From the outside looking in, Nicke Borg has a certain look about him. There’s something of an intimidating air about him but as Backyard Babies’ tour manager Stefan leads me through the labyrinth which is the backstage area of the O2 ABC, it becomes almost immediately apparent that nothing could be further from the truth. Sitting on a staircase is one of the most relaxed and friendly people I’ve ever had the pleasure to interview. As he drinks from a red plastic cup, we discuss the current tour with Black Star Riders and Gun, the enduring lineup of the band and their recent live release.
Welcome back to Glasgow! The band have just ed for the remainder of the Black Star Riders tour. How was last night?
It was great; this is a great tour for us. We’re friends with the band and we were looking for a UK tour and they offered us this which we accepted immediately. Black Star Riders, with their history and the band they are today, they have a bit of a different audience than we do. You always want to expand as a band. There’s not that many tours that are fit for us as a band to jump on or as an opener but this is great. From what I saw yesterday, I think possibly eighty per cent had never seen us before. You don’t get the response onstage but that’s not the whole idea because the idea is to play in front of new people.
The band recently released the Live at Cirkus DVD. What was it about that show that made you want to record it?
Many reasons; we’d played at one of our favourite venues in Stockholm. We had a team who offered us the chance to record the show and we’re from a generation that are fans of live videos. When I grew up, I got the Iron Maiden Live After Death cassette and I watched it over and over again. That specific show was so well-packed and recorded with sound and everything – that got me hooked on heavy metal. A lot of people these days don’t even own a DVD player anymore and computers don’t come with a DVD input anymore. It’s kind of the last chance to release a DVD or a Blu-Ray; in a few years we won’t even see this type of stuff anymore – I think. So we thought it was a good opportunity to give something to the fans and surprisingly, it’s selling – whatever the numbers are – but selling good. It reached number one after one week in the DVD charts in Sweden.
It’s been a couple of years since the last album. Can we expect some new material in the near-future?
Yes and no. We actually talked about it today. The plan is to write and demo into the summer. We then have a bit of a break with festivals and Dregan [Backyard Babies’ guitarist] has some Hellacopters gigs and we’ll continue in the Autumn. I’ve no idea when but definitely new material – album or not an album; new songs by the end of this year and an album early next year.
The band’s line-up hasn’t changed in almost thirty years. What would you say is the reason for that?
I don’t know, we’re kind of stupid to hang out with each other for so long. It’s a unique thing; we understood a couple of years ago that it was really unique because we never thought about it for twenty years. Then we reached twenty-five years and now coming up to thirty years; as a band, that’s a long time. When we reached twenty, we started to realise a lot of people were paying respect to the fact it was the same since ’89. I think Rolling Stone magazine – or whoever it was – made a list of recording artists who had the same line-up for over twenty years and we were on that list. And we were high on that list! It was like U2 and bands like that who had never really changed their line-up. We can’t really play with anyone else; we’ve tried! This is us, we’re doomed!
When Backyard Babies took a break, you worked on a solo project. Would you ever revisit that in the future?
Definitely! It was a project I’d started as an outlet for whatever type of music that doesn’t fit with Backyard Babies; I’m constantly writing songs and I’m in some kind of studio situation all the time. I love the process of writing songs, that’s what I get the best kick out of – the writing sessions and process. There wasn’t a plan behind the project except writing, recording and getting songs out and do a few gigs. I’ll do a few gigs this spring as well: acoustic gigs with one of my guitars. It’s more like a singer-songwriter, country, Americana thing. Sometimes it gets a lot of attention because it’s different, sometimes it doesn’t. It’s more for fun…but it gives me a lot. And it gives a lot back because when I write songs for my solo project or for other artists, I’m inspired to write songs for Backyard Babies. It’s a give and take thing.
Do you have a standard vocal warm-up routine?
Yeah, I drink this [showing me red plastic cup]. It’s honey and hot water. I learned from Mike Ness who told me to skip everything like tea, coffee, alcohol… except this. Just boiling water and a lot of honey. It’s really good for your voice. The last few years I’ve started using in-ears which is better because you don’t have to push your voice when you’re having bad sound. We did a tour with Buckcherry and Josh [Todd, vocalist], he had a warm-up routine, I’m not joking, for an hour and a half before every show. He had this piano thing on a speaker that he’s sing with; that’s a lot of warm-up.
What advice would you give to yourself when the band was in its early days?
We did what you’re supposed to; you go your own way, learn from your mistakes, don’t care what people try to tell you and don’t take no for an answer – all that stuff. At the end of the nineties, we made a lot of money, most of it was gone within weeks on parties and drugs and limos – stuff like that. That was stupid in a way but on the other hand, there’s something to talk about today, something to write books about. I run my own radio show in Stockholm and all these stupid things that you do when you’re young, starting out in a band, it’s a great story to today and I’m getting paid to tell them! [laughs]
What else has the band got planned for the rest of the year?
Just gigs here and there, Dregan’s got a bit of the Hellacopters reunion thing and mostly continue when we’ve got some time off, we’re going to try to be in the studio writing and recording. If we have more time off, maybe we’ll do some other stuff. It’s not going to be a whole tour until we have some new material out; just festivals and a few gigs here and there. This UK round is the last full tour we’ll be doing.
