Even after 25-plus years of performing and releasing music, Swedish singer-songwriter Peter Morén still cherishes every opportunity he gets to tour around the globe and share music he’s had a hand in creating. He says it “never gets old releasing a new album,” and that “it’s always special and a bit nerve-wracking” caring for “your little baby.”
For the majority of his career, he’s created music with the popular indie pop group Peter Bjorn and John. He’s also performed as a solo artist and with other collaborators.
Morén’s solo project SunYears, which he started five years ago during the pandemic, provided him with an opportunity to share songs he had written. Writing and recording the songs helped him grow confidence as a songwriter and guitar player. On August 21, the group released its sophomore album The Song Forlorn. You can read our review of it here.
The album features the song “Spanner In The Works”, which he says is “basically a travelogue…about my life in music.”
“It’s inspired by my own experiences of having been in the music business for a long time, like ups and downs and how you never fall out of love with music, but you may fall out of love with the business side of it,” he says during a recent interview. “Sometimes you’re very popular, other times you’re not so popular. And just balancing that up and down, the merry-go-round of releasing music.”
“It kind of lands on a positive note that this is something you do for your own sake and that you get new blood into your inspirational system and that you can’t get enough of you just playing guitar, writing songs and it’s part of your life. It’s like breathing. So, there’s a couple of songs on this record that kind of touches on these subjects and music is extremely important for me and I would do it even if it wasn’t my job. I mean, I’ve done it all my life, so it’s hard to stop. It’s like an addiction, but a good addiction.”
It’s part of the reason he picked the song to perform for his entry in our Water Tower Sessions series. He performed the song solo with an acoustic guitar in his rehearsal space in Stockholm, Sweden.
You can watch the session below:
Here’s the music video for the full band studio version for comparison:
Here are the credits for the video:
- Written by: Peter Morén
- Produced by: Peter Morén
- Engineered by: Hans Stenlund at INGRID Studios
- Mixed by: Niklas Berglöf
- Mastered by: Magnus Lindberg
- Peter Morén: Lead vocals, backing vocals, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, melodica
- Andreas Nordell: Electric bass, backing vocals
- Kyle Crane: Drums and percussion
- Video shot, directed and edited by: Jonas Hemlin
- Animation by: Vince Bigos
- Filmed in Stockholm, Spegeln
SWT caught up with Morén to learn more about the song and album as well as other recent and upcoming touring highlights.
For the album version of “Spanner In The Works”, you recorded the song as a trio. What was your experience like putting the song together?
Well, what happened with this particular album was that I finished the first SunYears record that came out in 2023. I finished that quite a bit before it actually was released. So, it was inspiring to be in the SunYears mode or the sort of framework and feeling I have around this project. So, I kept writing songs. And then a good friend of mine called Kyle Crane, who’s an American drummer. He’s got a project called Crane Like The Bird. And I’ve been singing on a couple of his songs for his records, and he tours a lot. And he had a tour in Europe, and he had two days off in Stockholm between shows. And he just said, “Should we do something?” And this was in 2022, I think in the summer or in the spring, so a long time ago.
And I basically thought, Yeah, okay, it would be fun to record with him. So, I got my bass player, Andreas [Nordell], who plays on almost all the songs on this record. We got together in a little studio, and I hadn’t even finished all the lyrics and everything, but I had sort of five songs that were almost done. We recorded them as a three-piece in just two days basically. And they all ended up on this record. So that’s why I started making a new record even though the first one wasn’t released because I just kind of fell into happenstance, fell into this session with Kyle and I really liked what happened. So yeah, I guess the basic track was just me on acoustic, Andreas on bass and Kyle on drums. And then I overdubbed more acoustics just to make it sound a bit fuller and certain parts.
And then there’s a little electric guitar and there’s also melodica, this sort of keyboard thing you put in your mouth. It’s basically guitar, bass and drums and the melodica, that’s kind of the basis of the track. So, it’s quite simple. The whole record is that a lot of things happen in the room when you bounce back and forth with the other musicians, just what’s happening in the recording session. So, there’s not a lot of work put in afterwards. Some overdubs, but basically the track, the bass, the drum and the first guitar, that’s all. I didn’t mess around with that and fiddle around with it. There’s not a lot of cut and paste on this record. It’s almost like a jazz record where it’s based on the performance in the room.
Why do you think you fit so well with those two guys?
Well, Andreas and me, we play together all the time. We have a little project with another drummer, Nino [Keller], and he plays on the songs that Kyle doesn’t play on. And we have a little five-piece here in Stockholm where we sometimes play parties and pubs and stuff. And we only do fifties and sixties rock and roll and R&B and soul stuff. So, covers just for fun. We played a lot together. And sometimes me and Andreas as a duo as well, if I have a small show where it’s more acoustic, he brings along the double bass.
He’s quite a good harmony singer, so we have a good…I don’t have to tell him what to play. I’m used to playing a lot of bass myself. I like playing bass, but he plays it a bit better, so it’s perfect. And Kyle, he’s very used to the recording environment and coming up with ideas on the spot. And he’s also a songwriter, so I think that’s really important with the drum being in the pocket and sort of doing what’s best for the song.
Sometimes with a lot of modern music, you record a lot of stuff straight to the computer, so you have all the options in the world afterwards to kind of put on effects. But then you react to that when you play. If you have a delay on the snare or something, everyone’s playing around that, that’s not on song. So, it’s kind of trying to not push the decisions in the future and decide in the moment.
What was your favorite moment recording the studio version of the “Spanner In The Works”?
It’s a joy to listen to what the other guys are doing. And I actually had some trouble getting my part right because it’s a very distinct strumming pattern I’m doing, so I had to work a bit on that to be in sync with the other guys. Even though I wrote it, it’s sometimes hard to play what you write, but apart from that, I guess I kind of like doing the overdubs.
There’s a little electric guitar part that someone thought was a steel guitar, but it’s actually me on a Telecaster, so I’m trying to develop as a guitar player and do new stuff. So, if someone thinks it’s a pedal seal, that’s a good thing because then I did a new sound. That was fun. But almost always the most fun part is almost afterwards when you’re listening and say “Okay, what happened?” And you’re mixing the thing, and you realize that it’s sounding good. So, I always felt quite confident in the sound on this record, it sounded good when we recorded and that has to do of course with the players and the engineer. If you work with the right people, then it’s going to sound good. Simple as that.
Let’s talk about the session you did for SWT. Can you talk a little bit about your experience filming the session? Why did you decide to record it acoustically?
Well, the thing was, I haven’t performed this song live yet in a show. We rehearsed today, so now I kind of know it. But what I wanted to do was it would be a good thing to do this particular song just to see that I could get through it on my own. I haven’t played it since we recorded it, and that was a long time ago. And it has a lot of words. It’s quite a dense song. It’s like a story song. There’s always a constant movement in what’s happening in the story. And I just wanted to see if I could get through it and remember the words and play it at the same time. So, I kind of did it as a practice for myself and then I thought, might as well record it, see if it’s how it sounds. And I thought it turned out okay, so that’s why I sent it to you.
Sometimes I write on piano and sometimes I write in my head and even don’t have an instrument. But most of them are based on some sort of guitar pattern. But that doesn’t mean that they all work as a solo thing. But I think this has sort of a folky feeling. So, it works as a solo performance.
I imagine there are benefits to doing a song acoustically with being able to capture certain aspects of it that you wouldn’t with the full version.
Yeah, for sure. I mean, I always try to, before I record a song, I try to sit by myself and play it so that I know that it works so that it holds together and that it’s actually, in my opinion, a good song. How I started way back when I was a kid, I didn’t have a band or anything, so that’s kind of my own test trying out the songs by yourself.
But now of course the thing was, that was a long time since I wrote this song, so it was good to practice it again. But for sure, if possible, all the songs should work on an acoustic guitar. It’s like the test, but then maybe certain ones work better than others, but it’s kind of like my starting point. It’s always the vocals and the guitar. I’m very old school that way.
It sounds like you recorded the session in your rehearsal space. What makes it such a creative space for you?
Actually, it’s in an area quite close to where I live. I live in the suburbs, but this is inside the central part of Stockholm, but it’s just a couple of stops on the subway. It’s kind of at the end of the actual city before the suburbs, so it’s quite a nice area, so it’s quite easy to get there. It’s quick for me to get there. And it is actually a studio as well.
There’s an engineer there who records, [Hans Stenlund], and we did on the first SunYears record that came out 2023, we did a few songs there. So, it’s a recording studio, but I mainly use it as a rehearsal space. And sometimes I work with the engineer and also the bass player and drummer I usually play with here in Sweden, they rehearse there as well. So, it is great, because I’ve been in rehearsal places before that are quite like the cliched dirty rock and roll rehearsal space, but this is quite nice. It looks nice. It’s quite a big room. I have my guitar hanging on the wall and also that it’s in a nice area and close to home. So, there are a lot of benefits. I always enjoy coming there. I guess the only downside is that it’s in a basement, so during the summer it can become very hot, but then you have to go out for breaks. There’s a nice park really close by, so I can go up there and have a beer or something.
With this project, it sounds like you’ve been able to express yourself more fully compared with your other projects. Can you talk about that a little bit?
Yeah. During the pandemic I was forced as we all were to stay at home. I was supposed to go on tour, but that got canceled three times and I spent a lot of time by myself in my bedroom and my living room with the guitar, and that’s kind of how I started as a kid. So, it’s kind of going back to my roots and that made me think about why I got into this to begin with. Because sometimes maybe you get kind of sidetracked, and you start losing focus and you think maybe that you can become a big pop producer or a fantastic session player or something else that you can do anything or make electronica or I don’t know. But I kind of realized what I wanted to do was to be a songwriter and sing my own songs.
That’s kind of how I started. So, I guess in a way it’s going back to my roots, but with 25 years of experience, and I guess the thing you said about expressing myself more fully, I guess it’s because it’s in a full format. So, with Peter Bjorn and John, I usually have three or four songs that are mostly mine. I mean, we co-write a lot, but for every record there’s maybe a couple that are more my songs. But here of course, the whole statement is mine and the whole concept or whatever that is, it’s mine. It’s not something that I’ve discussed with other people. So obviously it makes it a bit more for anything even though it’s melodic. So, if I want to take a long guitar solo, then I do that and I let the song breathe and take their time.
And there’s also instrumental songs, which is something I enjoy doing, and there’s a lot of duets, which was also sort of a pandemic thing since a lot of people were at home during that time. It was easy to get in touch with artists I like. I like to get them to sing on my record. And then for this second record, I thought I should continue with that thing because something about hearing, if you’ve written a song and then you bring in another voice, if it works, it can almost make the song more emotional.
You’re taking a step back from the song and you’re hearing it through another voice, and it becomes almost more powerful, and you can sort of hear that it’s a good song. Sometimes when it’s just your own voice, you get tired of it. I mean live, it’s another thing, but having other voices, mixing it up on the record, I think it makes for a more varied listen. And I think that’s a good thing. And on this record, it’s mainly female voices, so I think that’s a good counterpoint to myself obviously.
It’s something, this record, this project, I would say has made me write even more songs. I feel relaxed. I feel like I’m basically doing what I should do, whatever that means. So, I’m trying to get better at it, getting better at what I should do. I guess maybe sometimes before I did stuff maybe that I shouldn’t do, but it’s just a personal opinion.
Definitely. It sounds like the collaboration was a pretty essential part of the two albums, and with this one you kind of double down with trying to get more of that.
Yeah, I can’t really make music by myself. I’m not a technical guy. I can’t do laptop music or record my own stuff. I tried at some points, but it just made it boring for me to try to learn music programs. And there are songs, there’s one song on the first record where I play all the instruments. So, it can be done if I play a drum pattern and loop it and then you put on other stuff and that can be a very nice sound. But it is just something about playing and singing with other people that I find really rewarding. And even though it’s mostly songs I’ve written myself, it’s everyone bringing their own perspective and their own styles and it just becomes more enjoyable making it and also some more communal listening thing as well. So, even though it is my project, as you say, it wouldn’t be SunYears if it wasn’t for all these people. That’s what makes it SunYears, that’s the difference. So, it is definitely an important part of it.
Why did you feel the album’s title was fitting for this collection of songs?
Well, it’s kind of what we touched upon earlier that I can’t give up songwriting, that is kind of like an addiction. It’s like breathing and it’s like going to my private psychologist. It’s just a natural thing I’ve been doing all my life. There’s been points when I feel like maybe I should stop and do something else and get a proper job because if you put so much work into records and stuff and maybe you don’t get so much back, you can sometimes burn out almost and feel like, yeah, I shouldn’t do this because it’s too serious for me. I’m taking it too seriously. But then I always bounce back and start writing again. I can’t stop. So, it’s always a balance of feeling great and feeling lousy about it. But the things we touched upon with all that is something I sing about in the title song.
“The Song Forlorn”, that’s basically about different addictions. It’s about how you can get addicted to drugs or alcohol, you can get addicted to trying to meet new people, maybe meet new partners or getting kicks out of stuff like that. And then in the last verse, I’m kind of singing about my main addiction is songwriting and that if you have an idea for a song, you can’t give it up and you keep thinking about it and it keeps you awake at night and you want to give it all the love and attention you can.
And that may sound terrible, but it’s also, if I had to pick from different addictions, I can see why you can fall into different patterns that are bad for you and different addictions. And I might have a sort of addictive personality in a way. So that’s why I think it’s better. I write songs rather than take drugs, basically. So, I guess that’s what it’s about. And the other thing I’m pointing to is nature, just enjoying nature and being outdoors and it’s sort of a spiritual song to me, that title song, which I think the whole record and this project is kind of about trying to get to the soul and the spiritual thing. Yeah, you can make music that doesn’t feel right in the gut, so to speak, but here I’m trying to listen to myself and think okay, does this feel good? Music is my religion in a way, so it better make me feel good.
I also especially liked the songs “Last Night On the Mountain” and “Dark Eyes”. Can you talk a little bit about the inspiration for those?
Yeah, sure. So “Dark Eyes” was another one we did in that first initial session that I talked about. And we also did the title track, “The Song Forlorn”. But “Dark Eyes”, it’s kind of in a way you’ve been doing music all your life and I’ve been doing songs that are sort of similar in style to “Dark Eyes” maybe. But I felt like with these whole records, it’s kind of finally I’m making stuff. I really enjoy listening to myself. I’m getting better at playing guitar, I’m getting better at knowing what different sounds fit together and the lyrics and everything. So, it’s kind of, yeah, this is a record. I enjoy listening to myself. But that song still is kind of a song that you would, how should I say? It’s kind of a typical Peter song anyway. It’s not one of those songs on this record where people go, oh, is he doing a weird folk song? No, because it is sort of like a guitar pop upbeat thing. So, it could almost be a Peter Bjorn and John song, but then it would be probably shorter and have less.
But yeah, I’m really proud of that one. I think it sounds great. As for the guitar thing, I was going for sort of a jangly thing, but also at the end, it’s almost like a twangy solo, I play a lot with my fingers these days. I used to only play with picks, but now I’m trying to play more with my fingers, which gets a different attack when you’re playing electric guitar, and it becomes more stringy. I think it’s a great sound. It sort of has a Television quality or Richard Thompson or something like that. But the lyrics are inspired by a friend that was going through depression. That’s the short answer. And you can feel that someone is not there, really. You’re talking to someone, and you feel that they’re distant and you want to help out, but you don’t know what’s happening.
They won’t let you in, so you can’t really help out. So, it’s quite a dark lyric in a way, even though it’s an upbeat pop song. And I like those contrasts. I mean, if you listen to a song and you can directly feel that the music and the lyrics are kind of going the same way, it becomes a bit bland maybe, and obvious. And I think this song has sort of a happy, sad…it’s melancholy, but it also has that pop quality. So, it’s a good mix.
And the other one you talked about, “Last Night On The Mountain”, that’s very different because I co-wrote that with a British guy called Sam Genders who used to be in a band called Tunng. And we wrote that during the pandemic. It was actually like this on Zoom.
I never met him, but someone connected us, and he lives in Sweden, he lives on the West coast, and I live in Stockholm, so we’re quite far apart, but someone thought we should do a song. And I did a couple of different Zoom sessions during the pandemic, and they were all quite awful. It didn’t work at all. But with Sam, it was great. And we did a couple of songs. It was also an interesting process. I can’t remember who did what. I know he had the idea about the mountain thing and everything, but then we took breaks and wrote separately and got back and showed each other things. So, it’s blurry who did what, I can’t really remember. But it had that folky feeling. And I’m really into British folk rock from the late sixties and early seventies. It’s something I always come back to.
So, I like that style. And I recorded that in a different studio with Andreas, the bass player, and the Swedish drummer I usually play with. And Andreas played the standup bass. And there was also a woman who played violin, and I played acoustic. And then the engineer producer on that track, Daniel, played some keyboards and other things. So, it’s quite a big song. It’s bigger than some of the other songs which are very sparse with not a lot of instruments. But this one has quite a lot of things. It’s like percussion and keyboards and violin and all kinds of stuff. So, it is almost that mixture of a very folky acoustic ballad. But in the studio, it became sort of a Phil Spector thing almost at the end. It builds constantly. And the lyrics were sort of like a metaphor of someone sitting on the top of a mountain in the cold winter and basically thinking they’re going to die, but then they get help from people.
So, it’s about trusting the good in people, which is tough these days, but a song can bring hope hopefully. And when I recorded it, I thought I wanted the female voice on that one, and Sam sings a bit of harmony on it as well. But I contacted Lisa Hannigan, who’s got a fantastic voice, and she’s from Ireland, and I listened a lot to her records, and I thought that would fit perfectly for this song. I wanted a British voice. I just thought it would fit this song better and it turned out wonderful. So yeah, it’s like Christmas Eve when you get the files sent when they recorded their vocals and send it, and then you arrange it. It’s great.
Earlier this year while touring with Peter Bjorn and John you got to play that group’s classic album Writer’s Block. What was that experience like playing those songs again?
It was great. I mean, there’s a couple of songs on that record that we always play, some of our most popular songs. And I mean, in a way it was a bit weird because it turns 20 next year. So, if we should do a classic album thing, it would really be next year. But hopefully we’re going to continue doing it a bit this next year as well. But we got asked to play the festival Just Like Heaven, and they wanted this classic album concept, which is quite popular now. So that’s why we did this and did some shows around it. But it was good. It was really good. We played it backwards. Because a record and the live show is such a different thing, the way you build a record and the way you build the live show, you can’t really compare it.
So, if we would’ve played it in the order it’s on the record, I think it wouldn’t have worked. But when we played it backwards, it was perfect because there’s a lot of songs that you don’t think people will enjoy because they’re not that well known or maybe a bit forgotten. But obviously if you go and see this show, maybe some of those lesser-known songs are the ones that get the loudest reaction because it’s kind of not so usual and that we play them. And it was also good. Some of the songs that we do play a lot, we kind of still went back and listened to the originals and sometimes we tried to recreate the studio version a bit more. Other times we went for the line version and did a different version. “Up Against The Wall” is always different every night.
It’s kind of like a live jam track, and that works really well. It’s closer to something on the SunYears thing in that sense because there are solos and stuff that happens in the moment. There were a lot of younger people that couldn’t have been there the first time around. So, it’s great that the music spreads to new generations. And I do think we’re a better live band now as well. And you do get better, that’s the thing. People always treasure youth, but you do get better when you do it for a long time.
I imagine it’s exciting with the new music to look back to see how far you’ve come.
Yeah. What was good with doing the Writer’s Block album was that I really liked all the songs. I don’t really listen a lot to those old albums, and there are songs that I’m not that fond of that I really wouldn’t want to play. But on that record, I think all the songs are really good. I understand that people like it. I mean, it has good lyrics and solid songwriting. So, that felt nice. It would’ve been tough if there were songs, I would feel like, oh, I don’t want to sing this lyric. It’s terrible. But it didn’t feel like that. So, it’s good.
You have a busy fall ahead, including a tour with Robert Forster and his band. What are you looking forward to most with that tour?
Well, I produced his last album. He was here last year for a month, and I enjoy doing it. We rehearsed for a week, and we recorded for a week, and we mixed for a week. And then when he went back to Australia, it was all done. I thought it was perfect. It kind of encapsulates a moment in time and those songs and those people. And that’s kind of how I enjoy making records if I can. I’ve toured with him a little bit before, not as much as this time, but there’s some great friends in the band. And I mean, I am a big fan of his catalog. I love his old songs. So just being able to play songs you like with someone you admire that is also a friend. I mean, it’s great. And also, it’s quite nice because he’s not a huge famous star or anything, but his fan base follows him around. He always gets a good crowd, even though it might be small rooms, it’s almost always sold out. And some people follow him to different shows like Deadheads. So, it’s nice.
It’s really interesting when there’s someone who’s in his sixties, late sixties and still so creative and making new records that are as good as his old ones or better sometimes. So that’s something that I hope I can do as well, continue to grow and continue to play in my later years. Also, it’ll be nice to just tour a bit in Europe. I haven’t done that in a long time. I’ve done some shorter tours with James Yorkstone in the UK a couple of years ago, but this will be the UK and Germany and Austria and around Europe. So yeah, I like those places, so it’ll be nice.
Do you have any plans to tour as SunYears?
Yeah, I would love to do that. It’s kind of hard when you’re starting a new project like this. On the last record, the U.S. label wanted me to go to the states and tour, but you have to get a Visa, and you also have to have some interest, maybe have a song on the radio. I mean, you can’t really just go and hope that people turn up. So, it is kind of starting over again. So, I’m going to do shows in Sweden now and then, a weekend here and there. But of course, I would love to go to other places.
But I think it’s a good thing that I release these two records so close to each other because it sort of sets the scene that it’s actually a serious project that I’m going to continue with. Sometimes if you just do one record and then you never touch it again, then people might just think it was a fluke and something you felt like doing briefly. But I feel already with this one, I got some really good reviews in some music magazines and stuff. So, I mean, hopefully the word is spreading slowly. I mean, it’s not streaming music, it’s album music. So that’s the tough thing. Doesn’t really stream that much. So, I have to find an audience organically by doing interviews like this.
I imagine it’d be a little bit tricky with all the collaborations on these albums with trying to recreate the songs live.
Yeah, I mean, not really. I have this philosophy that, as I touched upon, a record is a record, and the live show is a live show. It’s like with young folks, in the beginning it was always, oh, we have to have a duet partner for [Peter Bjorn and John’s] “Young Folks”. And you ended up singing with people that maybe hadn’t rehearsed a song and sometimes it wasn’t so good. And then you just start to think why shouldn’t you just sing it myself? And then I started singing it myself. And now sometimes if there is someone that is around or that can do it, then maybe we’ll do it, but we don’t look for it. And it’s a similar thing with SunYears. I mean, I wrote these songs myself, and I can sing them myself and the guys that I play with can do harmony vocals and they have good voices as well.
I’m into small scale live shows. I really enjoy small clubs, a small band where you can hear all the instruments and then even if there’s a record with an orchestra and saxophones or whatever, you should still be able, if it’s a good song, you should be able to recreate it with just a couple of people. That’s my philosophy. And the live show and the record doesn’t have to sound the same. I think if I play this with just a couple of people, it would still sound pretty similar since that’s how the record is made. So, it won’t be that big a jump. But the voices, of course. So maybe at certain gigs I might have someone sing something, but basically I will be able to play these songs just by myself as a duo, as a three-piece. It just depends.
The Song Forlorn Track Listing:
1. Where Are We?
2. Dark Eyes
3. Last Night On the Mountain (feat. Lisa Hannigan & Sam Genders)
4. Your Dad Was Sad
5. (Going To A) Cruel Country
6. If You Were To Ask (feat. de clair)
7. Spanner In The Works
8. The Body (feat. Nicole Atkins)
9. Swamp Mob
10. The Song Forlorn (feat. Madison Cunningham)
You can find Peter Morén’s tour dates with Robert Forester here and follow and listen to SunYears at the below links:
Instagram: Instagram.com/sunyearssongs
Facebook: Facebook.com/SunYearsSongs
YouTube: Youtube.com/@sunyears
Bandcamp: Sun-years.bandcamp.com
Bandcamp: SunYears on Spotify
Apple Music: SunYears on Apple Music (English) and SunYears on Apple Music (svenska)
Additional Links: SunYears Links
Joshua is co-founder of Scummy Water Tower. He’s freelanced for a variety of newspapers, magazines, and websites, including: Rolling Stone, The Boston Globe, Chicago Sun-Times, Guitar World, MTV News, Grammy.com, Chicago Magazine, Milwaukee Magazine, MKE Lifestyle, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, A.V. Club, SPIN, Alternative Press, Under the Radar, Paste, PopMatters, American Songwriter, and Relix. You can email him at josh@scummywatertower.com.
