Event: The Field at El Rey Theatre, Sat, Jun 8 8:00p

[clubmaster]

His beginnings saw an early love of pop, like a generation of Swedes his first musical memory was "probably Abba." That's stayed in his repertoire, from the samples on LP From Here We Go To Sublime's 'A Paw In My Face' to a glossy cover of 1980 hit 'Everybody's Got To Learn Sometime' on Yesterday & Today. Other formative experiences in music were more conflicting though. On the one hand Axel professes a teenage love of punk, citing The Misfits in particular, on the other though - as he reached late adolescence - he found himself under the strict restrictions and discipline of a music school. Perhaps unsurprisingly it wasn't for him. "I was in this school that had people nationwide who'd applied because of the quality of their music courses, so I had all these top of the line musicians round me - but I found it dull!" Laughs Axel. "But," he rations, "it all felt really forced, there were all these students and it seemed like they were all in a niche so it was hard to break out of it."