CORRECTION INTERVIEW
FLOP: How did the band come about? Who and what is Correction? What does it stand for?
STAFFAN: Mattias and I jam out a lot, usually with me on drums and him playing guitar. We have several projects going on based around that setup. But Mattias is ultimately a much better drummer than I'll ever be, and I also had a lot of ideas for doing a straight edge band with some really fast käng-riffs over a “regular” hardcore beat instead of a d-beat. Plus I wanted to play guitar for a bit - something I like but can't really do for shit. I'd say our other projects are just as cool or even cooler, we just haven't gotten around to finishing those songs yet. In any case, Mattias and I recorded the songs and had a lot of fun. Mattias played drums and all solos, and I did the rest, then Mattias handled the mixing.
FLOP: What are the goals of the band? Will we ever see correction live?
STAFFAN: Is there any other goal needed than to write hard songs and try to match it with hard straight edge lyrics? There is no other goal than having done what we already have. The fact that these songs are being liked by people and released on at least three continents is just nuts. What will happen next will have to be a subject to be looked into as we move along. We are both busy with our respective bands but I am sure we will continue to jam a lot. We might do shows, depending on if we can assemble a cool line-up and if my throat can handle a live setting. I am seriously fucked after a couple of minutes screaming like that.
FLOP: Why a straight edge band in 2013? What, in your mind, is the need?
STAFFAN: Well what the fuck else? Mattias and I are both closing in on twenty years as straight edge and we're both super stoked on Xing up and listening to Earth Crisis. It's just insane to me that you'd let this go if you've ever had it in your hand. I know it happens - I'm not stupid - but it's such an alien thought to me. Of course I want to do a straight edge demo and call it Correction. The band name comes from me not having a problem at all with people being offended or disturbed by straight edge folks who are in their faces about it. People are constantly in my face with their drinks and smoke. Over the years I get less and less tolerant when it comes to these things. I guess some people get jaded – but I get more pissed off every time I see the result of substance abuse on the streets or among friends and family.
FLOP: One correction song is about the decline of the Swedish social state. Please explain this for the clueless American?
STAFFAN: Over the 20th century, a to large extents socialized - while still capitalistic - economy was built up in Sweden, ensuring workers' rights, the welfare state and so on. Over the last twenty or so years - following the neoliberal paradigm change politically initiated in the US and UK via Reagan and Thatcher - Sweden has seen piece by piece of this system dismantled. Sweden was never a socialist economy and I would have liked for much further steps to have been taken before it was all being attacked from capital and the right wing, perhaps then we would have had more of a chance at defending the progress made during pretty much a century of struggle for democracy and social equality. In recent years, they privatized a lot of the pharmacies and they're also gearing health care towards a direction that is meant to dismantle the whole universal health care system. That's what "Stop the bleed" is about. Anyone here that advocates a health care system that is more like the US one is immediately disqualified from any sympathy or regard. It's like shoving people in front of moving trains. You have a system than guarantees health care for everyone and you want to trade it for one that won't. It's inhumane and absolutely despicable, to the point where I can't see it as anything else than a crime against the people.
FLOP: Sweden has a rich cultural identity and it's punk / hc transcript is no exception. What are some musical/cultural elements that helped form Correction as punks?
STAFFAN: Mattias and I both started listening to punk very early. I was stoked on Swedish punk before I could read and write, and loved classic hardcore like Rövsvett by the time I was 9. As for riffage, I'd like to say my main influence is Åke from Mob 47/Desperat/Korsfäst. When it comes to fast hardcore riffs, he is definitely the master. Anyone who doesn't recognize this is just a fool. I am not saying my riffs are even close to what he's been doing for thirty plus years, but it's an inspiration.
FLOP: What are correction's influences and driving forces? What made you pumped to write these songs?
STAFFAN: Seeing "normals" act like idiots when they drink and seeing others who fall into addiction. On any given day if you head outside, you'll see both. If you don't connect the dots you're blind or just self-centered. Also, the inspiration comes from just being stoked on straight edge and having fun in the rehearsal room. Mattias is one of the most creative personalities I've ever come across, and it's an honor working with him.
FLOP: As a couple active & aging hardcore punk rockers, what has kept you in the game? Do you find your (all encompassing) punk convictions growing stronger, remaining the same, or relaxing as you get older?
STAFFAN: Well they're definitely not relaxing. This year Mattias is spending his tenth summer in a row on tour, and as I write this in the late winter month of March, he's in South America with Anchor. I just quit my job so I could focus on writing the fifth issue of Law & Order fanzine and head out on tour as much as I can. There is no slowing down or relaxing. I just love hardcore, you know. It's extremely important to me and I take it super seriously, but I am also happy to be able to say that I have gained a lot of perspectives on things over the years and can dig everything from Terror to Poison Idea to No Turning Back, from Earth Crisis to Heresy to Rotting Out.
FLOP: Top three Swedish metal bands of all time?
STAFFAN: Oh man. Well Dissection first of all. The high and mighty. And that includes "Reinkaos". To be honest they might be the only band I'll include in an "of all time" thing. In 2013, I'd say Portrait, Enforcer and In Solitude if we're talking more traditional stuff, and Tribulation, Funeral Mist and Marduk if we're including more brutal stuff.
FLOP: Talk about some hard issues. Real quick... What's your stance on: gun control, the war on drugs, euthanasia, corporate hardcore, Earth Crisis, Fidel Castro, the male dominated hardcore scene, overpopulation, nuclear power... ?
STAFFAN: Ha, ok. Well gun control is not even an issue here. I consider it insane to know how important some people consider guns in the US. I am extremely happy that piss drunk men who beat their women here in Sweden don't have access to guns in their homes, that's for sure. Euthanasia - not a fan because I haven't thought too much about it - and I will never have a liberal outlook on things regarding life and death based on hunches or spontaneous ideas about it. Corporate hardcore, I am not even sure what that is. It's an oxymoron, right? I mean if we're talking bullshit like Deez Nuts that's not even hardcore anyway. If you mean Terror being on Victory I think that's just petty small mindedness. Earth Crisis fucking rule and "Wrath of sanity" is one of the hardest songs ever. I even love "Slither" and the reunion LPs. Fuck the haters, come at me with anything you've done that even comes close to having the positive impact that Earth Crisis has had on people's diets and sobriety. You people ain't shit in comparison. Fidel Castro, obviously a fan. Very happy that Chavez has come along now too, as well as Evo Morales and so on. The world is a fucked up place, but South America (stretching up to parts of Central America) is the only real source of hope and progress. The male dominated hardcore scene dealt with real quick? Can't be done man. I think hardcore as a sub culture is designed a way that makes it harder for girls to get into it because it means that they have to break social norms and gender patterns. That doesn't mean that hardcore is wrong - only that it should be noted and that we should collectively do what we can to make it easier for anyone to break such stupid norms and rules. Overpopulation is not as much a problem as food being burned and dumped in oceans and massive amounts of the world's resources wasted on the production of meat. That said, I think the world needs planned economies to be able to survive the climate threats and other such issues, and family planning is obviously a part of that too. Nuclear power is insane.
FLOP: Teach us how to say something cool in Swedish.
STAFFAN: Vild strejk - klass mot klass!
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