| STEFAN We are caught in a spiral of sound where the musicians contribute to a re-lightning of the West coasts electrically burning sun and the magic of the orient. Here one breaths an unusual kind of air, aboard a ship that travels through seas of …dreams and a mild worry or buried under mountains of fuzz guitars. We’re not talking about an ordinary record but a sweet sour fully calibrated work, a worthy and definitive consecration... – Rockerilla Italy 1995 STEFAN KÉRY, THE STOMACHMOUTHS AND HIS SOLO PROJECTS an interview done many years ago: .What is Stefan doing today? Here is some of the answers! Interview with Stefan Kéry Q: When was the time you got into 60´s music? Stefan: Well I was born in the 60´s and started to appreciate music at an early age. So I guess I got in to it during that time period listening to famous Jazz bands, Beat, Psych, Pop, Hard Rock and Musicals. Q: Were you involved in other bands before the Stomachmouths? Stefan: Oh yeah. My first group was called Red Baron we formed around 1972. I was still a pre-teen and played drums. The other guys were a little older and used old radios as amplifiers. The music was early 70s heavy psych teenage punk as we were listening to Jimi Hendrix, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and unknown Swedish groups. Unfortunately I lost the tape with our recordings (but there is a photo to prove it). In 1975, still a pre-teen, I formed a new group; The Pink Panthers, here I was doing lead vocals and some guitars. We actually did a couple of gigs but like with the earlier group no surviving tapes only pictures. Next was the Firebirds we were still grinding out teenage punk psych heavy with a little Alice Cooper influence and slowly drifting in to 70´s punk with me on guitar and vocals. After that I formed Dragonfly with John Norum (later in Europ) and me on guitar and vocals. In early 1977 influenced by the uprising US & UK new wave scene I started Dogwaste with John Norum. We almost got signed by CBS to cut a 45 “Silvia is a Moron”/”Fucked Up” (I’m still trying to find these tapes), but I guess they thought we were to young. I was only fourteen and the deal fell through but we played a lot live. We got feed up with the straight punk thing quiet soon and returned to the late 60s guitar tinged heavy psych in the Jimi Hendrix Experience tradition, but soon disbanded. I played around with various Stockholm punk bands, to many to mention, but no recordings. In the early eighties I joined Råger Mår consisting of Lars Kjellen, Pär Stavborg (later Livingstones and Daytonas) and Håkan Haugland (later in Europe). We played around quite a lot doing Seeds style garage rock but never cut any records. After some time Håkan left and Martin Skeppholm took over the drums. After some discussions we changed our name to the Stomachmouths, taken from the book “Confederacy of Dunces” by John Kennedy O´Tool. After shopping around several demo tapes (whom led nowhere except later the Voxx LP) we decided to cut our own 45 “Wild Trip/Don’t Put Me Down” on Mansi Sunlight. Q: How do you feel about the fact that you were one of the bands that made Sweden known, back in the mid 80s, for a great garage/beat scene? Stefan: We never really thought about it that way but of course it’s fine if someone gets a taste for “Swedish sounds” after hearing us Q: Where did the Stomachmouths get the most response? Stefan: Italy and Germany where we toured the most and where we got the most recognition....It always like that in Sweden: a big vital scene going on in Stockholm but nobody really notice. There's no support from the press etc. Really embarrassing when we got visitors from abroad who came here to dig the scene ,watch all the concerts etc... and then to find that there was practically no live scene happening in Stockholm. Q: Did you tour in the US? Stefan: Nope. There were some offers but we needed a full blown tour to make it affordable. The group disbanded before anything could be arranged. However on my visit to the USA I meet Monoman and got an offer to play guitar with the Lyres. After some considerations I had to decline as I thought the Stomachmouths were still happening in Sweden. Q: When did the Stomachmouths start to fall apart? and how come? Stefan: don't think anyone really can answer that but I'll try to. We were completely drained from touring and rehearsing plus managing our day jobs so we took a brake that lasted forever. Q: When are we gonna see a reunion of the Stomachmouths? Stefan: Stefan:I don't think that will ever happen. We’re all still friends but have drifted apart…life you know…any some of the guys haven’t been playing for years. I think it’s highly unlikely that the original band ever got together again. Maybe if somebody offered us lots of money, but that too is highly unlikely. Q: Can you recall any great live performances with the Stomachmouths? With what bands were you playing? Stefan: We had some crazy times. It’s hard to recall everything really, it’s all in a haze, `kind of like if you ask someone what went on in the sixties they never seem to remember… like “if you remember you weren’t there”. I nearly broke my back somewhere in Italy when I did a real daredevil stage dive flip (not so common in the eighties) of a real high stage and everybody in the crowd moved a way so I ended up landing on my back on the floor. I was paralyzed for several minutes but got up and continued to play. I got nick named “the rubberman” for always doing crazy jumps and stuff. We played around with most garage bands of the day like the Fuzztones, Creeps, Stingrays, Vietnam Veterans, Sick Rose and lots of cool local bands who’s names escape me now. Q: After the Stomachmouths were you involved in any bands/projects? Stefan: Yeah a lot, so here we go again: Zonk, Stoner, Bo Axelzon & His Exotic Sounds, Word of Life, Adam, Entheogens, Stefan, S.T. Mikael, Mongrels, Tonebenders, Fab Fezmen Five, STP, Uncle Fester Memorial Band, Xtabay, Xotic Mind Band and now back to my garage punk roots with the Pfinks. Q:What happened to you’re band Zonk, which did some great heavy psychedelic hard rock? Stefan: I think Zonk was before it's time. Had we appeared later on like say during the "grunge wave" I'm sure we would have gotten more recognition but as we unleashed this fuzz guitar laden heavy psych long before that nobody was in to what we were doing. We recorded some tracks for compilations ,did some gigs but that was it. You can find the track "Head"on the "Trippin'in the basement" comp LP. Zonk was formed by me and Måns P Månsson(ex-Crimson Shadows),he and the drummer and bass player later wound up in Friends and more recently the Maggots. WB: What about The Tonebenders? I’ve got the Hit record release but there's no info on that band, can you tell me more about that one? Stefan: The Tonebenders 45 was recorded and mixed in something like 30 minutes. It was just a spur of the moment thing. Completely unrehearsed. The band consisted of me on guitar and vocals, Anders Paulsson (ex-Atomic Swing)on bass and Adam Axelzon on drums. Since the response to the 45' was so good (a rave review in Maximum Rock n Roll for example) we actually made a concert at a festival in Sweden but just for fun. The Tonebenders was just a fun project and never a actual group. Q: In 1989 you started Xotic Mind, I believe a label related to Psychedelic music mostly. Was it something you've had plans on for a long time and what was the idea with it? Stefan:Well not only psych but any kind of sounds I dig. I had been thinking along the lines of starting to release Swedish underground bands for quite some time but it wasn't until I meet Mikael Sundström aka S.T.Mikael and received a couple of tapes from him that I finally did something about it. In the beginning I released mostly contemporary recordings, and that was the focus for the label: to make available small, non commercial contemporary psychedelic artists. But after the neo psych boom in 1995 approx. the market became so flooded of hyped up ltd. LP's that new bands became almost impossible to sell. That's when I started focusing more on older, but timeless recordings. Q: Xotic Mind/Subliminal Sounds artists/bands are of great interest to many people all over the world. How come you release limited copies of lp´s etc. when there is such a interest and also the lp´s cost a “fortune”? A: I always done the releases in quantities I thought could sell, not to try to create rarities. For example the early S.T. Mikael Lps done in only 100 copies took a very long time to sell. A independent label can’t afford to keep big stocks that just sit around. Q: Xotic Mind has now become Subliminal Sounds with some different under labels like Hit Records, are you gonna put out different music on each label? Stefan:That's sort of the idea. Xotic Mind: contemporary sounds, Subliminal Sounds: reissues or unreleased vintage recordings, I do the Ti’llindien label together with Reine Fiske and we focus on reissues or unreleased Swedish vintage underground recordings. Hit Records is for releasing 45s with new garage bands etc. Q: You were/are involved in Adam. Tell me please a few things about this project? Stefan: Adam is a long time friend and I suggested he’d make a LP after hearing some of his home recordings. So he did just that with the help from me and S.T. Mikael. The long Sitar, Guitar and Tabla jam was recorded in Mikaels house late one night when we were really buzzing on some primo stuff. Both Adam´s LPs are linked , concept wise, to a journey we undertook to an almost inaccessible island in the Finnish archipelago. Q: Have you got other projects going on? Stefan: There's always lots of ideas buzzing around in my head. I've been doing several clubs like the Tiki Room for a couple of years and now I finally built a permanent Tiki bar in Stockholm. I’ve been producing film festivals together with Reine Fiske about the Swedish underground scene in the 60s/70s. We will probably release this as a DVD later on + of course many new Subliminal Sounds records. |
