How was your European Tour?
Great! As usual a lot of nice people, some really good bands, beautiful views, insane jam session parties, one flat tire, a broken fuel pump, and memories for life. This tour was longer than other ones we had done, because we went to some countries we hadn’t played in before, and we were a bit worried that we would hate each other by the end of it but it all worked out really well.
What was the audience attendance like at the shows?
Generally very good, depending on the day of the week. The venues were also very different in size. From a small squat, where 20 people was the maximum capacity, to a free outdoor gig where the stage was six times bigger than that squat and with 200-300 people in the audience. Each one had its own charm.
Did you play mostly material from In Never Out at the shows?
We played songs from every release but, yes, mostly from In Never Out.
Before I start asking questions about the new album, I’m curious as to the song writing process the band partakes in.
Mattias has got this old tape recorder called “The Jennyrator”. Because we don’t all live in the same city and some of us don’t have the greatest memory, “Jenny” has always been the heart of pg.lost’s song writing. When we do get together we put her in the middle of the room then someone starts with a riff, a melody, a drumbeat and we just go from there. Sometimes it comes easy and a whole song forms in one take, or else we piece together parts recorded by “Jenny”. I guess any recording device would work but for us it wouldn’t be the same.
You’ve now had three consecutive annual releases. How do you consistently produce songs? What’s your songwriting process like?
We tend to make new songs in a short period of time and then we gradually shape them into what they become on record and live. They’re not necessarily the same live as on record, and we often come up with new things, small changes to songs we made a long time ago.
In regards to the releases, I’ve noticed that the last song on the album is always the longest. What goes into the ordering of your songs? Any particular reason why you save the longest song for the closer?
We’ve never picked the longest ones as the last on purpose. We have tried to order the songs to make a good mix of different impressions, emotions and I think we all like our records to end with something bombastic. It’s just a coincidence that we’ve found the longest songs to be the most bombastic.
In addition to this continuing trend in all your releases (the debut EP and the two albums) your opening tracks are always heavy, energetic, and loud. I’m sure the reason here is obvious, to engage 
and prepare the listener, but I was wondering if you have any particular reasons/explanations for this?
Yes, the reason is probably the obvious one. We usually go by our “gut feeling” and choose the one that feels best to have as an opening track. So far we’ve all agreed which ones would fit.
Now let’s move onto In Never Out. This was an important album for you guys - not only to put out yet another solid record, but to fully establish your sound and perhaps progress and refine it. How do you feel about the album in regards to establishing the "pg.lost sound.” How do you feel your sound has grown or changed over the years?
Yes, this one feels very important for us. I guess most albums do but we were much more pleased with the sound quality now. All our records have been recorded by us, with mainly Kristian behind the controls and some help from friends and people we think can contribute with some good perspective.
That’s important because when you work with it so intensely for a period of time, you always get a bit blind to what’s good and what’s shit. Sometimes an objective third party is almost imperative to work out the differences we might have regarding all the small details.
We think that you can feel what the pg.lost sound is, and we really hope other people can distinguish a pg.lost song from a song not made by us. The only big difference between the releases is the sound quality, because our way of making music together hasn’t changed since we started. Not saying that we try to make our songs sound alike, but there’s always something “pg.lost-ish” about them.
One big difference with In Never Out compared to the other releases is of course that we let someone else do the mix and master - someone we trusted would do a great job. That someone was Magnus Lindberg (Cult Of Luna, Khoma, The Perishers, Jeniferever, Switchblade etc.).
I feel, as many others do, that this album is the most cohesive of all the albums. Track by track, tonally, it is the most uniform of the releases. How did you go about achieving this? Did you approach this album differently from previous releases?
Everything up to the start of recording was pretty much made in the same manner as before, but we’ve become more comfortable with how recording together works. This time, we felt it was easier to find a red line throughout all the songs. We also tried to make the recording process more pleasant and borrowed a friend’s house to get a more relaxed feeling. Eating breakfast in the garden, record all day and then maybe invite some friends to have a few beers and just have fun.
In Never Out appears to take a darker tone compared to your other releases. Do you agree, and if so, why the tonal shift from previous releases?
As we mentioned before, it was easier to find a red line throughout the songs. They felt darker, more destructive and maybe not as hopeful as our other songs. This was not something we had planned, the s
ongs just turned out that way.
I’m not sure if people would interpret the dark feeling as anger but I think something has made us angry when we made the songs. It’s quite liberating to be really pissed sometimes.
I did my research and couldn’t come across a specific reasoning for the name pg.lost other than it came about because of a name change. Could you explain the origins?
Sorry for being such a bore but we’ve decided that the meaning for that lies in the eye of the beholder, or maybe in the ears of the “behearer” (there is no such word, is there? Haha!)
We say both pg.lost and page lost and we’ve had several people asking us if it stands for “penguin lost”. “Well, for you it could stand for that if you want”. To quote Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, when asked what her name is: “What do you want it to be” (or something like that). We kind of like the idea of everyone having their own interpretation but the origin comes from the twisted mind of Mattias, that’s all we can say.
What were some of your favorite musical releases of 2009?
Some of these we all like and some of them are more individual.
Alice In Chains – Black Gives Way To Blue
Dundertåget – Skaffa Ny Frisyr (www.myspace.com/dundertaget)
The Antlers - Hospice
Bon Iver - Blood Bank (EP)
Metric - Fantasies
Municipal Waste – Massive Aggressive
Converge – Axe To Fall
Night Fever – New Blood (www.myspace.com/nightfever69)
Jeniferever – Spring Tides
Mono – Hymn To The Immortal Wind
Russian Circles - Geneva
Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Tingsek – Restless Soul
Dream Theater - Black Clouds and Silver Linings
Meleeh – To Live And Die Alone (actually release 2010 but it’s our labelmates and we heard it in 2009, really good! www.myspace.com/meleeh )
And lastly, why is there so much good post-rock originating from Sweden? Is there something in the water over there?
There are post-rock steroids in the water over here! Or maybe all the kids growing up listening to all the great 90s hardcore bands here got tired of playing fast, I don’t know, you tell me! For us it’s a mystery...
The Silent Ballet would like to thank pg.lost for the interview.