LEZLIE PAICE
LARS ANDERSSON
I must start by asking: Where did you get the band name from? It's one of those names that seem very off the rails at first (like the Swedish band Gotham City), but as time goes by, one connects it with coolness.
Let me first state that these answers reflect the way I remember, asking someone else who was in the band might result in a slightly different answer. To the question…
Håkan and I tried to find a name for the band at an early stage. At the time it seemed like all our favorite bands had “double names”; Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath… the list is long… so that was what we wanted.
We had seen some police TV-show and liked the sound of the name of one of the role figures, Leslie. We just played along with what might “sound” right in combination… Leslie Pace had the right sound to it. But it didn’t look cool enough so we changed the spelling to Lezlie Paice.
How many songs of your own did you have in your repertoire?
Actually we focused a lot on our own songwriting, although we jammed on covers now and then. Håkan and me wrote lots of songs, a guess would be about 30 Lezlie Paice songs over time.
At one point we had an 8-track recording studio and during this time the two of us wrote at least 5-6 songs as a “solo-project” and recorded. Håkan played drums and guitars; I did bass and almost all vocals. These songs also have a bit of “Lezlie Paice” style and sound to them.
What was it like collaborating with Pang Records? Many bands have stated that they felt cheated by them. What was the company's attitude towards music in general and heavy metal in particular?
I think we at first felt this was a great opportunity, although we had to put up some money on our own. Pang didn’t really interfere in the selection of songs, the sound of the band, the cover of the 7” single or anything else like that. We soon realized that they really didn’t put much effort or money in at all. Because of that we where a bit “put off” and felt it was pretty much ourselves that put that 7” single out and they didn’t really do anything. But as time went by, we sold most of our singles and some 10-15 years later there were actually quite a few people that contacted us from around the world (US, Greece and Japan to name a few) and wanted to buy as many of them as possible. This is why we now only got a few ones left ourselves. And mind you, we never sold any of them under market price, which probably is rare. Considering all this I think it all worked out in a good way for us, since they helped us get our single out there. Then again, a better record label could have resulted in one or several full-length album…
Are you familiar with any of the other heavy acts on Pang Records like Zone Zero, Shakespeare, Rising etc.?
No, not really. We didn’t have much to do with Pang and when we talked with them they didn’t talk much about other acts on the label. And we didn’t hear about them “on our own”. I would guess this was typical Pang; they probably never put much into marketing and distribution.
The only other band that made recording with Pang that we knew of was Overlord from our hometown Varberg. However they went more pop/soft rock when they did their 7” so they where not in the same musical style and direction as us.
Fighting Man / People Wanna Know 7'' (1983)
How serious were you with playing? Although your music was very convincing, the cover of your single and the drawing on the back, give the impression that you maybe didn't take things too seriously :)
Håkan and I met in fourth grade and pretty soon became best friends. He started playing the guitar and I started playing bass. By seventh grade we were spending most of our time rehearsing, writing songs, listening to new bands and so on. We really wanted to make things happen, even more so year-by-year. I don’t think we took ourselves that seriously but we wanted the band to get somewhere.
The cover is a different story. I had been drawing lots with pencil since I was young and had gotten quite good on drawing grim fantasy creatures, inspired by horror movies and horror cartoons. The idea was that I was going to make the cover for the 7” single. However it was a full color print and I had to get into painting, which wasn’t quite my territory. What I wanted to do was something like all those cool covers done with airbrush at that time, a technique that I knew nothing about. And hence this was the early 80’s and personal computers were rare and not really capable of graphic illustrations. This all is the reason for the amateur look of the front.
The backside cartoon thing was copied from a “Wizard of oz” cartoon and today it seems hard to find what was funny about it, but I think we thought it was a humorous illustration of the title track.
Is there any special story behind the lyrics to "Fightin' Man"? One gets the idea that the song is about someone you know.
I think it was a combination of persons that influenced. Another reason was the sound of the song, hard and heavy. It needed something that fit that. Mikael Mörk was in some trouble now and then at that time and Niclas was also hanging out with a few “trouble makers”. Håkan and me were hanging around town before we were allowed into pubs, and saw a lot of fights. So we wrote the lyrics about a “troublemaker” like that. Tony was driving motorcycle and that’s where the “leader of the hells angels” came in.
Which bands were you influenced by?
We listened to most of the 70’s hard rock bands. Led Zeppelin, Thin Lizzy, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath to name a few. But if there was one band that we all where really into more than the rest I would say Deep Purple. We would sometime jam long extracts from the Made in Japan live album.
Did the release of the single have any impact on the future of Lezlie Paice? What happened in your career after the release?
I think we got some attention on a local basis; we didn’t get the feeling that Pang did much of an effort to market and distribute the single to that many record stores and radio programs. We had a few gigs and were really putting a lot of effort into the band. But a year later the military service stokes us totally.
First Mikael and Niclas got drafted and directly afterwards Håkan and me. A year and a half when we had to struggle to even get any rehearsals at all. During this time Tony quit since he wanted to head into another musical direction. We started searching for a new singer, putting ads in local papers. We got hold of a great singer from Gothenburg. I don’t remember his name now but he was one of the guys who sang in Kee Marcello’s Swedish Metal Aid project. We had a hard time getting him to drive from Gothenburg to Varberg and rehearse and he only stayed in the band for a short time.
When did the band quit?
We never really quit… we just never rehearsed and I think we gave up Lezlie Paice at some point. This happened gradually but I’d say we where over by the summer of 1986. In the late fall that year Håkan and me started a new band, Avenue, with two other guys. At a later stage that band transformed into a band named Spit it out.
Does there exist much demo/live material with Lezlie Paice?
Interesting question. There’s just one more pro recording by Lezlie Paice, recorded in the fall of 1985 in a studio at Hisingen in Gothenburg owned by the bass-player from Swedish band Snowstorm. One track is named “Deep in her eyes” and features the last singer (mentioned earlier) on vocals and a second track is named “Summerlovin” with vocals handled by me.
There’s also some semi-professional recordings with songs often performed live, like the heavy “Ice through your head” and more up-tempo “A voice in the night”. These are however unmixed and there’s some work needed to dig these tapes out, get equipment to get them mixed/mastered.
I’ve played a bit with the idea of doing a CD of this stuff, if there was a big interest in these recordings… kind of a “Lost & Found & Unreleased”. It would take at least a few months, but as I said, if there’s an interest I might.
What Swedish 80s bands do you like?
Ah, there are lots of great Swedish bands from that time although I didn’t really buy albums by them. We actually had a few really good ones in Varberg and in Falkenberg. But of course also bands like Heavy Load were really good.
We also enjoyed the Swedish punk scene. Niclas bought a lot of 7” by bands like “Grisen skriker”, “KSMB” and “Ebba Grön” to mention a few and we all really liked the energy and the provocative lyrics.
Although I am a collector of Swedish metal, I don't recall many 80s metal bands coming from the west coast except you, Destiny and a more obscure band called Steelemade (pardon me if this question turns out to be nothing but a showcase of forgetfulness). What was the metal scene like?
The way I remember it, the music scene was quite good. There were lots of bands and all of them did their own songs. The metal/hard rock scene wasn’t that big in Varberg/Falkenberg/Kungsbacka area at this time. I think most other styles such as punk, new wave, alternative and pop got much more attention and respect from both media, booking agents and musicians.
But there was a healthier attitude towards bands and music. Today it’s close to impossible to get a gig doing your own songs, if the band/artist don’t have a CD in the stores release by any of the major labels.
Are you personally a nostalgic when it comes to music, or is progress your cup of tea?
I’m very much both. I really enjoy the 70’ hard rock / metal that I grew up listening to but I’ve been following new styles, sounds and bands trough the years and today my taste has a really broad range. I just enjoy great songs no matter style or sound. But, of course I’m a rocker at heart.
Thank you for answering my questions. Is there any final thing you would like to say to the Lezlie Paice fans?
I really appreciate the interest and support the fans have been showing throughout the years. Without you the band would be long forgotten.
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