Peter Bjorn and John draws on hip-hop influence
Photo courtesy of Johan Bergmark
Concertgoers who saw Peter Bjorn and John on their last visit can expect different versions of songs, older material and b-sides during a Sept. 21 show at the Commodore Ballroom.
In between the red carpet interviews and performances of last weekend’s MTV Video Awards in Las Vegas, Björn Yttling of Peter Bjorn and John met one of his idols.
Yttling, the group’s bassist, said the highlight of the event, for which the group was nominated for Best New Artist, was meeting Dr. Dre.
“I got a picture with him in the hallway,” he said. “I’m really big into his production.”
At first listen, the trio’s indie pop seems a far cry from Dre’s funky So-Cal hip hop, but Yttling explained they’ve long had an interest in that production esthetic. He pointed to the swinging rhythms of Little Richard, Elvis Presley and hip hop as key influences.
“We found out that if we didn’t have a good beat in the bottom of a song, it’s not a good song,” he said. “It all goes back to Little Richard and his rhythm section.”
While the band’s breakout hit Young Folks, which features a hip-hop style breakbeat, was built around a melody rather than the beat, sometimes they write tracks from the bottom up. For example, The Chill began with a beat Yttling said the group nicked from Dionne Warwick.
“We look for beats in everything — Russian Opera … or Devo (for example),” he said. “It could be anything from anywhere.”
The band has long been into hip hop. In the “good old days of the early 90s,” Yttling said their hometown, Stockholm, experienced a big movement in Swedish hip-hop and everyone got into Wu-Tang and Busta Rhymes. More recently, rapper/producer Kayne West (who freestyled over the whistled melody of Young Folks) asked them to be his backing band during a concert in Gothenburg, Sweden.
As for the MTV Awards, Yttling said the toughest part was the red carpet run.
“I didn’t know what to make of it,” he said. “If you have bad eyes you might want to wear glasses (because of the flash photography).”
