Rude Roots: William

Hey, I should thank you for this platform. My name is William, and I prefer people to call me that. I’m fine, thanks. I’m a little tired, though, but that’s part of being human, I guess. Haha!

Life is pretty good. I live with my future wife and our dog in a small town one hour west of Stockholm. I plan to quit my terrible job and start studying so that I can get a better job in the future. It will also give me time to take care of my mental health, pursue my hobbies, and spend time with friends and family.

Well, my childhood wasn’t the best. There was a lot of violence from my stepdad until my mother finally left him. In my early teenage years, I was pretty angry, I felt that the world was guilty of giving me the childhood I never had. I started to hang out with the wrong people and mostly lived on the streets. Eventually, my mom contacted social services to take care of me, which made me even angrier. I felt that my mom had betrayed me, and then I was forced to move to a foster family.

I met my girlfriend, who is the love of my life, and things started to go the right way. But at the same time, I had so many emotions and thoughts from all the violence, so I started to use drugs, and my girlfriend left me. I understand her; I was an idiot in those days. I could write about my childhood all night, but I don’t think anyone would like to read all that. Much has happened, and every day I work to be able to forgive myself for who I was back then. Almost 10 years have passed since, and now I’m an adult. I’ve a good relation with my parents and brothers, I’m back together with the same girl I always loved, and I try to do everything needed to be good for her.

I work, work, work, and even more work. But don’t let me talk about that; I hate that place. When I have time, I usually play with my band, Bella Sparks, or just hang out with my family or friends. When I have the time and inspiration, I like to draw and paint. In September this year, I have an art exhibition.

When I was kind of living on the streets, I saw people with coloured hair, jackets with studs, and listening to angry music, and I just felt I wanted to be part of that. I felt a big connection to it in some mysterious way. I told my mom about the music I’d heard, and she told me that she had been a punk when she was young. She showed me a band called Ebba Grön, an old Swedish punk band, and then I decided to dig deeper into the punk scene.

I think people would call me punk. I mean, I live punk, play in a kind of punk band, listen to every kind of punk music. But I don’t care actually. Call me whatever!

As long as you are yourself, you can be anything. In my experience, there are those guys who think you need to have at least a hundred studs on your jacket and listen to specific music to be a real punk. Fuck those guys; they are posers telling you what punk is. Punk isn’t a fashion or one kind of music. Punk is so much more. For me, punk is being myself and feeling free to do what I want.

I’m not sure, and I don’t care to be a part of something now days. It feels good just to have friends with similar tastes and opinions.

I’ve always been interested in making music, and I have played in other bands before. We know each other from different ways, but I felt I needed a band where I could express all my thoughts and emotions. I write a lot about my past, and it’s nice to do something creative with it with people who accept me for who I am! So, I started Bella Sparks.

It has been a bit stagnant lately because of work, and it’s hard to match everyone’s schedules. But we have started talking about doing something before the summer ends.

Well, when I quit my job, I will have a lot more time to play and plan. I just want to play right now, and maybe make a record later.

It feels like it comes new bands every day, but sadly they disappear just as quickly. In my hometown there was alot of band around 2010-2015 and gigs every weekends. It’s seems to go up and down and depends where you live. I talk with friends I little bit north and they have alot of shows and bands. Sometime i see some alternative kid, it’s make me think the scene isn’t over yet.

Ofcourse it is, nothing is perfect. Like I said, there’s people who think they can decide whats ringt and wrong. I think the biggest enemy in the scene are those kind of people who think they have the right to think they are better just because they have been in the scene longer and don’t accept the fact that everything change. There’s is a new generation starting and some people don’t like it.

That punk means drinking beer and being a shitty person, and skins usually been mistaken for being nazis.

Hm, good question. As a punk band, you often have to do everything yourself. look for gigs, bookings, sometimes even arrange everything.

Oh god.. Allright then. We have what we call Sverigedemokraterna, (Swedish Democrats), a nationalist, socially conservative, and right-wing populist political party in Sweden. The party describes itself as socially conservative with a fundamental nationalist view. Then we have their sympathizers.. A bunch of neonazis, and organisations like Alternativ För Sverige, Nordfront and Svenskarnas Parti. I recommend to watch Vice Teenage Riots In Sweden, a documentary about 1h of May wich is a day there’s many people demonstrating for humans rights in Sweden.

I really love Fred Perry and old sport brands like Champion, Nike and Adidas. I don’t know why really, I maybe just wanna look like a 90s kid.

Oh, it’s hard to chose just one. I like all my clothes. I got inspired by postpunk / indierock fashion. It’s everything between shirts and black suit pants to hoodies and blue ripped jeans!

I hope they think I look friendly, but what do I know. I often got compliments because of my tattoos, and many says that I look unique in the way I dress.

Joy Division, Ice Age, Holograms, Svart Katt, Västerbron. Then I really like the Swedish artist Robert Hurula.

I wish for living a long and happy life with my wife and maybe getting kids. My goal right now is to study so I can get the job that I want.

Trust yourself and don’t let anyone bring you down for who you are, or what you are!

Keep do what you’re doing! Thanks for reading!