Interview with Two Year Vacation: ‘I love Jacob quite a lot but if Little Richard came along, I’d kick him out of the band!’

Gothenburg tropical pop band Two Year Vacation, will release another EP ‘High Hopes/Low Expectations’ tomorrow (20 May), giving us four tracks of their trademark feel good, synthy and infectious melodies.

The band comprises Jacob Ahlstrand (vocals), Max Hessman (keys), Johan Magnusson (guitar), György Barocsai (bass) and Alex Göransson (drums), who joined the band around a year ago. Ahlstrand previously fronted local rock band, Ennui. Hessman and Barocsai met at school at choir practice but didn’t really talk to each other until a decade later at the music studio where Barocsai works when Hessman came in with his former band. They took their name from the Jules Verne novella, ‘Two Years’ Vacation’, which is essentially a Lord of the Flies type of story about a bunch of schoolboys stranded on a desert island.

They describe ‘High Hopes/Low Expectations’ as ‘simultaneously a serious and a non-serious take on self-improvement and principles’, asking the question “Is it possible to have both high hopes and low expectations?” through their characteristic rhythmic beats, flavourful melodies and feel good vibrations. ‘We want to be the next Metallica,’ Barocsai deadpanned. ‘If we’re lucky, we’ll go to Denmark and play a show (laughs). It might get disappointing if your dreams go further down but it’s important to have big dreams, that’s where the title comes from.’ He is being modest, given that they’ve just come back from two weeks of playing festivals in Brazil.

‘The idea was to merge soul and punk and to blend them together’

‘Highlight Of My Night’ is one of the catchiest songs I’ve heard this year, erupting with an insanely hooky, jangly riff of B, G, D, A and E, which they switch up to Dmaj7, Gmaj7, F#m7, B, Gmaj7, F#m7, and Em7 in the chorus. It’s interspersed with whoops from Ahlstrand in a delightful mash up of sounds: ‘Jacob wrote the lyrics, the idea was to merge soul and punk and to blend them together, with all the rhythms in the same syncopation,’ Hessman said. ‘We’re really happy with it.’ I ask if he’s playing his beloved Arturia MiniBrute – the first completely analogue synth that he bought – that featured on their previous EP, ‘Getting Into Real Estate’. ‘No, I retired it,’ he grinned. ‘It still has a loose screw, I only play it if I want excitement (laughs). ‘On this one, I’m playing my new Mood synth grandmother.’

As the song kicks off: ‘Shady park, it’s recreational and growing dark. We pray to god there is some space for us. We have the world on our shoulders.’

The EP title is taken from this track: ‘It was a big inspiration for the song,’ Ahlstrand said. ‘It’s a day in the life we’ve all lived hundreds of times, about a night out.’ I say that I like the last line ‘just be home by 9 o’clock tonight’ because it gives the song a slightly menacing edge when you’re not expecting it and he agrees: ‘The idea of a curfew is childish but also controlling,’ he said. ‘I heard this so much growing up! It started off being 12 (midnight) but when you come back that late, you’re not sober, are you?! There’s a point after which you know you’re not coming back in a good state (laughs). Then it became 9 and stayed there for a long time!’

‘Chasing The Morning’ is equally infectious, kicking off with actual police sirens and an imitation siren sound on the synth: ‘I was doing some ambient stuff on my new Mood synth and György stopped me and said it sounded like a siren, so we put it in, Hessman said. ‘Yeah, I wanted it to sound like Slayer at the beginning,’ Barocsai joked. It has some brilliant lines in it, including ‘I’m home alone, I’m dirty dancing Patrick Swayze’ and also includes references to film directors Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorsese: ‘Both of these songs are party anthems,’ Ahlstrand said. ‘We do party a lot when we’re out playing (laughs). This song is about a relationship with someone who will remain nameless. It’s about when you first start seeing someone and they consume different things to you, they pretend to like things that you do. I wrote it during the pandemic when I watched a lot of films, that’s where all the references come from.’

As the chorus goes: ‘I’m chasing the morning, keeping them up from dusk ’til dawn. If you’re quoting Shakespeare, it’s better to be with no clothes on.’

I ask them whether they’ve had the chance to play the album live and Barocsai laughs: ‘We tested these songs one night at a show in Sweden. It was super late, I was about to fall asleep and the other guys got really mad at me but then we got onstage at 2 a.m. and it was super fun!’

‘I have notes on my phone that sound like the ramblings of a mad man’

Greece is the setting for ‘Starting Over’, which starts with a more jazzy piano solo and turns out to be about Ahlstrand’s first love when he was 17: ‘My first love, Klara, may she live forever,’ he shouted, punching his fist in the air. ‘We still meet randomly for a couple of days every year – or bump into each other every now and then – lie about how great our lives are (laughs) and then go our separate ways.’ Hessman jumps in: ‘Isn’t it also a parallel between your first love and the feelings we had when we recorded these songs in the woods?,’ he asked. Ahlstrand nods: ‘Definitely. We had a near-religious experience,’ he told me. ‘Last summer, we went to Silence Studio in the forest in the middle of nowhere. There was no mobile reception, nothing. We fell in love with each other, writing songs, swimming in the lake every day. It’s very rare to have a feeling of happiness like that in your gut,’ he said, looking genuinely happy.

As the track kicks off: ‘We met in Greece, I’d fight for attention. The bat of an eye would bend a knee. Oh, seventeen. You were a goddess and I was Achilles in high heels.’

Writing songs has become more collaborative as times goes on, although Ahlstrand still tends to write the lyrics: ‘I have notes on my phone that sound like the ramblings of a mad man,’ he grinned. ‘What inspires me the most is when someone presents an idea that kickstarts something.’ Their big, singalong choruses have also become a defining part of their sound: ‘The choruses sort of happen by themselves,’ Magnusson said. ‘Max is so good at writing great melodies that hook you.’ Hessman weighs in: ‘It wasn’t always that way,’ he said. ‘Me and György have talked about this a lot. In the beginning, we focused on the choruses but it didn’t come naturally to us. We often write the melodies together, one of two of us might have an idea for a song, a chorus, a verse, or come up with a bridge, but nothing else. Me and György have written a lot of stuff together and now he and Johan collaborate as well.’

‘It felt like the perfect way to symbolise brave and crazy’

The opener ‘Lemons’ is as summery as the title suggests, kicking off with a gentle piano solo and an underlying Bond-like riff as the song gently castigates people who ‘eats lemons like they’re clementines’, against the backdrop of the new Mood synth: ‘A lot of the song uses this synth, it has a warmer sound,’ Hessman said. ‘It doesn’t really matter which synth you use, you can get a similar sound on other ones but when you use a new instrument, you get some inspiration.’ I tell them that I hear this from musicians a lot. ‘Yeah, it’s like saying “This guitar still has songs in it”,’ Ahlstrand said. ‘Tom Waits once said “Songs are an interesting thing to do with air”.’ We all laugh and I say that it’s the kind of thing I can imagine Waits saying and they agree. Ahlstrand continues: ‘I know people who eat lemons like clementines, they look like psychos (laughs), it felt like the perfect way to symbolise brave and crazy.’

They are currently working on a lot of songs, according to Barocsai: ‘We might release some more,’ he said pensively. Ahlstrand nods: ‘We talk about it all the time, we have at least two songs that we’re excited to release but I don’t know what they’re called yet,’ he said. Hessman agrees: ‘We’ve been continuing the work here at the studio in Gothenburg, we’ve been working a lot this spring.’ The day before we chat, they sat and listened together to the songs on new EP, according to Ahlstrand. ‘I think all of our songs sound the same,’ Barocsai said cheekily. ‘We have written so many songs. We’ve been fooling around with some punk stuff. Jacob, you love ALL the songs! I hate all our songs (laughs), maybe Max and Johan are somewhere in the middle!’

Although they take inspiration from daily routines and dreams, they’ve created a unique sound that is a inviting blend of Italo disco, rock and Caribbean kraut atop easygoing, joyful rhythms wrapped in tropical vibes. Their influences range from ABBA to Fatboy Slim, early Daft Punk, MGMT, Arcade Fire, Vampire Weekend and Peter Björn & John. However, heavier elements also feed into the mix: ‘I love Metallica,’ Barocsai said. ‘I always wanted to play in that kind of metal band!’ Hessman is laughing: ‘Let’s do a happy metal album,’ he said. Barocsai laughs: ‘We’re trying to play metal, but we end up sounding like this!’ Ahlstrand, for his part, has taken huge inspiration from Tom Waits. Hessman cites Pink Floyd; ‘They’ve been with me since I was 8,’ he said. ‘I listened to their albums religiously.’ Magnusson is a fan of the punk scene: ‘It’s very hard for me, a lot of my music scene revolves around punk in the UK, the US and Sweden,’ he said. ‘MGMT (an American rock band) also inspired me a lot. Punk has always been my one true love.’ Hessman joins in: ‘Can I speak for Alex? His favourite is NO-FX (an American punk band), that’s been a big influence since he joined the band a year ago. Last summer, in the woods, that was the first time he recorded with us.’

‘I’m wrestling between punk, hip hop and Mozart’

Their dream line-up would be brilliant: ‘I’d pick Little Richard,’ Barocsai said happily. ‘His singing is absolutely amazing when he does the high notes. I love Jacob quite a lot but if Little Richard came along, I’d kick him out of the band!’ They all laugh. ‘Is it boring to say The Hives (a Swedish garage rock band)?,’ Magnusson asked. I say they’re brilliant. ‘I never got to see Leonard Cohen, I’d like to have him,’ Ahlstrand said. Hessman is still deep in thought: ‘I like messy line ups like punk with a singer-songwriter,’ he said. ‘I’m wrestling between punk, hip hop and Mozart (laughs). Mozart is for when everyone’s very drunk, he’d be best for the afterparty so that you can talk over the music.’

Last time I chatted to Hessman and Barocsai, they mentioned getting inspired by Mozart after going to a classical concert in Vienna for Hessman’s birthday, deciding to add a cembalo and ‘a teaspoon of Mozart’ into their single ‘Majored in Broken Hearts’ (2021) and their love of Mozart has not abated since then. ‘At this after party, we could have a costume,’ Barocsai said, looking delighted. ‘Just like Mozart, we want to have the big hair!’

They have some hilarious stories from the road, according to Ahlstrand: ‘We do literally get to spend our lives making music and traveling the world with our friends! Life as a band is full of funny moments. We manage to get ourselves into strange situations a lot of the time. In the downtime between the madness, it’s sort of hard knowing what was real and wasn’t. I mean, it feels pretty crazy that less than two weeks ago, we were trying to explain to somebody in broken Portuguese that we don’t want any grenades on the tour van!’

(Top photo from left to right: Max, Alex, Jacob, Johan and György.)