The Deadheads formed in the lovely city of Gothenburg in 2011. They issued three 7" singles on Ghost Highway Records from Spain as well as a further two singles on Strange Magic Records (USA). You can find songs like "Live On", "Freak Out", "Lose My Mind" or "Deadheads" on their High Roller debut album "This Is Deadheads First Album (It Includes Electric Guitars)" issued on High Roller Records in 2014. With tracks like the fuzzed up "There's A Hole In The Sky", the more laid-back "Empty Howls" (with shades of early Fleetwood Mac) and "Let Loose The Fool", proto punk in the vein of the Dead Boys, Dictators, Johnny Thunders and New York Dolls, the band's second album "Loadead" from 2015 showed an even broader scope, a wider appeal than the Deadheads' first album. "This One Goes To 11" is the band's new album. Was it in any way difficult to write and record the material? A lot of people do not believe in the myth of the "difficult third album". What about singer/guitarist Manne Olander? "At the beginning it was indeed a bit difficult," is his straight answer. "Our bass player Sigge left us about a year ago, we played the 'Storm Crusher' festival, and then a week later we had a meeting over a few beers and he told us the news. Me, Tim and Rickard were eager though to work with new songs and decided to do the album anyway. We chose not to do any concerts during last autumn and focus on the songwriting anyway. I think the hardest part was not trying to decide what the third album should be/sound like, just keep writing songs that we like. We have so far not experienced what you might call a lack of songwriting inspiration. The hard part was to decide what to do with the bass playing. We talked a little bit about asking Olle Griphammar (our former original bass player), we really like his way of bass playing and his songwriting skills. So we did and he was thrilled to once again join forces. Nowadays he plays the bass in Swedish rock band Spiders, but as for now he has the time to do both. And he did not only contribute with great ideas and bass playing, he also wrote two great tracks: 'The Plan' is actually my favourite track on the new album. Olle plays with Deadheads as often as possible, but sometimes we have our friend Kalle Lilja (Langfinger) as a substitute." For some people "This One Goes To 11" is more or less a direct continuation of "Loadead", would that be fair to say? Maybe it's a bit more punky around the edges ... "You might be right," reflects Manne Olander. "We want it to sound like Deadheads, so far we have no plans to try to do something else. We are very proud of our raw power rock and roll, and the songs are great. I can honestly say that I think it's the best album we made so far and probably one of the best rock albums of 2018. I think we have a pretty clear picture of what we want a rock album to sound like. You need the attitude and speed, but there should also be room for dynamics and melodies." The title of the new album somehow ties in with the title of the band's debut album as well as "Loadead", all three show a certain sense of humour. Is humour important in music? "Album titles are usually quite boring," finds Manne Olander, "so we try to make ours a bit more fun and all three album titles have a story to their title. Songs do not always need to be titled what the chorus says either. If you for example listen to the last song of the album, you might see a connection to the title of that song, word games are always fun." Are the Deadheads still baffled of how good their previous two albums have been received by the press? It seems as if they have struck a nerve with journalists... Any idea why? "We have read most of the reviews," states Manne Olander, "and are very pleased with the result. But we deserve it, our albums are great and if they only received bad reviews, they would probably not be so good. Although bad reviews can be fun. I remember that I read a review of a rock album once, stating right at the beginning: 'I dont like rock music' ... ha, ha, ooohhh, such stupidity." Matthias Mader
