Article written by Klubb Gordon
Images courtesy Work Drugs and Hultsfred Festival
Hultsfred 2013 – Work Drugs Interview
For a while there, getting back to Stockholm from the Hultsfred festival, yesterday, seemed a problematic mission. When the bus I waited for didn't show up, however, a kind bus driver, took me and a couple of guys along for free. Those guys turned out to be in the band Work Drugs and for the drive back to the city we had a nice chat, rather than a proper interview, about music, cities and some other stuff.
Thomas and Ben and their driver Daniel (hope I got the name right) flew into Stockholm on Thursday, hoping to get a little bit of a weekend experience out of the trip, as it is their only festival gig for a while. Work Drugs, hailing from Philadelphia, have been productively putting out music since 2011. Next week will see the release of their next album, Mavericks. Have a listen to the single, West Coast Slide, further down the blog post, it's really good.
Gordon: How does the new album sound, compared to your previous work?
Thomas: We hear a lot that we have a beachy sound and Mavericks continues that. Perhaps a little smoother and polished and upbeat. These songs have been around for some time so the recording process was pretty quick. Live, we keep it simple and straightforward. Right now we’re not doing a big tour, we’re just going to do select shows.
Gordon: Are you doing well?
Thomas: I think so, we went on a big tour with Two Door Cinema Club. We have a new album coming out and we got invited here. But, yeah, we have real jobs, too.
Gordon: What are you seeing at this festival?
Daniel: I’m seeing Flaming Lips, even if I have to get a taxi from Stockholm to go back up here. I’ve come to the point in my life where I’m willing to pay money to make my life easier.
Thomas: We saw that band YAST, they were good. We saw Amason, I didn’t like them so much. And of course, we saw Kings of Convenience, we're huge fans of them.
Gordon: You look tired?
Ben: Yes. I’ve been up for 38 hours. We actually had a few beers with Kings of Convenience last night. They stay at our hotel.
Thomas: We had that shell-shocked moment when we saw them in the afternoon and we didn’t go up and say hi.
Ben: Yeah, but later we saw them in the bar. If Kings of Convenience wants to drink beer with you, what can you do?
We talked a bit more, about bands that are great and other bands that are no longer great, about Spotify and how it's actually a source of income for the band. Daniel insisted that my best course of action was to go live in New York for a few months and experience Williamsburg and the best food of every conceivable kind in the world and I gave them the names of places in Stockholm to eat and buy records, hoping they won’t be too disappointed. Next week, hopefully, I’ll get to write a review of their new album. Thanks a lot for the great chat and thanks to the bus driver who graciously let us ride into the city for free.