With a couple of singles out recently and an album committed to vinyl, Kimme has had a busy time, so I sat down with him to find out how the musical project came about, what the music means to him, and what the songs say.
The music you make as Kimme seems to have started during the pandemic era; can you explain how it all came together and what led you to that point?
The music and the songs actually came before the pandemic. I had wanted to start singing and playing for a long time, and in 2007 I asked a childhood acquaintance, a very skilled pianist, to arrange 10-12 songs from the 80s to suit my voice. I have a lower voice, baritone/bass, so calmer ballads suit me best. He never finished; life went on, and the money I had set aside for a CD of covers went on a long trip of just over three months instead.
It wasn’t until 2018 that I met up with Fredrik Larson. The promised coffee with freshly baked bread turned into a cup of green tea, but also a lot of talk about life and growing up in the same small town, Ängelholm. He was born in 1967 and I in 1966. Nothing was decided there and then, but he played Adolfson & Falk’s ‘Blinkar blå’ on his guitar, and I sang a little as a test.
A couple of days later, a long message arrived with the lyrics of ‘Ingen annan kan komma emellan,’ and a simple recording of Fredrik playing it on his acoustic guitar and singing. The message said roughly: “Here’s a song for you and about you, and I think you should record it in my brother’s studio!” The lyrics really were about me, and captured me very well. Of course I said yes. I went to Helsingborg to meet Fredrik’s brother, Limme Johnsson, in his Studio Mansarda.
He convinced me that singing in my Scanian dialect was best for the credibility and feeling of the song, so that’s what we did, between Christmas and New Year 2018, just a week and a half after my second hip operation. So not in the best physical shape, but I laid down the vocals, and two good friends and singers, Lotta Lennartsson and Filippa Starfelt, added backing vocals. The song was released at the end of March 2019, more or less as I left for Norway with my caravan to work as a truck driver.
At Christmas 2019 we met again, and Fredrik presented seven more songs on the same theme, connected to our first meeting. With some adjustments to the lyrics from me, my dream of making a vinyl record came up: one song plus seven more was perfect for an album with four songs per side. I grew up with vinyl, and the thought of holding my own record, lowering the stylus, hearing that first characteristic crackle and then my own voice coming out of the speakers was very exciting.
With work in Norway, 500 km from the studio, we only managed two songs, ‘De första stegen’ and ‘September’, before the pandemic delayed the project. In the end, all the songs were recorded and sent to Spinroad Vinyl Records outside Gothenburg to be pressed. The album, Septemberbarn, was released digitally at the end of January 2022. Then came an uncertain wait for the test pressings, and in October 2022 we gathered at Studio Mansarda. It gave me goosebumps to hear myself on vinyl, and the sound is so much rounder and warmer, which suits personal lyrics and feelings.
And the stories that many of the songs are based on are inspired by experiences from your own life; is that correct?
Yes, all the lyrics are stories from my life. The album is mostly about the second half of the 1980s, when a lot happens after school as a teenager: starting work, friends, love and volleyball.
And would you say that there is a typical Kimme sound?
The sound on the album and the singles that followed isn’t something I created myself; that’s a question for producer Limme Johnsson. But I feel the music he has made fits my personal lyrics very well.
Who are your musical inspirations, and perhaps those outside the music world?
Both my mum and dad sang, and we had a piano at home. At the age of 4-5, I got to come along to the organ loft during rehearsals and heard the organ up close, and its pure, deep sound left its mark. In ‘Yngsjö’ I sing about a jukebox that played TOTO, among others, which also left its mark. The music of the late 70s and the 80s shaped my taste.
Looking specifically at ‘Jag sålde huset och gav mig av’ (‘I sold the house and left’), this feels like a song full of nostalgia. Can you tell me the story behind it?
‘Jag sålde huset och gav mig av’ is about the summer cottage my dad Bruno built in the early 1970s, where we spent our summer holidays, the same place ‘Yngsjö’ is about. Those carefree summers were just over an hour’s drive from Ängelholm, with completely different friends from those at home, since we were the only family from Ängelholm there. Ängelholm has a wonderful long sandy beach, so many people thought it was strange that we built a cottage on the east coast.
After many years, my mum Sylvia decided not to keep the cottage. I considered taking it over, but at the same time I found a cottage outside Ängelholm, and it felt more right to choose the west coast. The cottage in Yngsjö also needed renovation that I wasn’t keen on then. So it was decided to sell, and, as happens in most families, some sides of relatives came out that led to broken ties, which I don’t want to go deeper into here. You’re quite right that there is nostalgia and longing after selling the cottage, but also a kind of two-sided feeling that it was right to sell and move on in life. And when I meet different kinds of setbacks in life, I don’t let them break me. I move on, stronger for it.
