Q&A: Refused on the prophecy of The Shape of Punk to Come

by Cody Punter

April 30, 2013

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The Shape of Punk to Come is generally considered to be one of the most influential punk albums of the last 20 years. Its self-fulfilling title has seen the album imitated, referenced, and borrowed liberally from, but no band has been able to fill the shoes of the Swedish quintet responsible for it.

But Refused broke up before the record was even released. Given the chaotic circumstances of their break-up, documented in Kristoffer Steen’s Refused Are Fucking Dead!, most had resigned to the fact they would never get a chance to see Refused’s “bombastic assault” played live.

Then, in early 2012, the band surprised fans by putting their differences behind them to do justice to their legacy. After reuniting for a headlining slot at Coachella, Refused announced a full world tour; just 10 months in, they decided to go back to being fucking dead.

I got the chance to see their Toronto show and was so blown away that I knew I had to do it again. When I heard that the band was going to play their last ever show in their hometown of Umea, I did the only logical thing and booked a flight to Sweden.

After arriving and spending a few days talking with locals about the influence of Refused on the local culture and music scene, I found myself at a local hardcore gig, where I was introduced to singer Dennis Lyxzén the night before the last Refused show. Despite the band’s reluctance to give interviews on the tour, and although Lyxzén keeps a busy schedule, he found 45 minutes in between band practice and soccer practice, just a couple of days after their last show, to talk.

I spoke with Lyxzén about Barack Obama, vegans blowing up meat trucks, and the unfulfilled prophecy of the Shape of Punk to Come.


AUX: The other night, you played your last ever show as Refused in your hometown of Umea. Do you feel like you finally got closure on something that you never got to finish the first time around?

Dennis Lyxzén: Closure is such a weird word, because it implies that something is completely done. And as far as music, and not only Refused, but everything, I’m pretty far from done. I think that back then we made a record that was way beyond our abilities. It was one of those moments that was kind of like a collective madness that produced that record. 14 years later, we got the chance to do it the way it’s supposed to be done, and it felt good.

For people outside of Sweden, that album remains what you’re known for. But I have been talking to people that grew up Umea in the 90s and they say that what means the most to them is the really early stuff.

That makes sense. Especially in our hometown, we were one of those bands that started the hardcore scene. We were very instrumental in making it what it turned into. A lot of those people who started their own bands and became vocal in the scene and did other things–they were there in the beginning. We kind of grew with them in a way that we didn’t with the rest of the world.

The rest of the world discovered us through “New Noise” and that last record [The Shape of Punk to Come] after we broke up. But the people here discovered us when we were playing youth centers and selling our first demo. That’s what made them get into hardcore, not the last record. I mean, you saw the show, when we played “Pump the Brakes,” people went fucking crazy! If we were to play that song anywhere else in the world, people would just be standing there, staring at us saying “why are they playing this song?” So it’s very different to play at home because there’s definitely more weight to the meaning of the band than the rest of the world. I mean we’re a hardcore band and people kind of like the stuff, but here we’re something that was part of defining a movement, which is very different from what the rest of the world thinks.

Do you think it’s slightly ironic that that’s your legacy? The fact that 3,000 people came to see you play an arena in your hometown, when you grew up playing for a few hundred kids in a youth center. Not to mention that the other night you had politicians, and kids, and people well beyond their senior years coming to see you play.

The thing with the legacy is that you can never make the choice yourself. It’s pretty fucking crazy that we started out as a hardcore band, heavily into politics– we were just like anarchists roaming free–and we end up becoming a hugely successful rock band. But it wasn’t like we sat down and said, “This is what’s going to happen.”

One of the great things about Shape of Punk to Come is that it pushed the concept of what punk rock was. What do you think about the punk rock songs that are big in America these days?

It is what it is. Punk rock I always thought—the essence of punk rock—is music based on rebellion and resistance. I think some of us took it more seriously than others. But you’ve got to realize that, in a lot of ways, that’s an American phenomenon. Because America is all about bumper stickers and Facebook updates. It’s not so much about the analysis or the ideology. It’s the American culture more than it’s punk rock. That’s what punk rock—a watered down version of punk rock—becomes in an uncultural, unpoltical country. I grew up a working-class kid. And my first introduction to straight edge was Youth of Today, but also the European hardcore bands, like Alarm and ManLiftingBanner and Seeing Red. Fucking ManLiftingBanner were a straight edge band that had songs like “Committed to Communism,” and I was like, “Whoa! Who are these guys?”

When I got into punk rock, the kids I hung out with, they were all anarchists, like ideological anarchists. But those were just the people I hung out with, they weren’t really punks. They were just kind of against everything. So I got my political schooling quite early on. I mean, you meet kids now, and to them Green Day and Refused is old school. But I grew up with the Dead Kennedys. I started reading the lyrics and I said “Wait! This is political for real! This explains the world to me. This shows me what the fuck is going on.”

I went to the local museum where you have the Umea Hardcore Archive and I read a lot of articles about the militant vegan movement. You may not have overthrown the capitalist system, but with that movement, you were able to affect change in your hometown.

We forced the capitalist system to start producing meat alternatives. That definitely had a big impact. I think for some people that was a fucking big deal. And in this city, there’s a lot of vegetarians and vegans, but now it’s not like a huge statement.

I remember when I became a vegan, and every time I walked into the room there was always an argument: “But what about this? What about that?” A couple of years ago—six or seven years ago—it shifted. People walk into a room and say “Well yeah, I eat a lot of veggie food, but I like meat.” And then they start apologizing for being meat eaters. And I’m like, “This is pretty awesome.”

But you also attracted a lot of negative attention, especially with the blowing up of meat trucks and the Shell gas stations. Based on what I’ve heard, that was something that really divided the scene. What’s your opinion on the negative press that you received at the time?

Veganism and vegetarianism became thrust upon people’s consciousness, for them to think about it. There were a lot of negative articles, but it’s just because it was a new thing. I think it freaked a lot of people out. Our parents’ generation, especially when you come from a leftist liberal city like Umea, they say, “Resistance is good, but only to a point.”

Without blowing up the meat trucks, I don’t think that would have happened. If we came out and said, “We’re very nice and peaceful, please don’t eat the cows,” it wouldn’t have had the same impact.

A lot of the people that did those things were crazy people, like really crazy… And it attracted some crazy people, but in the end—I talked about that at the show as well. I said, “You know what? It was a crazy time, but we learned! We learned a lot about solidarity and equality and socialism.” Fucking great things that we could take on and move forward in life.

The one thing I noticed when I saw you play in Toronto and when I look at the videos of your shows, is that it seems you have a signature sign off, where you’re not saying, “Let’s fuck the capitalist system!” It’s not about, “Fuck this, fuck that!” Instead your sign off has been “Always stay curious!” At the end of the day, moving forward, do you think that’s what you’d like to be remembered for?

I think that’s what inspired us to do that record, and I think that’s what inspires me to still do music. I’m a fucking curious, restless kind of person. I always want to figure out what’s going on. You can look back on it, and as you said, it was a romantic kind of ideal, but the thing is, I still believe in it. I still believe in overthrowing capitalism. I believe that capitalism is the root of fucking almost all evil in the world. I still believe that capitalism as a social construction does not work at all. That capitalism as an economic construction works even less. And I still believe in that. There’s so much, as you’ve said, “Fuck this, fuck that,” and a lot of the positive ideas that you bring to the table kind of get lost in all the negativity. You see all these bands and they say, “This is a song against this. This is a song against that.” And we just figure we wanted to leave on a positive note. I just think that’s a more empowering to talk to people.

Do you ever speak out on the national stage?

We haven’t done interviews for Refused at all this year. But once in a while I’ll be on TV shows debating politics. For a while, I was like the go-to guy. The newspapers would call me and ask, “What do you think about this?” It’s kind of cool that you have that identity, when people know sort of what you’re all about. But sometimes it’s super frustrating, if you’re out at the bar hanging out with your friends, it’s quarter to 2:00, and some drunk guy decides he’s going to talk politics with you. And I’m just like, “I want to check out the band, maybe talk to a girl. I don’t want to talk politics with you.” I remember the last Noise Conspiracy record we put out a couple of years ago. We went down to Germany to play and we did a press day, and I talked about Barack Obama for like four hours. It was fucking driving me crazy.  After a while I’m like “I don’t give a fuck about Barack Obama. Fuck this guy!”  We had this new record out, with new ideas and politics on there, and I’m like, “I’m not here to talk about Barack Obama.” So sometimes it’s kind of a drag that you’re that guy that always has an opinion about stuff. But it’s also who I am.

You were rehearsing with AC4 on Friday, then Refused played their last ever show on Saturday. Now it’s Monday and you’re coming from rehearsing with Inavsionnen before running off to soccer practice. You’re clearly not dead just yet.

I’m not on the lazy side. Come February I will have done two full-length records and 100-plus shows in the last year. Even for me that’s a high pace. Then again AC4 has new record coming out next year and Inavsionen is my new band. So ya, I’m not going to take it easy. I come home from tour I’m like “Fuck this! I need to relax, I need to fucking rest up.” Then after 3 days I’m like “Hey let’s practice. Let’s play a show.”

One last question. Up until 2010 Sweden had mandatory military service. Did that affect you at all when you were growing up?

No, no. I came with a black mohawk, a Dead Kennedys shirt, and I was just like “I’m crazy.” And they let me go. I think on the form it says that I was physically unable to perform military service, which is awesome.

The teacher I had in like ninth grade was in jail because he refused to do military service. He was always telling me, “Dennis, you shouldn’t fucking do the military service.” And I got out of it, and he got pissed because he was like, “You accepted it on their terms! You should have said, ‘Fuck you, I’m not doing the military service.'” But I didn’t want to go to jail. He was in jail three times and he was at the show on Saturday—my old teacher.  He was an old communist; he still goes to all my shows. He’s awesome.

This article originally appeared in the April 2013 Issue of AUX Magazine.

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Tags: Music, Interviews, AUX Magazine, hardcore, Sweden

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