REVOLUTION DAILY

Millencolin turns 20 next year. That must be an unbelievable feeling. Looking back at the artwork you made for the first demo tape, with the dude on the skateboard wearing Vans and the yellow bird in the corner, do you find it strange how that cassette-cover can now be seen as something of a sign of things to come?

Yeah, kind of unbelievable! I still feel pretty much exactly as the same person so it’s kind of weird that time passes by so quickly. We still got the bird, wearing Vans and skate every now and then, so yeah I’ve must had a psychic moment there back in 92! Or I set up a goal for the future which we kind of reached and beyond.

As a young artist starting out, who inspired you?

At first my mother who is a great painter and creative person. Then I got into graffiti and hip hop at a pretty early age. I also started skateboarding around this time and ever since then I think skateboard graphics and art have been the most influential for me.

Do you have any formal training in graphics or art?

I took some special art classes in high school, but that’s pretty much it. Since I’ve been touring with Millencolin since -94 there haven’t been much time for any further education. But I’ve done all our artwork and been surrounded by creative people so I guess I’ve picked up a thing or two in the field.

Would it be safe to say that without skateboarding, there would not have been Millencolin?

Absolutely. We played punk rock in other bands at the time and sang in Swedish. But if it hadn’t been for the Californian punk rock in the skateboard videos we watched 1000 times each, we wouldn’t have started Millencolin. The biggest influence was the H-Street videos “Hokus Pokus” and especially the “This is not the new H-Street video” where we first heard Operation Ivy. The part where Matt Hensley skates to “Knowledge” is one of the best video parts of all time.

How often do you still get out for a skate?

I skate every once in a while in my backyard ramp. I got two big dogs that goes nuts when they see a skateboard so they kind of mess with my skateboarding. I let the oldest one chase me around in our skatepark when he was a pup. Kind of regret that cause now I need to lock them up before I skate. I prefer to skate street though, but the friends I grew up skating with pretty much all moved to Stockholm or don’t skate any more. I don’t really go out street skating on my own or with the younger semi-pros of Örebro these days. Great guys, but I just get annoyed by not pulling off all the tricks I used to!

Photo by Rickard Ström.

Over the years, the other three members of Millencolin have all started or become involved with side projects. You have created artwork for a lot of these projects. Is it strange working with Nicola or Mathias on projects for their own bands?

Not at all. It’s really great that everybody got projects on their own. I think we would feel really stuck creatively if we just focused on Millencolin 100% of the time. By doing other stuff we bring in new influences to Millencolin as well.

Can you tell us a little bit more about your company, Eckhouse Design?

I’ve pretty much always new that this is what I will be working with and been able to combine it perfectly with the band. I’ve done a lot of graphics for other bands and companies over the years. But to make it a little bit more serious for me and to be able to invoice correctly, I registered an official company, Aktiebolag, as it’s called in Sweden.

I had no idea what to call the company, but then Mathias remembered that I once called myself Eckhouse Design back in the early days for a couple of gig posters I made. The name comes from the actor of the tv show 90210, James Eckhouse, who played the dad for Brandon and Brenda. Idiotic internal joke story which is too boring to explain, but I’m sometimes called Ekan by friends and that’s pretty close to Eck-house. Let’s leave it to that.

I try to work with all sorts of design, but I guess illustrations and logotypes is what I do the most. I also shoot a lot of photography these days which I really like. I’m about to start the making of a new Millencolin film right now. I’ve edited a bit video over the years. Kind of learned how to animate and edit with computer software with the Millencolin & the Hi-8 Adventures movie back in -99.

This was before DV. It’s been a while now so it kind of feels like learning it all over again. Looking forward to this! It’s going to be a movie about the Pennybridge Pioneers recording in Hollywood and the 10 year anniversary tour of that we just finished. It’s going to be released as a DVD together with a new b-side compilation which will be out spring next year (2012) on Epitaph.

We will also record a couple of new songs for that record around Christmas. I’ve got a terribly old and not updated web site: www.eckhousedesign.com. Learning to design with css and php in WordPress is almost on top of my to do list.

Your hometown, Orebro, plays a big role in both your music and work. Are you paying homage to your roots with your work?

Not really. American skateboard companies and bands used their cities name and what area they came from a lot in their artwork in the mid nineties. We toured the States a lot during these years and we thought it wool be kind of funny to use our mid size Swedish city which no one over there heard of over there on our stuff. We got used to it and now it’s a big part of the band. It’s kind of cool too hear about all the people who visited our hometown just because of that!

The artwork from Millencolin records, especially the last 3, translated really well into skateboard graphics. Do you keep this in mind when creating the artwork?

Yeah, like always. I guess I’ve been working more with paths and vectors since the Home From Home album than before.

Your lettering work has a great sense of flow and hand-crafted feel to it. Do you still believe in starting out with pencil and paper for certain projects?

I pretty much always start with pencil and paper. Scan into Photoshop where i set the proportions right, then finally draw paths over that image in Illustrator. Recently I’ve started to draw more from scratch in Photoshop with my Wacom pen, but there is something special about pencil drawing though.

What is your view on the future of physical products in this digital age of downloads?

Good question. I definitely design more stuff where a 72ppi image is enough as final product, but there will always be merchandise, posters and so on even though we might see the physical record covers disappear sometime soon.

I really like physical record covers. It’s sad to see music products just turn into a digital jpeg or PDF. I like it where there are some smart graphic thought throughout the whole product. I honestly can’t think of one specific right now. Movie posters and different illustrations often inspire me more to make album artwork than other record covers.

What has been the proudest moment of your career as a designer?

Really hard to answer? Designing my first skate deck maybe? Which I did in a kind of boring way, by just using our logo for a Millencolin deck. This was also almost a feeling of designing my own pro model which of course was a dream when i grow up skating. This was before all the blanks and thousands of smaller skateboard companies. Our first signature Vans shoe was cool to design too.

You can check out Erik’s company, Eckhouse design’s, site out over here, follow them on Facebook here and on Twitter here, and of course check out the Millencolin site over here.