A few years ago Nikki Palomino did a profile on The Dead Pollys... I am in contact with Nizzi and heard the band had suffered some setbacks so I felt it was time to find out what is happening with the Dead Pollys now... Please enjoy
Punk Globe: Thank you for the interview... Dead Pollys are centered in Stockholm Sweden right?
Nizze: Yes, that's right. We’re all in the greater Stockholm area.
Punk Globe: Give us a brief history as how the band formed?
Nizze: The band was formed by me with an idea to do it with people I never met or didn’t know, because after a while only playing with your friends, everything ends up almost the same. I felt like I needed new energy.
Punk Globe: Tell us how you came up with The Dead Pollys for the band name?
Nizze: My plan was first a more celt-punk band and I was actually just looking for something to relate it to Ireland somehow. Too many bands have Molly in it so I ended up with Polly. Then I wanted to add some punk rock-drama to it, or something. I had ideas like Black Polly, Polly Screams and stuff like that but it didn’t feel right for different reasons, so I ended up with Dead Pollys. The band had a name before it had members.
Punk Globe: A few years back Niki Palomino did an article on The Dead Polly's and not long after that the band had some setbacks, Would like to tell us what happened?
Nizze and Juba: Well, we had a great US-tour with Down By Law 2015, but then luck failed us for a while. Brain tumuor and arthritis tried to stop us, but we fought back… and here we are.
Punk Globe: Congratulations! Who is the band now and what do they play?
Nizze: It’s me, Nizze on vocals (I don’t play guitar anymore), Juba on bass and backing vocals, Mats on guitar and Martin on drums. It was quite a hunt finding the right members for the new iteration of the band. Mats was first, and I really liked the dude the first time we met. That, and the fact he was hell of a guitar player made it a no brainer. We tried out a few drummers, even Ola from the first line up, but they were honest telling me they didn’t want as much as me and Juba. I had placed some ads online and Mats told me he wanted to put up an old fashion “drummer wanted”-note in the music store. I laughed a little, thinking he was too old school, but if he wanted to… sure. After a few days Martin called after seeing this old-school-note. And not only that, he was the right fit and an absolute awesome guy.
Punk Globe: Do any of the band have a second band that they play in?
Nizze: My main focus is Dead Pollys, but sometimes I play a few gigs with my band from the 80’s called SIghstens Grannar. It also happens that I do acoustic shows together with Dead Pollys first drummer that I call Eldinger.
Juba: I play in a Banshee Rebels, doing mostly Irish folksongs and other covers but in the Pogues-style.
I also play in Achilleus, a sort of mish mash of different styles, try fusing Deep Purple, Robin Trower, Pink Floyd, King Crimson and John Lee Hooker into one son, and you get an idea. Or not.
I also have different recording projects, everything from blues to hard rock to psychedelic stuff.
Martin: I have a soul-cover band with old friends. We have grown from a trio to ten people, brass and all.
Mats: I have a jazz band playing old shool jazz.
Punk Globe: Who are some of the bands musical influences?
Nizze: Everything I love! For me it is The Clash, Stiff Little Fingers, Buzzcocks, The Vibrators, Dead Kennedys, Ramones, Pouges, Gogol Bordello and a thousand more. Closest to my heart are still those old school bands. Beyond that, I listen to some singer-songwriters. Not always great musicians, but great authors with an energy and attitude I love.
Juba: My tastes are really weird. From my first favourites The Sweet, Deep Purple, Pink Floyd to The Damned, The Clash, Sex Pistols to Rush, Yes, Genesis, Van der Graaf Generator to Muddy Waters, chuck Berry to current bands such as NoFX, Porcupine Tree, Flogging Molly. Told you I’m weird. Oh, I forgot easily listening stuff like Frank Zappa and Magma.
Mats: Ramones, Sex Pistols, Clash, Status Quo, the Who and a lot of Swedish bands like Ebba Grön, Ksmb, bitch Boys to name a few.
Martin: I would say a lot of the bands Nizze mentioned but also soul from the sixties and seventies as well as some more contemporary stuff like Queens of the Stone Age, K-Flay and M.I.A.
Punk Globe: You have a new release out tell us about that?
Nizze: Strummerland. The easiest record I’ve ever made. Everything was so easily written. We wrote a lot of stuff together. I wrote some lyrics and sent them to Juba and Mats and they made awesome music to it. Juba wrote some and I wrote some. The biggest problem was actually to choose the songs to use for the album. It was recorded in our quite new rehearsal Studio where Magnus Fredholm have a small studio. When we were talking about letting him record it I saw he had The Clash as a background on his laptop. So we said yes. And what a guy. He is with no competition the best guy I worked with recording an album.
The album has two themes. One is about the love of playing punk rock and being in a band. It is about how we love to live in “Strummerland”. The other is against the nazification and intolerance that grows all over the world with Sweden Democrats in Sweden, “Jimmie Jimmie”, and Trump in “Smallest Man Alive”.
Punk Globe: Slam dolt 45 a much as possible. America's worst dictator..Any past releases that you would like to tell us about?
Nizze: Bullet For The Wicked with Miche on drums, with the really awesome track Straight No Chaser on it. Written by Juba before Dead Pollys, but picked up as one of his first contributions to the band. And he has done many great Dead Pollys-tunes after that.
Punk Globe: Does the band have any videos out?
Nizze: Yeah. We have a few and you find them on Youtube. We have created a playlist with our stuff called Dead Pollys Collection.
Punk Globe: Is it with a label or is it an Indy release?
Nizze: It was planned to be a self release, but Too Loud Records reached out (maybe thanks to one of my ten billion emails) and wanted to release the album. So the album got mixed and mastered in Italy by Titan Labs Studio , who made an awesome job, and released by Too Loud Records, also from Italy. They have cooperation in US and Japan with Wormholedeath Records.
Punk Globe: How is the punk scene in Sweden?
Nizze: It sucks. Most of it. We have some really awesome people and bands keeping it alive, but there are so many pay-to-play clubs, old bands that have reappeared. The interest for new punk bands are there, but it is not on fire. I love bands like Belta 53 because they do their own stuff in a barn in the middle of nowhere. We had the honour to play there and it was like going back 30 years to when punk was about playing good music with awesome friends. Roger from Smash It Up is an old friend with the same passion and attitude, and Systemkollaps… There are more, but in general It is not so exciting.
Punk Globe: Who are some bands that you enjoy playing shows with?
Nizze: Down By Law were awesome, the super-talented Anna Kunz who we played with in London and many more.
Juba: I enjoy all the bands we play with, there’s a lot to learn from everyone. Things to incorporate into our act and things to avoid.
Martin: Anna Kunz was awesome. Systemkollaps. Danmarck. There is more.
Punk Globe: What is in store for The Dead Pollys for the rest of 2019?
Nizze: Well, this summer we will do a Sweden Tour with The Vibrators and we have already started to plan for a new album. We have so much great material we just want to realize. I also have a hope for some great festivals gigs and hopefully we can plan a new trip to the US. Fingers crossed!
Punk Globe: Do you have any Internet addresses you would like to share with the readers?
https://www.facebook.com/deadpollys/
https://deadpollys.bandcamp.com/
https://open.spotify.com/artist/6DtUTTzasLIXlDyOF3rFxW
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vRmTnZ79xk&index=3&list=PL4VZSj_nD1CEFb9xOuQmrbRYr6NSyLKah
Punk Globe: Describe yourself in three words?
Nizze: Passionate, Impatient, Driving
Juba: Heart, soul, fun
Martin: Better over time
Punk Globe: Any last words for Punk Globe readers?
Nizze: Give us a chance. Listen to our stuff. We love what we do with an endless fire, and I hope it shines through!
Juba: Play it loud
