Some may have doubted the longevity and the character of Swedish rising stars The Poodles, but the follow up to the hugely successful debut ‘Metal Will Stand Tall' proved all the doubters wrong. With ‘Sweet Trade' the band showcases a much harder edge with plenty of thunderous riffing melded with some melodic rock masterpieces. With ‘Seven Seas' already achieving gold record status, and the album itself riding high in the Swedish charts at number 8 at the time of writing, Dawn Irwin talked to lead vocalist, songwriter and charismatic frontman Jakob Samuel at the end of a long day of promotional interviews. Congratulations on the new album. How has it been received generally so far?

Generally the response seems to be up another level from the last one. It's not that the response for the last album wasn't great, but the new one is better. It's already in 8th place in the Swedish charts, and ‘Seven Seas' turned gold which is great. The next single ‘Streets of Fire' will be released in two weeks' time.

On ‘Metal Will Stand Tall' there were contributions from the great and the good on the Swedish rock scene. How did the creative process differ on ‘Sweet Trade'?

Since we came off the summer tour in 2006 I started writing immediately, then when we finished the Hammerfall tour in February 2007, I was consistently writing up until the end of June. We had so many songs for this one, so we were able to pick a lot of candy from the box. I think it shows on the album because we had the opportunity of picking songs that flowed well together, not just a collection of good individual songs. I'm really happy the way the album has turned out.

Now for the inevitable question – was there any pressure to make the second album after such a strong and successful debut?

I never gave it much thought at all because I was so up in the creative process and trying to get as many ideas as possible, recording things all the time just to make sure we didn't miss any part of the creative process so we could make a good choice in the end. It's been quite a friendly battle choosing the songs, because you have to kill off your darlings (laughs), but everybody is really happy with the result and it's a good base to move on from.

Who else was involved on the lyrics side of things for this album aside from Jonas Reingold?

Mats Leven wrote ‘Thunderball', but that was the only song that came in from outside. Otherwise I wrote and co-wrote all the lyrics. I got the chance to bring in a fantastic guy called Mats Berntoft who co-wrote ‘Walk the Line' and ‘Without You', two of my personal favourites on the album. Also I co-wrote ‘We Are One‘ with Thomas G-son. Jonas Reingold and I write very well together so we'll probably hook up for the next album as well.

Do the rest of the boys have any input into the writing of the music?

Oh yes, I wrote ‘Kiss Goodbye' and also ‘Band of Brothers' with Pontus Norgren and ‘Shine' with Pontus Egberg. We had 35 songs altogether and we had to pick 12.

Does the fact that there are a lot of songs left over suggest that the third album might not be too far away?

(laughs) Yes, that might be the case, but it all depends on the tour situation. If we do have the time maybe by the beginning of next year we might start some recording sessions, and we won't be too far away from the third album, but we had a lot of live work with ‘Metal Will Stand Tall' and ‘Sweet Trade' is no different. Actually, we've already written 7 or 8 songs for the third album, so it's going to be a lot of fun for that one too.

How did you decide on the album title?

Well, I had a full page of suggestions, and we brainstormed for two weeks about it, with nobody able to make up their minds. Then suddenly I came across Sweet Trade which is a nickname for piracy. When I found it, I just sent out an email to the guys that just said "the Poodles second album - Sweet Trade". Everybody just went "yes, perfect".

Did the rest of the guys understand the pirate reference?

Well, I have to admit I had to add that (laughs)

Are you all pirate fans or is this a case of good timing with the success of the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean' series of films?

Well, actually, I don't know anybody who is not a fan of those movies, but the thing was when I was reading all the stories about Blackbeard and other pirate myths, I came across a dictionary with pirate expressions, and that's how it came up. You find it on the second verse of ‘Seven Seas'. So I like it when something turns into a bigger meaning on the album as a whole.

Well, you certainly had me looking deep into it. The myths about Blackbeard are allegedly untrue, but they make great reading. What did you find was the meaning for 8 bells toll for me?

Well, as I understand it, 8 bells is the way you measure time on board. The 8 bells toll for me sort of represents death is coming for me. It's like the bell tolls for me, so it's a double meaning there. So when my eight bells toll it's my shift on board the ship, but it can also mean that my time is up. The way I meant it when I wrote it was my time is here now, so I have to do my best, I have to do whatever I can.

Tell us about the filming of the video for ‘Seven Seas'. It looks like you had a lot of fun doing it.

Oh, I have to tell you, the video recording for this album was the most unglamorous, exhausting thing we ever did. On ‘Seven Seas' it was do damned hot that all of us heard the 8 bells tolling for us (laughs). Then the recording of ‘Streets of Fire' was the complete opposite – it was so fucking cold. We were on one of the big bridges in Stockholm. We recorded in front of the bridge opening, so if you look carefully on the video you see the road lifting behind the drums. We were recording the whole night. We started at 6 o'clock in the evening and we ended up like half past 5 in the morning, and it was 4 degrees! We were all stripped to the waist and we were so cold. We shot for ten minutes then we had to let the bridge go down to let the traffic through, so we would do 2 takes, get warm, then have a break, put all the equipment aside to let the traffic through, then ten minutes later they raised the bridge and we would start again. It was crazy, but the result was excellent. We made the ‘Seven Seas' video in July or August in an old studio called the European Studio. They're closing it down, so it's cool that we did one of the last recordings ever to take place there. The set was a fantastic ship and behind it was a green screen so they could put the water and other ships in afterwards. Peter did his bit in a different studio with a green screen as well, but it meshed together perfectly. It's a fun video, almost like a cartoon.

It's a shame that MTV isn't showing as many decent rock videos these days....

Yes, and neither are the other channels, but the good thing is we have great material for our home page and for extras for new territories that we want to expand into. We can also play the videos on TV shows that we do in Sweden. We have done three or four big TV shows where they have shown the videos, so it's really cool.

What was it about Peter Stormare that inspired you to get him involved?

Well, when I wrote the song I was really looking for a dirtier element, someone with a character, and we discussed everything from an actor to an opera singer. I was more into a character voice than a good singer. Peter sounds totally right. He was in LA and we contacted his management. He heard the song, freaked out totally and said yes. He actually turned down a part in ‘Lost' to do our song. He is really well known in Sweden, and is such a big star here that everybody was amazed that he was doing it. I don't know if he's that well known elsewhere in Europe aside from Germany, but he's done ‘Fargo', ‘Jurassic Park', ‘Armageddon' and also ‘Prison Break'. He's one of Bergman's (production company) favourite actors in Hollywood. So it's kind of funny to have this really high credibility actor doing rock and roll, but he loves the music. We did some TV shows with him in the summer and recently we did one of the biggest radio stations in Stockholm, so it's been a very good thing and he's working on opening some doors for us in the States as well, so hopefully something will come out of that.

Any other tracks with interesting stories that you'd like to tell us about?

The first that comes to mind is ‘Walk the Line', which is a more serious song. I wrote it a couple of years ago, actually, as a first demo, then I re-wrote it together with Mats Berntoft. I love the string arrangements and the mood. It's about a good friend of mine who had a bad experience with drugs and had a really hard time for many years. I worked so hard to help him out, but it's totally impossible to help somebody unless they really want the help themselves. That song means a lot to me. It's got all the elements of good dramatic hard rock that I want. The subject matter is always around, even if you grew up in the 70's, 80's or 90''s. I can imagine that a lot of people can relate to that kind of thing. ‘Streets of Fire' is in a whole different dimension. It's such a kick for me, because it's about what this band is about and what happens when a band achieves what we did in one and a half years with everything happening so quickly. If you get the right people around you and the right band, the right songs, everything just clicks. It moves with such high speed that the energy that comes out of it is amazing. It reflects our lives so much, standing our ground, doing what we do, "this is my Streets of Fire and I fight to be free, the fire that's burning in me". It might be seen as a cliché, but it's a cliché for a reason, because even though it's got a simple riff, it's got such a strong impact. It's such a thin line between a very good riff and an average riff. If you just twist it a little bit it can turn out to be something new and fresh.

On the CD booklet, there is a subtitle under the main title of each song. This was also on the first album. Is there any particular reason why you add these?

It's one of the things that I really enjoy doing because it gives a personal hint from the person who wrote it without giving away what the song is about. It gives something more than just the lyrics, and I like to give a little bit more of another dimension to each song. It's like adding a personal twist to them. It's more personal when you read a lyric and you hear a good song and you see the title and you see the subtitle as well. I like the opportunity to work with the lyrics, such as double meanings in everything, seeing things in different ways and from many angles. With the subtitles, I hope I'm adding something rather than taking away from each song.

The design of the album is less "glam" this time round. Is this a sign that The Poodles are "turning the page" and looking to increase their credibility as a long-term outfit?

Deciding on an album cover always brings about many discussions. The record company said we had to have pictures on the front cover like the last one. I don't know how the promotion is done elsewhere in Europe, but in Sweden it comes with a great double sided poster for the wall. If you were to scan a wall of album covers, the ones with the logo only, or the ones in black and white or simple colours catch your eye more. An example of this is the first Motley Crue album which was black and white and red with the belt and the body of Nikki Sixx on the cover. It's not a bad picture, but you see it's a metal guy. The second Motley Crue album is only black with the logo and a pentagram, and then you open it up and it's totally crazy. We wanted to use a similar concept. If you look carefully on the album cover there's a coat of arms beneath the logo, with the dragons. Then you open the cover and there are really nice pictures and great artwork.

You must be looking forward to touring with Gotthard?

Yes, it's perfect for us. We think the audience is going to be in our pockets. For a while we weren't sure as it was off and on, then it had to be re-booked, but we did a show earlier this year outside of Sweden where we sold out of our merchandise in 15 minutes! So when we got back to Sweden we asked our management to make sure the Gotthard tour happened, because it would be a big thing for us. Unfortunately we can only do the German leg of the tour, because we can't be away from Sweden for too long because it's in our home country that we really earn our money, especially when the album is doing so well. So we need to be at home to continue to promote it as much as possible, and we have 15 shows in Sweden in November and December.

Has the unfortunate cancellation of Thunderground damaged the prospects for further UK dates?

No, not at all. We are looking at solutions to get back to the UK as soon as possible. I read a lot of discussions on notice boards about that show, and it's unfortunate, but shows get cancelled sometimes. There could be thousands of reasons for it. But we definitely want to come back, and the fact that I did 10 or 15 UK interviews in one day can only be a good thing. Maybe we'll get onto a bigger tour like last time, or maybe we'll come ourselves and play the clubs. There are a lot of discussions and negotiations going on at the moment for next year, so watch this space. Hopefully we'll have some good news soon.

You're on King Records in Japan. Have you visited the country yet?

That's another one of the main things I've talked about for 2008. We haven't planned anything as such, but they are planning to bring us over to do five or six shows and some promotion. I don't know how big the shows will be to begin with, but it'll be more like showcases for different promoters and stuff. (We digress and I tell him about fellow Eurovision rockers Wigwam who had massive success in Japan with the same record label, and visited twice in 2007)

Could you talk us through the nicknames for each member of the band on the website and what they mean? I'm guessing that Pompa is related to Pontus somehow?

(laughs) Well, Pompa is derived from the two police officers in Tintin. In Swedish it is Dupont and Dupond, so that fits well with Pontus. Pontus Norgren is also "Storkusinen" (big cousin) and Pontus Egberg is "Lillkusinen" (little cousin). The little cousin is the nice guy who is always dependable, but the big cousin is the one you always wanted to play with but you were always a little bit insecure because there was an element of excitement surrounding him. Kicken has always had that name, and it is his regular name nowadays. I think I am top of the league for nicknames, though, with Kapten Klanning.

Who is Kapten Klanning?

Well, in Swedish klanning means "dress" so it's Captain Dress. The story is that the other guys were hanging out on the beach one day and this kid who'd seen the Eurovision show came up to them and asked "why does your singer wear a dress?". I don't know if you saw the Eurovision performance but I used a kind of a Lenny Kravitz long creased coat and small kids thought it was a dress, so the other guys had a good laugh about that one, and that's how the nickname came about.

What can we expect from the Poodles in 2008?

Well, everything is to be discussed officially, because there are so many things we want to consider, but no matter what, we will be touring. On what tour and with whom, where and when it is very hard to know at the moment, but we really hope to get a schedule very soon, first because it would be nice to know, and secondly because I get so many questions about what is happening next year. We will take some time off in January because this year has been hectic, but apart from that we will be working really hard. We hope that it will be a big festival year for us, too.

Perhaps another appearance at Sweden Rock?

Well, it's not the top priority, but it's definitely a possibility. We had a great time year in 2006 even though they put us on a very small stage with a capacity of 600 people, rather than the big tent meant for 3,000. A lot of disappointed people wrote to our home page. There were lots of whole families who had made the trip, but they had no way of getting in because the area was overcrowded. Hopefully the promoter will realise we need a larger stage next time.

Do you have any final words for your UK fans?

We'd love to see you on tour, but if you can't come to see us, you can follow the tour on the website because we always blog on the home page as well as for the Swedish press. We also put video clips and pictures up there, too, and invite the fans at shows to send their clips and photos to us.

The Poodles are a class act – catch them some time in 2008. You won't regret it. Check out the website at www.poodles.se.