Swedish fuzz rock legends Truckfighters are finally in Australia for their very first national tour as well as a co-headline slot with Unida at Melbourne’s annual Cherry Rock Festival 2013, amongst other dates: Thursday 9 May – Beetle Bar, Brisbane, Friday 10 May – Manning Bar, Sydney (w/ UNIDA) & Sat 11 May – Ding Dong Lounge, Melbourne.
With three classic stoner rock albums and bunch of international touring under their belt, Truckfighters have been blowing away audiences since 2001. The three piece from Örebro, Sweden have also released an entertaining documentary called “Fuzzomentary” showing insights into the lives of the band with raw behind the scenes footage.
As the band touched down into Australia, we caught up with the three members Dango, Poncho and Ozo to find out what they eat on tour, elk and what they would request on their rider if they could have whatever they wanted….
What were your food influences when you were growing up and what kind of food did you eat at home or with your family?
Dango: Spaghetti bolognese, lasagna, swedish meatballs, steak, fishfingers. In general I ate lots of child friendly italian style pastas as well as classic swedish food with different kinds of meats, potatoes, carrots blomkål and other vegetables
Poncho: When I was growing up, my mother always cooked meals for the hole family. Everyday was a new dish. So I guess that I have to say a home cooked meal from my mother.
Ozo: Very traditional homecooked food not necessary swedish food, we ate a lot of pasta, but also stuff from the ground, potatoes, carrots and that sort of stuff. We also usually did homemade pizzas and Tacos quite often, that is something I still do and enjoy very much, the simplicity of it and the taste of it.
What are your favourite tour van munchies?
Dango: Chocolate, protein bars, smoked salmon
Poncho: Crisps, STARBAR, tried smash in Norway for the first time on tour with Kvelertak. Need to buy more of that!
Ozo: I actually try to eat as healthy as possible so my tour van munchies wood be as much vegetables I can eat and also a lot of fruit and juices…
What type of food do you hate, and what is the most disgusting thing you’ve ever eaten?
Dango: I hate pineapple, paprika, fast food in general. Pölsa (not familiar with the word in English) might be the most disgusting dish that was served in school.
Ozo: I’m a really easy going fellow that like almost anything, there are few things that discus me, maybe snails is one of them… not the taste perhaps but the feel of it, feels really slimy and bad.
What type of food do you make sure to avoid before a gig or going on stage?
Dango: Nothing special but I prefer to eat in good time before a gig, like 3-4 hours. If it is closer than that I just eat a little.
Poncho: Don’t know really, im just making sure that im not hungry while getting on stage.
Ozo: Pizza with a lot of cheese might not be the best kind of food especially not before gig, It lays down in the stomage as a big fat rock… The main thing is to eat at least 3 hours before otherwise you feel to stuffed with food when entering the stage.
Imagine for a second you can request anything on your rider for Cherry Rock in Melbourne. What food and drinks would you put on it?
Dango: Steak of Elk (moose), best meat up here in Sweden, tastes delicious. I’d eat it with potatoes a nice sauce and vegatables.
Poncho: Tacos! Definitely tacos.
Ozo: I would like to have an oversizes really big plate of Tapas with many, many diferent foods on it so I can choose exactly what to eat and what to leave behind ;)
What has been your biggest cooking disaster to date?
Dango: I don’t make disasters. Once I almost started a fire making popcorn though
Poncho: It’s always hard to make a nice dish for a vegetarian. Espescially when you only got meat. And when you want to offer a glass of milk, it turn’s out that she is a vegan. Just great!
Ozo: Haha, me and my best friend where going to make our own cookie when we were childreens, maybe 13-14 years old or so… We kind of mixed everything that we liked into one big pan and cooked it on the stow… But as childreen do tend to like, we liked sugar very much, so a lot of sugar in that stow… We pulled it off and it was meant to be somekind of candy but we where to slow so the mix we did was stuck in the pan. When my mother discovered that she wen’t furious and chased us with the pan, we ran out and she frew the pan at us so the handle was destroyed. That was her favourite and also a brand new pan, and we destroyed in in an instant. Funny now when you think back of it ;)
When you tour overseas, what food from home do you miss the most?
Dango: The Elk meat.
Poncho: The time to eat a good and healthy breakfast.
Ozo: Yeah I kind of miss my own coffee thing the most, not a food thing, it’s a thing you put your coffee in and then pour hot water on it and press down, delicious. Some countries don’t seem to have decent coffee anywhere it’s to light, and in Italiy, the only country that knows that kind of shit they have tiny, tiny glasses ;)
Where’s your favorite music venue from anywhere in the world to eat at?
Dango: Arena in Wien. They have a good chef and always gives the bands a three course dinner, even the bands that are not so “big”. Amazing stuff very nice.
Poncho: Stavanger in Norway. They put on some nice tapas, it was good.
Ozo: Arena in Vienna no doubt, maybe you can find better food sometimes if you really look but Arena ALWAYS has a 3 cours dinner and I think that’s worth a lot.
What music do you like to play when you’re cooking?
Dango: Hard rock of some kind.
Poncho: Im always spinning vinyls when im home, so it can be everthing from Graveyard to Nas.
Ozo: Hmm, I listen to a lot of music and the most important is that I need to listen really loud, mostly because we have our stereo in the living room haha, I listen to very various kind of music, if you’re cooking something nice to your lady maybe you need to put on some nice track with Anathema, for more aggressive cooking I would say Katatonia or/and Opeth would do the trick. Not the most extreme music I listen to but it’s really nice with good dynamics in the songs like both bands have ;)
If you had to cook a meal for the rest of the members of Truckfighters what would it be?
Dango: Something vegetarian, they love meat so it’d be a bit of a practical joke.
Poncho: I would try to make them a 3 dish meal. Trying to put my cooking skills to the maximum level.
Ozo: I could do it 2 ways, the short way or the highway… ;) If I would would invite them to a short and good dinner that would be fries and sausage, with some beer. Keep it simple and easy… The other way would be the “Poncho” way to do it a 3 course dinner, I never done it to them but maybe it’s time now, give me the receipt and I’ll do it ;)
