In late 1997, Sweden’s REFUSED recorded one of the most defining and influetial punk/hardcore records of the decade. Without warning, the group disbanded soon after the record’s release. Many questions were left unanswered. Buddyhead was able to track down Kristofer Steen, who played guitar in the band. Kristofer currently resides in Orange County while he attends film school. We didn’t leave him alone until all of our questions were answered and more. Interview by Aaron Icarus and Travis Keller.
buddyhead: when did the band break up officially? weren’t you here in the u.s.?
kristofer: we were on tour here with frodus. we broke up for good in atlanta. our other guitar player, jon, decided he couldn’t handle touring anymore. so we had this huge fight and ended it.
buddyhead: some people assumed you guys had it planned beforehand that you were going to break up when you did. is that accurate?
kristofer: haha. that’s kind of a rumor. i don’t want mr. brett to come and beat me up haha.
buddyhead: nobody at epitaph was mad you guys broke up or anything were they?
kristofer: naw, i met brett (owner of epitaph) while my friends band, milencolin, was recording their record in hollywood with him. i talked to him briefly and he was just excited to finally meet a member of refused. he said something about how we were like operation ivy how we just put out 1 record and then broke up, and i was like ehhhhhhh yeah.
buddyhead: hahaha. you mean you have never even been over to epitaph?
kristofer: no. i called over there once to get somebody from milencolin’s phone number and they were like, “who are you” and i was like, oh i think you guys put out one of my band’s albums, ya-know refused? and they were like “what!” i don’t think they knew we actually existed. haha.
buddyhead: yeah it’s really funny how nobody over there seems to know anything about you guys except that they put out your record and they have a video of you guys goin crazy.
kristofer: haha, i think it’s better that way. we’re just kind of a mystery. isn’t that better?
buddyhead: yeah perhaps. i bet half the people at epitaph don’t even know you guys broke up. but seriously, you guys didn’t know when you were going to break up?
kristofer: haha, i better talk to my lawyer before i answer that. no, when we left for that last tour of the u.s., we knew it was going to happen at some point. after the u.s. we wanted to do europe and maybe a couple of tours at the beginning of this year. but we had to break up at some point so whatever.
buddyhead: did you guys not get along anymore?
kristofer: it was nothing unusual. just 4 guys that were beginning to not stand each other anymore. there was basically a big rift between the singer and the whole band. we actually recorded a whole other album without the vocalist. it’s being mixed at the moment. i don’t know if it’s going to be called a refused album or something else. we recorded it right before the american tour.
buddyhead: does it sound like “shape”?
kristofer: no. no. haha.
buddyhead: what does it sound like?
kristofer: haha. well everybody kinda did their own thing. david (the drummer) did a long dub and reggae epic. it was like 15 minutes long. hehe. it has like a gospel choir with it. jon (guitarist/samplist) did like a 45 minute long dub song with his friend who does a lecture on torture over it. it’s funny. i’m not exactly sure it’s even any good.
buddyhead: what did you do?
kristofer: well i had a really ambitious idea. i recorded 4 separate parts, but could never figure out how to combine them. haha. they ended up editing it and i have no idea what it sounds like.
buddyhead: so there’e no singer or anything on it?
kristofer: well david sings. other than that it’s mostly instrumental. i wanted to do like a cheesy r&b acapella thing, but like in a brutal, screamy hardcore style.
buddyhead: do you know what label that’s going to be on?
kristofer: probably on a small label in sweden. we let labels hear it, and they were like “no” hahahaha. it’s just too far out there.
buddyhead: so you guys were always shown as a 4 piece band in all your pictures, videos and on the last album. you never seemed to have a permanent bass player. why was that?
kristofer: well magnus played bass for refused from the beginning on like everything. he played bass on “shape” too but he is just such a lazy bastard he didn’t want to tour. on “shape” i had to play all the bass parts he didn’t learn.
buddyhead: yeah like on the video for new noise, the first thing i noticed was that there was no bass player in the video. you guys were a 4 piece.
kristofer: yeah we were just like “fuck the bass player” that was always such an issue. we had like a team of bass players. like 10 people. we would just call one up and tell them we needed one for a show or something. we knew we were never going to find one we liked. so for the video we were just like “let’s not have a bass player!” it looks better anyway. haha. we auditioned don devore from ink and dagger to play bass. that was in like january of 98 right after we finished the album. he convinced us he was the right man for the job. in his own words he said “i got what you need” so he flew out to sweden. i thought he was a pretty cool guy, i’m sure he still is. it just didn’t work out.
buddyhead: why didn’t magnus just commit to the band?
kristofer: he’s strange. i remember when we were on tour with earth crisis and snapcase in europe, he would like disappear into the woods writing poetry and we would be like, “where the fuck is he we need to soundcheck!” he’s a
really cool guy though. he’s in a band called cobolt.
buddyhead: oh yeah i have one of their 7″s. it’s a split with kevlar.
kristofer: yeah. wow, i’m surprised you’ve heard of that.
buddyhead: so you joined the band right before the “everlasting” e.p. right?
kristofer: yeah, just before in like 94.
buddyhead: who was in refused then?
kristofer: god, nobody knew who was in the band at the time. there was a couple of guys who got kicked out at the same time. it would be like a guy who got his first girlfriend or something at the time. you know how that works. same old story.
buddyhead: it seemed like every refused release was totally different and you guys constantly evolved. where do you think the musical progression came from?
kristofer: we were just really ambitious. we really listen to a lot of music. i mean we are really respectful towards music history and stuff like that. i mean respectful and disrespectful at the same time.
buddyhead: i mean you go from “songs to fan…” to “shape” and it’s totally different. was there a transitional period in between? did you know how different you wanted “shape” to be?
kristofer: we wanted it to be really eclectic. i remember the moment we knew things had to change. it was the end of 96. it was like the last show of tour. we were supporting milencolin and it was really good. then the last 2 weeks we toured by ourselves with this funk/metal band called mindjive. it was like winter in germany and we were so miserable. everyone hated it. we like never wanted to be on tour again. we just had to do something different. then the first song we wrote was “new noise” it kind of went from there. nobody even liked it at first. i was kind of bummed cuz i wrote most of the song.
buddyhead: who did the programming on the record?
kristofer: the other guitar player, jon. he didn’t even really do much guitar playing on the album, he just did all that stuff. that is what he does full time nowadays. he is really, really talented. he was pretty good then, but he was just starting out. i mean he’s incredible now. he’s become a really great dj.
buddyhead: so nobody had any objections to him doing his thing on the record?
kristofer: no everybody was totally into it.
buddyhead: how did you mix those elements into the songs themselves?
kristofer: i remember he’d just hear space in the songs and be like, “we gotta put something in there” we were supposed to record the whole album in 3 weeks, but it took us 6. dennis took a lot of time because he couldn’t sing in time. we had to cut every single word with a computer and put it in time.
buddyhead: oh with like pro tools?
kristofer: yeah. like every single word was manipulated. it’s so common too. like every hardcore band does it that way. i mean dennis is a punk guy and just couldn’t deal with it. he was just all over the place.
buddyhead: haha. was there a backlash from like hardcore kids who didn’t think the band was very hardcore anymore?
kristofer: not really. that whole hardcore scene had kind of diminished anyway.
buddyhead: after you finished the album, how did the video come about?
kristofer: a friend of ours shot it. burning heart gave us like 15,000 dollars to do it. that’s kind of standard. it looks good. it’s cut with the music really well. it was shot on 16milimeter. it was just good because it captured how we were live.
buddyhead: where was it shot?
kristofer: at a big studio complex outside of stockholm where most of the major swedish movies are shot.
buddyhead: where did you get that wall of marshall stacks to put in the video?
kristofer: this one long haired guy owned all of them. one day of filming we were just screwing around running all over the place and i just tackled the marshall wall and it just fell apart. and there were heads on top of the cabinets too and i was just like “shit!”
buddyhead: hahahahaha. was it weird to you guys when epitaph bought 51 percent of burning heart so your record would basically be on epitaph?
kristofer: not really. i mean they were still an independent label. they run their shit right not like victory records or anything.
buddyhead: victory didn’t pay you guys or something for “songs to fan…”?
kristofer: not a fucking dime. fuck those bastards. tony brummel wanted to do “shape” as well. the rumor though was that he heard it and thought it sucked so he didn’t want to do it. but we wouldn’t have done it with them anyway.
buddyhead: what about equal vision? did they pay you for “everlasting”?
kristofer: not a penny. having a record on epitaph is such a relief in knowing that you’re atleast going to get paid what you deserve. i mean, we were just kids playing hardcore getting screwed up our ass.
buddyhead: how old are all you guys?
kristofer: well i’m not a kid anymore. i’m 25. dennis is 27. david is 24. jon is 22. that’s the thing with hardcore is it’s such a youth thing. we didn’t want to grow old playing this kind of stuff.
buddyhead: what bands did you like when you were younger that still are relevant to you today?
kristofer: born against is really good. anything that is provocative. i still like the misfits too…
buddyhead: so where was the last show?
kristofer: we played our last show in virginia in this kids basement.
buddyhead: where did everyone go after that last show?
kristofer: dennis went home to start another band in like 2 weeks. literally. i came here to work, well work is not the proper word, more like destroyed revelation records due to my complete incompetence. haha. me and david both actually. jon went home too. that was a fucked situation as well. jon went home and all his equipment was lost. we’re talkin like 3 thousand bucks of guitar equipment. and you know how the airlines pay you if they lose your stuff?
buddyhead: oh yeah, you get paid by the weight.
kristofer: yeah, and it didn’t weigh shit cuz it’s just like wood. so they gave him like 200 bucks. he could have had a bag of bricks and gotten more money.
buddyhead: ohhhhh man.
kristofer: yeah, then when he got home he got dumped by his girlfriend. haha.
buddyhead: so what did dennis start when he got back?
kristofer: he started 2 things. his solo thing with an acoustic guitar. he’s recording an album of that right now. then the international noise conspiracy which is kinda retro. they actually toured china.
buddyhead: i heard about that. so after you did the album you recorded a couple of songs for that 4 song e.p. right?
kristofer: yeah, one song was on the e.p. the other song was on a burning heart compilation. it’s the most ridiculous song you’ve ever heard. it’s an old leftover riff from “songs to fan…” hahaha. like a slayer rip off riff. it was really really bad. and the lyrics dennis wrote were about how everyone in the band started drinking. everyone but him that is. the lyrics were somewhere along the lines of, “this has turned into a one man crusade… blah blah blah”
buddyhead: so dennis still doesn’t drink or do anything?
kristofer: fuck no, he would never do that.
buddyhead: so there aren’t any other songs that were never released?
kristofer: we had this one song based on this depeche mode riff or something. it was the most abominable thing.
buddyhead: do you feel like you guys are missing out when people say how your last record is one of the most defining hardcore/punk records of the 90′s and you aren’t around to benefit from it’s success because the band is no more?
kristofer: no. i think it was the best thing that could happen. in reality, people don’t want you to continue. you should quit on top.
buddyhead: have you guys ever thought of getting it back together?
kristofer: yeah. with dennis i don’t know about. i don’t really talk to him anymore. i talk to the other guys, but not with dennis. we don’t really have anything in common.
buddyhead: so what are you up to lately?
kristofer: i’m just going to school out here and then i want to make movies. i’ll probably move back to sweden next year. i don’t like garden grove. it’s a cesspool. haha.
