Soundtrack of Our Lives Open "Vol. 1"

Tweet

During the studio sessions for Origin Vol. 1, the Soundtrack of Our Lives amassed nearly fifty songs. The Swedish rockers -- now billed in the U.S. as "The Soundtrack of Our Lives (T.S.O.O.L)," per the request of Dick Clark Productions, which once owned the trademark to the phrase "Dick Clark presents the soundtrack to your life" -- have enough material for Volumes 2 and 3.

"They're all really good songs," says singer Ebbot Lundberg. "We realized that we have to split this up, because it didn't really make sense -- there's too much diversity in the material."

Vol. 1 -- the follow-up to 2002's Behind the Music -- is an epic psychedelic journey, ranging from the thunderous single "Big Time" to the piano ballad "Songs for the Others."

"It's like editing a movie," Lundberg says. "You find certain songs that fit together as a whole. We're pretty much an album band, even if eight of the tracks could be singles [laughs]. We put together an album and it becomes a trip."

The Who-like "Transcendental Suicide" plays like a rock & roll war parable. "It's like science fiction," Lundberg says. "A dying planet where people are getting suicidal and somebody becomes a martyr, and people follow."

An anomaly of a rock star, the hefty, bearded Lundberg has inadvertently made a fashion statement by sporting caftans. "I'm not trying to have a costume or anything, but I'm a lazy son of a bitch and I want comfort," he says. "I don't like running around in a T-shirt and jeans. I prefer to be naked."

The band will launch a North American tour Thursday night at Austin's South by Southwest Music Conference.

• 
  MUSIC 100 Greatest Debut Albums
• 
  MOVIES The 10 Best Zombie Movie Scenes
• 
  TV The Most WTF? Moments of 'Mad Men'
• 
  POLITICS No Price Big Banks Can't Fix

Song Stories

“Everyday People”

Sly and the Family Stone | 1968

"Everyday People" managed to trailblaze in two different ways -- it was one of the first pop hits to deal with the subject of racial harmony, and it utilized Larry Graham's "slap" technique on the bass guitar, which would soon be copied by countless other bassists. Graham once said about his pulsating style, "I'd never done that before … that's where the freedom of creativity came in for the band, that we'd be allowed to do that." In 1978, the song's line "Different strokes for different folks" would be borrowed for the title of the hit television show Diff'rent Strokes.

More Song Stories entries »

Twitter