:: SYLVESTER - APRIL 19TH, 2004

Translated from Swedish by Dias Lucia, provided by Hervé & Rodolphe.

A missing link between ABBA and Kraftwerk? BWO is here.

The first single from BWO is getting released today, a little pearl that's called "Living In A Fantasy", Sylvester listened to it and talked with Alexander Bard about the new band. Music: A group that's called Bodies without Organs. The band members are Marina Schiptjenko, dressed in a crazy vampire-witch costume, a deer-eyed young person together with Alexander at the streaky peak. Ironic glam a la Army of Lovers? Warning like Vacuum? Not necessarily, you'll see. BWO, whose first single "Living In A Fantasy" is coming out today, April 19th, are neither Army of Lovers nor Vacuum, they sound like real synthpop. "Living In A Fantasy is a glimmering little pop-pearl where you know for sure, already after hearing just a few verses, that Alexander and Marina made a big discovery with the singer Martin. Perhaps it sounds so good because I want it so much to be good. In times where the music business' view of a rock-rebel is Markus Ohrm from Fame Factory and a praised gay-ish band like Alcazar reduces themselves to a dancefloor-act, at least for me, there's an enormous need for new artists that make new music. Not because they are better than docu-soup-artists, but everything what has been done within pop music before got so dreary. And the best would be of course, if the Swedish gay-world could produce a band that doesn't act within the standardizes of the record companies. That's why we took Scissor Sisters into our hearts last spring. Could BWO be this band? That what Alcazar never became and what a band with complete straight aesthetics could never become? Not impossible at all. We had a conversation with the IT-guru/philosopher/popstar, gay-worlds answer to Mr. Padda in Paddeborg, Alexander Bard, to get to know what it is about G.

Hello Alexander, you promised and swore that you're fed up with pop-business and now you're here with a new group and a new single "Living In A Fantasy". You even dress yourself kind of crazy. What has happened?
I was really fed up with music business and wanted to let it go, and try to make it in science and books, and grow up. But not long time ago, I met Martin Rolinski (singer of BWO), who impressed me with both, his fantastic voice and his cool attitude in everything, and an inspired new music publisher from London - I got an offer for a focused co-operation with my co-producer Anders Hansson, which I couldn't resist, so I decided to put 100% in BWO. And that means that there's only BWO, nothing else. I will for example barely work again with artists like Alcazar.

Marina and you are already well known, but who's the boy with the come-to-bed-eyes, Martin Rolinski?
It was my co-producer, Anders Hansson, who met Martin first. Martin was discovered just about one year ago. He was singing for the first time in his life in a karaoke bar in Göteborg, and soon the record companies started to call him every now and then. But he wasn't interested in the record company's predicted suggestions of a solo career or different boyband-constellations, he wanted to work with me and Marina. That is more creative. After we reached an agreement about what we'd like to do and that we all like the same music, we just had to do it. Everything was going like clockwork. I never have been so sure and that much optimistic with any project as working with BWO.

"Living In A Fantasy" is like something you've done before, but not as pretending as Vacuum was a little bit, and not as ironic as Army of Lovers was. Is it just a new sound and a new singer, or has Alexander started making deary pop?
I have definitely started making deary pop. And today I do it from the bottom of my heart. Army of Lovers has been cool, but musically limited and Vacuum has been too pretending, in my opinion. BWO is what I want to do and the reason that I can say that I, for the first time since 17 years, long for the studio - I go there everyday. Maybe it sounds a little bit funny that I say this for the first time, since I've worked with music for 17 years, but that's the truth. Perhaps I've never worked with my capacity in phase before, but now I do so. I do that what I am good at and think most of myself. Army of Lovers, Vacuum and also Alcazar, as I produced them, sounded incomplete compared to BWO. That is why I haven't finished with music.

Does BWO try to succeed worldwide or will you start on a lower level and wait what happens?
We signed with EMI and they'll try to place us directly onto the European market. We have a fantastic support from EMI in Sweden, but we also travel regularly to London and work with EMI Europe.

How does the rest of the album sound?
Half of the 12 songs we are working on, which will be mixed in the summer, are energized power-pop. The rest is mid-tempo light music like "Living In A Fantasy", and so you'll also find reggae and even some electro-ballads. But everything ran from electro-soundfiles from a laptop. BWO have a clear and plain sound without guitars or drums, just strict electronic sound. In contrast to Scissor Sisters for example, to whom we are compared with in London, we have pure electrosound. We're sounding more like Erasure, Yello or Pet Shop Boys would sound like if they'd debut today. I myself describe BWO with pleasure as the missing link between ABBA and Kraftwerk.

Who's Slavoj Zizek?
A crazy but very interesting philosopher from Slovenia. At the moment the superstar of the philosopher-world. He has nearly five sides in his latest book dedicated to my and Jan Söderqvist´s philosophy books. Ironically, his latest book's called "Organs Without Bodies". Last week I sent him a photo of BWO with a big smile. A cool happening. By the way, I hope I can write a third book next year. Among other things inspired by Zizek. But at the moment BWO is my priority! But perhaps I can write that book on my laptop during the tour gigs?

What gives you the biggest adrenalin-kick: Sitting at Solvalla and spur on yours and Ulrich's horse, standing on the scene with brand new pop material or sitting in front of your computer and having a brilliant philosophical idea?
Actually I get kicked, and that are the kicks that urge me, within the things I do. Perhaps I get my biggest kicks from private things, but we don't have to speak about it here, or what...