absolutely. I mean, things have to change a little bit. Now, we are always ready. It’s like: “oh, there’s a show there and a show there,” and we just run for it. You have to be more mature within the whole group. Things have to be planned further in advance. But it’s absolutely doable. Though you might sacrifice a bit of the career in some ways.
Bebban: But there will be compromises. Very much so, in the family life, if you plan on being away for weeks at a time.
Carl: It can be hard to combine the two. It just requires a lot of planning. More than we ever have.
Ted: Well I mean, planning yes, but on a day-to-day basis it’s going to be really hard to be away from your kids and your family. Of course it will.
Bebban: For me, it’s different. I know female musicians who take their kids on tour. But that’s…I don’t know if that’s…I have no idea. I have a hard time picturing a simple situation being on tour with children.
Ted: I just think that if anyone in the band has small children, we won’t really go on tour.
Carl: No.
Bebban: No. But how old can the children be when we go…?
Ted: I mean, we can go a couple of days, even you could, if they’re three years old or something. So I think if everyone has kids there’s going to be definitely less touring.
Bebban: Yes, definitely. But it depends on what your partner does in life, it really does. It has a lot to do with that. Because it won’t always be welcome by the wife or the husband that half of the parent couple is off doing stuff. It will not always be popular. I guess that’s when grandparents come in!
 TLG: Can you tell us a little bit about what your work environment is like?
Bebban: There is a lot of traveling, so I think that there’s more traveling and traveling logistics than there is music, in a way.
Ted: Yeah, the music is about one, two hours a day only. There’s a lot of waiting, a lot of checking in, being in a hotel room.
Bebban: Trying to find something to eat, trying to find time to eat, trying to find the time to sleep… I was thinking about it yesterday, what makes touring so hard. It is the constriction of the situation that is kind of hard. It is hard to be independent from the group and do exactly what you want because you do have to be there for specific times all throughout the day, you have to travel early in the morning. It’s hard to separate yourself from the work part of the tour. It’s hard to forget that you’re on tour and that you’re not on vacation traveling.
TLG: Is it possible to have some sort of work-life balance when you are on tour?
Ted: This year has been pretty good, so far. It’s been very focused when we go.
Carl: We’ve become better at that.
Bebban: Yeah, much better.
Ted: It’s pretty much always there, You’re always a part of the band. So, you can pretty much never leave it. There are always things coming up: “we have to do this, we have to do that.” But this year has been way better. It hasn’t been as much, you know, coming home on a Tuesday and then one rehearsal on Wednesday, doing an interview somewhere on Thursday and then leave on Friday, which it sometimes is. Then you never have a full day to focus on other stuff. This year it has been way more planned. But things come up. Being a band you have to be flexible at first but then you have to say no sometimes too, because every time you say, like, “let’s have these two weeks nothing” it’s like “oh, this great festival came up there, or they asked if we want to do this and this is the only time we can…” If you don’t start saying no to things you will pretty much be jam-packed all the time. So this year we’ve just really started to say, “OK, we can’t.”
Carl: We’ve been better at selecting things. Since we’ve been on tour so much we feel we don’t have to do everything. We can choose more, in a way.
Bebban: We learn that we can.
 TLG: You have basically gone into business with your friends. Is that something you recommend doing?
Bebban: The most important thing is to be equal in the company. Because otherwise I think it is doomed, more or less.— if one person makes a little more money or a little less money or puts in more hours. Money should be counted out as something very separate. Because I think money is like the devil. People get so weird around money. I think it could work really well but everyone has to set their career thoughts when it comes money aside if you want to have a business with friends.
Ted: I don’t think it is necessarily like that anyways because maybe you go into business with somebody and then you become friends. What’s the difference then? Bebban: Well, you don’t have the same expectations on a co-worker as you have on an old friend. When it comes to who works harder and so on, you can go home and complain to your normal friends about the person. Well, what if it’s your best friend and you start to feel like you never noticed that this guy never comes to work in time and always leaves early…
Ted: If it’s somebody who really means a lot to you and you don’t want to jeopardize that friendship then maybe no. Maybe it’s not a good idea then.
TLG: What are the gender dynamics like in the music industry and in your band specifically, since you are four guys and one girl?
Ted: The whole business is set up for suiting men. Most businesses are. But I think that it is rapidly changing in that sense. I think it is possible, as a woman, to go out and grab what you want, a little bit more now. But it’s still there in small things. Especially with playing rock and playing instruments. You know, people don’t think that girls can play instruments. I mean, they don’t think it in their heads, but if you go into a music store they’re always talking to the guy, even if it’s the girl that needs the effect-peddle. That will probably change over time, but it’s still a little bit weird. Awkward.
Bebban: It is getting better. The difference is much smaller now than what is used to be. When we started the band, not to say that I was an experienced musician that deserved a lot of acknowledgment, but usually when I came into a venue and we would play with another band, the other band would just assume that I was a girlfriend of one of the guys and not one of the band members. So people would actually pass me when they shook hands. That’s just the way it was then. That has changed. I don’t know why people still don’t expect there to be one girl band member. And I do it too. I sometimes assume that someone is selling merchandise or something like that unless they look like a rock-star. It’s kind of weird.
 TLG: And what is it like, being the only girl?
Bebban: It is hard for anybody to be outnumbered in any situation. It is always a little bit tricky. Like for the sound guy who is traveling with us now and didn’t know us before these few weeks— he’s outnumbered in his way and I’m outnumbered in my way. That’s not a fun situation to be in in many ways. But these guys are my friends. And I think that the only thing that makes it more obvious is that we travel so much that we have to be with each other 24 hours a day. I think that I do set myself apart from them, as much as they do from me. Because, also, in the past year, as soon as there is a single room on the tour, I get it. Which I know is not always very fair in the eyes of the other guys. But I just don’t care anymore.
Ted: Well, you know, I don’t think everything always has to be fair all the time. It’s just better for the dynamics and for everyone. Sometimes it’s like that. I mean, I think that we are different, men and women, that’s OK. We just have to think of everyone as individuals who need to have a good time and who need to be comfortable.
Bebban: And boy do I have a good time in those hotel rooms! Ted: No, but I mean it could be like if another band has a guy who is really tall, who is so huge that he doesn’t fit in the seats and so has to get the special, bigger seat all the time.
Bebban: Yes, people have different needs.
Ted: I just think it’s different needs more than different genders.
Bebban: That’s a discussion that we have had many times: if it is me being a very private person or me being a woman. Because, of course, I know women who don’t mind walking around in their underwear in front of the guys and don’t put on make-up and don’t care so much about showers, and who may be easier to have on tour. But I realized that that doesn’t matter. I’m not that girl. I like to shave my legs and you know, I need to bring body lotion on tour, even if it weighs a few grams too much. And it doesn’t really matter if it is because I am a girl or if it is because of the way that I am. But there are things that are different for women. And that’s the same in every industry, not just the music industry. There is still a long way for women to go before it is smooth and nice for everybody. Because I know that it is not always easy for them to have a girl and it’s not always easy for me to be a girl. This is a sensitive topic, even for us.
TLG: Do you have any advice to give young people who want to make it in the music industry, or in an alternative career path in general?
Bebban: I think that the most important thing is to give it a real try and not let other people tell you that you can’t do it. Because maybe you can’t, it’s hard, but there is always a possibility that you can. Somebody is doing it, so you could.
Ted: I think it is a good thing to be patient. And maybe not to overanalyze your situation too often. I sometimes see people thinking a little bit too much. Like, “oh it’s going nowhere” and it’s like, “but you’ve just started.” Our generation seems to jump more from one thing to the next, which could be a good thing, but I do think a little bit you have to stick it through the bad times. A lot of things are boring. Even playing in a band can be so boring sometimes, but you just have to ride it out and it will be more fun later, and then boring again… that’s how it is. So patience is important, I think. Don’t give up too early.
Bebban: Don’t give up too late either!
Ted: True. There’s nothing wrong with giving up, definitely not. I’m just saying that when you give up make sure it’s not because of something that you could just have ridden out.
Carl: My advice, I guess, is stand up to your mom.  It’s surprising, isn’t it? Those who seem to be living an extraordinary dream still seem to be dreaming about the ordinary. For stability, structure, normalcy. Or, as Carl said, for “a desk.” Perhaps being a musician isn’t that different from working a demanding office job- the yearning for personal time and a reliable schedule pervades both the cubicle and the tour bus. Then again, Shout Out Louds get more than spiked punch at the company party. They’re given the soaring high of stepping up on a stage overlooking a sea of adoring faces. Let’s not forget that they are rockstars, after all. Illustrations by Gustaf von Arbin Press image from Shout Out Louds |
