HARDCORE SUPERSTAR: Bringing The House Down (2022)

By BRIAN GIFFIN

AS regular visitors across the past fifteen years or so, Swedish rockers Hardcore Superstar have a pretty good relationship with Australia.

“I love my country,” declares singer Jocke Berg, “but if I could choose another country, I would choose Australia. And I don’t just say that because I’m talking to you now, it’s because everything is so fucking relaxed in Australia.”

Enjoying their time here comes with a steep caveat, however – extremely long plane trips.

“I hate the fucking flight,” he says. “I’m going to be up in the air for 24 hours! Fuck that. But when we come down, it’s gonna be beaut! I know that.”

Hardcore Superstar was last in Australia three years ago on a tour with Buckcherry. On that flight, they got through some of the boredom by watching The Dirt, and drinking.

“Me and Adde and our tour manager, we decided we should watch that, and before we do that we had to order a JD and Coke – because it was Mötley Crüe!”

Like everyone, Hardcore Superstar had to cool their globe trotting heels for a while as COVID swept the world. Berg describes the period they were off the road as ‘weird’ because it was the first time in decades they had been away from touring for longer than a couple of months. He also didn’t really see the logic behind some of the restrictions that were put on audiences when the band was finally allowed to play.

“In 2021 we played a show in Sweden,” he begins, “and we hadn’t played together in one and a half years, and the audience had to sit down, because of the restrictions. I was talking to the audience, because they wanted to stand up, and there were guards there so they couldn’t.”

Obviously playing to a crowd that was being made to stay seated was an offense to his rebellious rock and roll heart, so he decided to stir things up a little. Or more than a little, as it turned out.

“So I asked [the crowd], ‘If you’re sitting down, does that mean you won’t get affected by COVID-19? And if you stand up, you’re going to be infected? How fucking stupid is that?’ In the end the crowd was up and doing stage dives and everything, and the security guards just left.”

There were times when Hardcore Superstar had to play by the rules and keep to themselves, however, so they used those times productively and wrote and recorded Abrakadabra.

“We had restrictions here, but we had Zoom meetings going over riffs and stuff. After eight months we met in a warehouse where we rehearsed. We were standing five metres from each other, not getting too close, while we rehearsed.” He laughs having to do that off as ‘ridiculous’ as well, but they did, at least, “get a lot of things done, during the pandemic. Maybe it was good for us because we couldn’t keep touring and we had to pull the brake and concentrate on writing the new album. So the pandemic wasn’t good, but it was for us in that way.”

With so much time to devote to making Abrakadabra, it should be the best album Hardcore Superstar has done. Put that to Jocke Berg, however, and he instead pauses for a long moment before answering.

“I love the new album, but you always have your little babies,” he says. “I still love Dreamin’ in a Casket. That’s one of the few albums we’ve made that I can put in my car and listen to.”

In the 17 years since Dreamin’ in a Casket, Hardcore Superstar has maintained a steady line-up following guitarist Thomas Silver’s departure in 2008 and his subsequent replacement by Vic Zino. So in what other ways have Jocke and his band changed in that time?

“I think we’ve become much better musicians and songwriters since that time. Of course, we’ve gotten older, as well. Nowadays we’re more focused on what we do. Maybe we don’t drink as much as we did back then. Of course, we love beers, but I think we’re more focused now.

“We still party,” he promises with a grin, “but not as much!”