Never Say Never

And while they have not usurped American businessman cum musician Dean Gitter (who took a mere 57 years to follow up 1957's Ghost Ballads with Old Folkies Never Die), the Swedes were fast approaching the almost 12 years that elapsed between King Crimson's Three Of A Perfect Pair and Thrak.
So, after a steady work rate that yielded the band's first four studio albums in the period from 2005 to 2013, how on earth did it take Moon Safari so long to release the excellent Himlabacken Vol. 2?
“Perhaps we can blame the kids?!” says lead vocalist/acoustic guitarist Petter Sandström from his home in Stockholm.
Sweden’s birth rate this millennium has dropped well below two children per woman, but Moon Safari have clearly been doing their utmost to buck the trend and expand their homeland’s population.
“When we started this recording, there were four kids among the six bandmembers; now there are 16,” expands Umeå-based bassist/vocalist Johan Westerlund.
But beyond the domestic matters and day job commitments that continually slowed the progress of making the album, there were some band issues.
“There was just so much circus along the way,” Westerlund says with a sigh, and admits there were times when Moon Safari thought that the album would never be finished.
“This process has taken forever. It felt like the album was cursed. When we got the master done this summer, a big weight was lifted. Then it was onto the fun stuff – getting the artwork and everything ready for release and starting to talk to people is such a different world. It’s hard to realise that we’re done.”
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1625747790/1703838123/articles/p36zQ51oq1703849695237/3237721404.jpg]
In the gap between the two volumes of Himlabacken, Moon Safari experienced the trials and tribulations that so many bands go through during their careers. In 2015 with the departure of drummer Tobias Lundgren and his replacement by Mikael Israelsson, the band’s line-up changed for the first time since their debut, A Doorway To Summer, announced their arrival in fine style in 2005. The switch involved some trauma, too.
“Something had to change,” explains Westerlund. “We’d been doing Moon Safari for over 10 years at that point and had done the same kind of recording a few times in a row.”
Lundgren’s exit was ultimately triggered by the band being offered the opportunity to support Yes on a European tour. With two small children, the drummer wasn’t in a position to commit to the amount of travelling it would involve.
“And with that, other storms started to brew. We had a bad fall out with Tobias and it wasn’t handled well,” Sandström admits. “The separation was ugly but we’re friends now. Tobias and I get together every couple of months and he has a great band now [Windom End].”
Israelsson had previously deputised for Lundgren in spring 2014 for Moon Safari’s first appearance on Cruise To The Edge and a preceding Mexican show.
“We noticed how good it sounded,” Sandström continues. “We realised we could be on a new level with Mike, or keep on a safe steady mid-level with Tobias.”
Westerlund elaborates, “Mike has been a great addition to the band. His drumming is out of this world. As a bass player, I’ve taken steps that I wouldn’t have if he wasn’t in the band.”
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1625747790/1703838123/articles/p36zQ51oq1703849695237/3072822337.jpg]
Beyond Lundgren’s departure, Westerlund and Sandström readily admit that, at various points in the tortuous process of making Himlabacken Vol. 2, each bandmember wanted to throw in the towel. Indeed, one of them actually briefly did, namely the band’s other lead vocalist and keyboardist Simon Åkesson, who spent several months outside Moon Safari in 2017.
“Simon had always been up and down, but this was on a different level,” Westerlund says. “He was really low; it wasn’t fun for him any more and he needed to change something. He had announced he would quit the band before we did a show in Japan.”
Initially Åkesson was diagnosed with alcoholism, but there was some doubt over this.
“He got counselling, but then they said, ‘You’re really too young to have developed full-blown alcoholism.’”
On seeking a second opinion, Åkesson’s diagnosis was revised to bipolar disorder and, with more appropriate medication prescribed, his absence from the band would prove short-lived. Former Flower Kings keyboardist and long-time Moon Safari champion Tomas Bodin had stepped in, but Åkesson would return swiftly.
After a couple of months Westerlund travelled back to the band’s hometown, Skellefteå, almost 500 miles north of Stockholm, and met Åkesson for what proved an artistically constructive and cathartic experience for them both.
“We went to the studio and started reworking the song that would become Between The Devil And Me,” Westerlund recalls, speaking of the first single extracted from the new album.
“I asked Simon, ‘What’s the worst part of your experience with this sickness or disease?’ He was honest. And I wrote those lyrics from his perspective, imagining what he was going through. That lyric just came out the same day. It was a good twist to him wanting to quit the band.”
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1625747790/1703838123/articles/p36zQ51oq1703849695237/0237427708.jpg]
Bodin was ready to fulfil Moon Safari’s obligation to perform on 2018’s Cruise To The Edge, but it wasn’t long before Åkesson felt ready to return and Bodin’s Moon Safari tenure was over almost before it had begun.
Although it’s taken Moon Safari a decade to release Himlabacken Vol. 2, they haven’t been sitting idly. Apart from further Cruise To The Edge shows, they’ve travelled widely and performed across Europe and in North America, including two appearances at RoSFest. Surely with all six bandmembers based in Sweden – the Åkesson brothers (Pontus, Simon and Sebastian) and Israelsson are all based in and around Skellefteå – it should be easier to record an album than tour internationally?
“We would always have the discussion, whether we should take gigs or just focus on writing and recording the album,” Sandström reveals. “Getting together for rehearsals takes valuable time which we could put into the recording and finishing the goddamn album! But we often get offered these fun gigs. ‘Does anybody want to go on holiday and play some music?’ ‘Yeah! Where are we goi...