Past Five is a five-piece alt-metal post-punk crossover band from Borås, Sweden. The band’s latest single “Dop(e)amine” is a soaring rock anthem about the will to change the world and the consequences thereof. For some, a change can be positive but for others, that same change can tip the balance of the universe and affect others with devastating consequences. Here’s our interview with Simon Hellgren (rhythm guitar, background vocals), aka Kråkan.

Beginnings:

I actually don’t know that much about how the band was formed from the beginning since I joined in 2018, and they had already been doing this for a couple of years. Either way, I got to know Alexander (the bassist) in 2017 during the fall during the introduction at the University of Borås. We were so-called “student buddies” for the new students, and we realized that we had a lot in common especially when it came to music. We talked about how it was playing in a band and he said to me that they needed one more guitarist. So he just asked the guys and we met, and now we’re playing together in Past Five!

Behind the name:

Past Five actually comes from our old rehearsal space. We were not allowed to start rehearsing before 5 pm (same rules in our new rehearsal space actually), so that gave us the name! It’s not more complicated than that actually!

Inspiration:

The ”things” that inspire me the most are the guys in the band. Of course, I can have ups and downs when we are rehearsing, but they give me a lot of inspiration and I always have a good Name when we meet. Also, my girlfriend is someone that inspires me a lot in the sense of me doing the thing that I love. She gives me a lot of motivation, which for me is really important.

If we’re talking about what bands inspire me, it would first of be AC/DC. I’ve listened to them since I was a little kid, and they were the start of my love for rock/metal.

Airbourne is also a band that inspires me a lot, mostly because of their live performance. They’ve got a lot of energy and do fun/stupid stuff on the stage which makes me want to give more to the audience when we are on stage since I know how much I appreciate that.

When we are writing new music, I can’t say that I have specific bands that give me more inspiration than others. I listen to different bands the whole time, and the band that I listen to there and then is some of them who inspire me with new ideas.

About a full album, we haven’t decided whether we should do a full-length album or another EP yet.

We are just doing our best to produce new stuff and will, later on, decide if it should be a full album or not. But what you can expect from the new songs that we are in the process with right now is what you’ve already got but on a new level. It is Past Five, but it is a new touch to it I would say.

Teamwork:

The teamwork is in my opinion perfect. We all have different things that we are good at, which we make use of when we are writing new material, or when we are planning for music videos/live shows, etc. For example, I’m not the greatest at writing lyrics with my lack of imagination (laughs), but Jonathan Wallin (song and lead guitar) and Jonathan Yderhag (rhythm guitar and backing vocals) are good at that so I “leave” that to them.

COVID-19:

The worst thing about the pandemic is that we haven’t been able to do any live shows, which really sucks. Live shows I feel like are the reason we do this, to play our music in front of people that really like it, it’s the best feeling. Apart from that, we didn’t feel like it affected us too much in the beginning, but now when it’s been a year with the pandemic we feel like it’s really affecting us on all levels. Although, it gives us more in a way to write more music and to plan what we should do next. We do miss the ”after rehearsing beer” tho!

Fun facts:

Haha, what’s there not to tell! This one is kinda hard since it feels like every story is a funny one. One thing that comes up in my mind is one during the summer of 2019 when we did a live show in Bollebygd, a small society just outside Borås, Sweden. This gig was a bit ironic. It was a really beautiful day, which is rare here in Sweden and we were going to play with some other bands at the bottom of a downhill slope. The stage was in a truck trailer and it was hot as hell outside. When we got there, it was almost no people there and we thought it felt like a joke. So we just thought of it as a rehearsal outdoors. It felt sad though that there were not any people there, because the equipment that we got to use was really great so the sound was fantastic. It was in all a nice experience, but we wished that more people would have been there. But hey, at least the weather was good!