How Songs Happen In Millecolin's Mathias Farm's Head

Unlike selected bands who emanate a sensibility that they're doing fans in this country a favour by travelling many thousands of kilometres to perform, when Millencolin guitarist Mathias Farm gushes of an affinity for Australia, the enthusiasm isn't feigned. The Swedes' upcoming jaunt marks 20 years since their initial visit here alongside countrymen and then Burning Heart labelmates No Fun At All.

"I remember the first day when I got into Sydney I went to the beach and stayed there the whole day without any sunblock. I was burnt so bad I had blisters on my whole body."

"The first time we went outside of Europe and Scandinavia was to Australia back in 1996," the axeman reflects. "We went to Australia early in our careers and we've built a good following there. [The debut Australian tour] was a lot of driving. I guess nowadays when we tour maybe you fly from Sydney to Melbourne, but back then we drove in a van. We had a van without AC and slept on people's floors. It's a big difference of course, but it was a big adventure too. It was a really cool time. I remember the first day when I got into Sydney I went to the beach and stayed there the whole day without any sunblock. I was burnt so bad I had blisters on my whole body," he laughs.

Farm evidently recovered from such temporary discomfort. Millencolin attained gold certifications in Australia via likes of 2000's Pennybridge Pioneers, and are perennial tourists. This time around the punkers will support widely acclaimed True Brew, their first full-length of new material in seven years.

"I don't really write with a guitar, I just write in my head and I record all my ideas on my phone," the guitarist says of songwriting on the road, or elsewhere. "Or I can write the song in the car and when I get back home I try to go through it and figure out what I was actually thinking, what the idea actually was," he chuckles. "That's the way I think we all do it now. You don't really sit down and say like, 'Ok, now I'm going to write a song,' it's just songs that happen in your head.

"[Early on] I had a small Dictaphone with a small cassette that I carried around. It was kind of messy," Farm chuckles. "It was basically the same, but now when you have your phone in your pocket all the time it's easier to remember what you were thinking. You can make small recordings all the time."

On the topic of technology, Millencolin's formative years coincided with the internet's advent. How taxing has it been to adapt to digital trends and subsequent industry changes? "It's been a step-by-step thing for us and since we were very young when we started the band we've always been interested in technological stuff, so it hasn't been a problem. It was probably a much bigger change for bands that had been going since the '70s and trying to get used to this new thing. I think the whole digital music thing is both good and bad. There's so much music out there, so it's hard to, I probably consume less music nowadays than I used to do, just because… There's so much music to choose from, I don't really know what to listen to," he laughs.