Mit einem Kondom Beats produzieren und damit über Nacht viral gehen? Why not?! Dachte sich William Henry Victor Schultz alias Sueco. Seit 2019 mischt er die Szene in und um LA mit seinem Mix aus Punk-Pop, Emo, Hip-Hop und Rap auf. Wir durften den US-Musiker jetzt zu seinem allerersten (!!!) Interview in Europa treffen. Denn während sich Sueco, was übrigens „schwedisch“ auf spanisch bedeutet, in seiner Heimat den USA schon eine riesige Fanbase aufgebaut hat und bereits mit Größen wie Travis Barker zusammenarbeiten durfte, gilt er hierzulande noch als Geheimtipp. Das wird sich nach seiner ersten Headline-Tour, die ihn am Montag ins Hole44 in Berlin geführt hat, mit Sicherheit ändern. Alles über ihn, sein Debütalbum „It Was Fun While It Lasted“, Tattoos und schnelle Autos… und warum es im Interview auf einmal ganz charmant hieß: „Fuck you, too!“… lest selbst!
Frontstage Magazine: Today is the first headline show of your tour and there are about more than 40 shows to come. So how do you feel?
Sueco: Honestly? I‘m fucking nervous. Cause that‘s my first headline tour ever. So this is like the first show of the tour. And I‘ve never been in Germany before. This is my first time I‘m ever here.
Frontstage Magazine: Oh wow, it‘s your first time in Germany? I did not expect that! But you‘re family is from Sweden and Finnland. So I guess it‘s not your first time in Europe as well? Cause you‘ve been there?
Sueco: Yeah, I‘ve been in Finland when I was a little kid. I mean not a little kid… I was like 16. But it feels like a long time ago.
Frontstage Magazine: How do you like Germany so far?
Sueco: It‘s cool as fuck! Yeah, I mean what I‘ve seen so far is cool as fuck. The people are hella nice.
Frontstage Magazine: So that means this is also your very first interview in Europe…
Sueco: Yeah! Wow, cool! So now the pressure is on! (lacht)
Frontstage Magazine: It‘s just such a great honor for me to have the very first interview with you on this continent! (lacht) So I think we have to go back in time a little bit. Cause people here don‘t know you that well so far. Could you just tell us something about your journey as a musician?
Sueco: Of course! So I started really doing music because of my family. My dad was the choir director of my church where I grew up. So I was like kind of exposed to that. My mum was a singer for the church. And then… the first instrument I‘ve ever played was drums. And it was because of the video game „Rockband“. (grinst) My dad gave me „Rockband“ when I was super young. And then by the time I actually sat down at a kit. I could kind of a little bit play… just from playing „Rockband“. So that was my first instrument I‘ve ever had. And then I was in a church band as the drummer… and then I was in jazz bands. And at some point I started my first vocal thing. I was in underground hardcore bands in LA. It was just me and my friends. I mean at first I was the drummer. But then I was like: „Fuck that shit… I will be the screamer!“. So then I was the screamer. (lacht) And that was kind of my first experience writing songs and step into. And then I started making beats when I went to university. And that‘s kind of when I started doing that rap shit, too. Cause where I grew up in LA everyone was listening to rap. I was the person that was listening to something different. And then things really started happening for me like 2018 when I started going viral on instagram making beats out of weird sounds. Like I made a beat out of a condom and filmed the whole process. I used it to make sounds. So we started doing that in 2018. That was like my first initial buzz. And than 2019 „fast“ blew up. It was the first Song that blew up on TikTok right after „Old Town Road“ (by Lil Nas X).
Frontstage Magazine: So was that kind of a turning point? Like the moment when you realized: „That shit is gonna work?“. I mean the music stuff…
Sueco: Yeah… I mean I dropped out of school in 2016 and then there was like three years where I was just working. I was a furniture mover. I don‘t know if they have it here. If you‘re moving houses you hire someone to go and move the shit for you. That was me. And I was also a junk removal guy… like all the shit you wanna get rid of. You hire someone to go and put it all up, break it down and put it all on a truck and take it to the dump. So that was what I was doing before my music blew up. So yeah… when „fast“ started really going viral I was like: „Oh shit… this is real“. And I went from absolutely broke to: „Oh lot‘s of money… I‘m not broke anymore“. (lacht)
Frontstage Magazine: Let‘s talk about your debut album „It Was Fun While It Lasted“ which came out this march. I mean you started with those beats and electronic stuff, rap and hip hop. But the album is in fact a punk/rock/screamo album with some rap elements. So how did that happen?
Sueco: Yeah… I went back to my roots. That‘s really what it is. Cause that‘s why I started writing music in the first place. I just had things that I needed to say that I couldn‘t get outta the other way. And a lot of them… I mean the old songs… are more like rap shit for me, you know. It‘s kind of more just like: „I‘m having fun“. But this music with a lot of the melodies and a lot of the emotions in the songs and in the sounds… I don‘t know… it just feels deeper. There is more to say. It‘s not like it‘s just fucking good all the time. Cause it‘s not.
Frontstage Magazine: That means you‘re intention as a musician is to…
Sueco: …to help people. That‘s it. That‘s why I decided: „Fuck that old shit… I‘m gonna drop out… I‘m gonna figure out how to make music that helps people“. That‘s why I really wanna to do it at this place… to help people how I was helped through the clouds.
Frontstage Magazine: So would you say that this is the final version of Sueco? I mean the type of music?
Sueco: No, it‘s always evolving. But this is more a complete version of who I am. I don‘t know… I feel like as an artist you can never be the final version. Because if you feel that this is the final version then… after that you`re done. You know what I‘m saying?
Frontstage Magazine: Yeah… then you can just go and die…
Sueco: Yeah! (lacht) You know what I mean!
Frontstage Magazine: What‘s it all about? What was fun while it lasted?
Sueco: The album title „It Was Fun While It Lasted“… yeah so… what I want to say with this album is a kind of a reflection on the last 3 or 4 years of my life. And looking back on everything. It was really fucking dark about a year after „fast“ blew up. It was in the quarantine and I was in a fucking really dark place. There was a load of fucked up shit going on in my life. Like drama with a lot of the friends that I had. I started drinking a lot. I started losing myself. And then… it was the process of coming back into reality. I stopped drinking about a year ago. So a lot of this album was like… looking at everything that happened. Not like saying: „Oh fuck that shit… my life sucks“. But like looking at it objectively and saying: „Oh wow, it was fun while it lastet“. All that kind of rollercoaster. And also the journey I wanted to take the listener on was from death to life or darkness to lightness. Through the whole album. It starts fucking super dark but then through the whole album it kinda gets progressively more hopeful.
Frontstage Magazine: There will also be a deluxe version of the album. Could you tell us something more about that?
Sueco: It should be coming out the first week of September I think. There are already two songs „Salt“ and „Next Ex“. Half of the rest of the songs is still very much like full band driven. Pretty much like the rest of the album sounds. And then about half of it is more experimental.
Frontstage Magazine: By the way… I was wondering cause you don‘t wear your glasses?
Sueco: Oh my glasses fucking broke…
Frontstage Magazine: Oh so you‘re kind of blind now? How many fingers do I show? (Stinkefinger + grinsen)
Sueco: Oh yeah, fuck you too! (Stinkefinger + lacht)
Frontage Magazine: Sorry! (lacht)
Sueco: No! You are good! (lacht)
Frontstage Magazine: So you‘ve been in Nashville in a studio recently, right? I saw a photo on Instagram. So are you already working on new music?
Sueco: There is this country artist Warren Zeiders and I really like fucking country music. And Nashville is where all the country music is. So yeah… we‘ve been working on some stuff and we wrote a song together. That‘s gonna be cool. (grinst)
Frontstage Magazine: Sounds really cool! What about your creative process in the studio. Is there a kind of routine. Like there are always the lyrics at first and then comes the melody?
Sueco: Generally it‘s kind of like I have an idea of what I want to say. Maybe not the lyrics but the message or wathever of the lyrics. Like: „I wanna talk about this!“. And then it‘s kind of figuring out what the beat or whatever is.
Frontstage Magazine: Finally, two more questions about your hobbies. You‘ve got a lot of funny colorful tattoos like Bullet Bill from Super Mario on your hand or Hello Kitty on your arm. Do you have a funny tattoo story?
Sueco: I think the stupidest tattoo that I have is DoodleBob… from SpongeBob, you know. Literally I was with one of my friends. And then there was this wheel of fortune… like a spinning wheel. But it was the „weel of shitty tattoos“. (lacht) And then I had to spin it. And one of them was DoodleBob… thankfully! Because the joke was that one of every two of the other one was a penis. So I probably gonna get a penis. (lacht) But thankfully I didn‘t have that.
Frontstage Magazine: I know from your TikTok videos that you like driving and that you like cars… especially German cars… especially BMW. But how can that be? Because I heard that LA is one of the most horrible cities when it comes to traffic.
Sueco: Yeah, the traffic fucking sucks in LA. But I feel like Los Angeles is really like the beginning of car culture. It really started there… I mean a lot of it. Around LA was some of the first places to have highway systems and paved streets… like the whole city. And I don‘t know but when there‘s nighttime and fucking nobody is there you can just go and fucking rip it. (grinst) No but yeah… I love BMW. I have an E30 from 1991. It‘s sick. I love it.
Frontstage Magazine: So maybe we‘ll meet for a German version of „Carpool Karaoke“ next time and you are the driver. Thank you so much for your time!
Sueco: Yeah, of course! Thank you!
Fotocredit: Lisa Voigt
