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Artist News
Refused frontman working on memoir
By CMU Editorial | Published on Wednesday 20 April 2011
Frontman of Swedish hardcore legends Refused, Dennis Lyxzén, has announced that he is working on a book remembering his time in the band.
Lyxzén told Swedish music TV show ‘PSL’: “Writing has been a dream of mine and it seems like a good idea to start off with a subject I know well. A lot of people have talked about it. Not that they’re begging me to write a book, more that they’re curious about us. I figured that enough time had passed that I could get away with it now”.
He continued: “When I read my journal, I understand why [band members] walked out. We were jerks. We were used to doing things fast. The circumstances were insane. Your point of view changes and then you think: ‘That’s what it was like’. Then you read what you wrote back in 1994-1995, and the way we lived was unreal. The things we accepted: ‘This is what it’s like, being in a band’. Anyone who quit was a wimp. But it was too much to take. Now it’s like: ‘What on earth were we doing?’ Still, it’s fun to read about it”.
The band’s demise was already recorded in the documentary ‘Refused Are Fucking Dead’, but this will be an altogether more personal account of the band’s history. Of the film, Lyxzén said: “The documentary went in pretty deep, but only covered our last year together. To me, this is really… It’s about me. I can’t lie and say it’s the complete story of Refused. It’s about my life during that period of time, what demons I battled back then and what I liked. It’s a closer look at myself as opposed to just listing details … It’s so totally different”.
He explained: “The middle portion of the book is excerpts from my journal. Two years, every single gig. What we ate, how little we slept. It’s loads of details about dates and gigs. The introduction and conclusion are freer, from memory. The last one and a half years, I wrote everything on this laptop that disappeared, but I have notes on every gig from 1994 through 1996. That’s a large portion of the book. Actually, when I started writing, my – aside from obvious ‘Get In The Van’ [by Henry Rollins] references – [Swedish musician Ulf] Lundell’s ‘Jack’ was my inspiration. The basic structure is similar, with journal entries and freer passages. An account of a repetitive life that captures something bigger. That was my biggest source of inspiration for this book”.
Watch the full interview here.
