Steve Cuden: On today’s StoryBeat…

Sulo Karlsson: Who am I if I’m not doing this, you know? It’s like, so much of your personality, it’s more than a profession. It’s like a lifestyle because you sacrifice so much. You put so much in, so you can’t really, you can’t leave it. 

Announcer: This is StoryBeat with Steve Cuden, a podcast for the creative mind. StoryBeat explores how masters of creativity develop and produce brilliant works that people everywhere love and admire. So join us as we discover how talented creators find success in the worlds of imagination and entertainment. Here now is your host, Steve Cuden. 

Steve Cuden: Thanks for joining us on StoryBeat. We’re coming to you from the Steel City, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

My guest today, Soren Sulo Karlsson, is mostly known as the front man of the Swedish Boogie Rockers, the Diamond Dogs, but he’s also known for being the singer of the UK Super Group The Crunch, featuring members from The Clash, Sham 69 and Cockney Rejects. Since the early 1990s, Sulo has been carrying the torch for early seventies soulful rock and roll, well-rooted in British history.

Through his career, he’s worked with artists such as Ian Hunter, Terry Reed, Robert Wyatt, Max Martin, Crystal Gale, Paul Young, Maria McKee, and more. Besides being one of Sweden’s most prolific singer songwriters, he’s also an author of a handful of books, including co-writing the autobiography of the former UEFA President Lennart Johansson, who was one of the most influential leaders of international football or soccer, as we call it in America.

Leonard Johansson was the brains behind the Champions League. He was also responsible for bringing England back into the European cups with his famous words, “England needs Europe, and Europe needs England.” I’ve read Sulo’s book, Lennart Johansson: A Mate Among Bigwigs and Trophies, and found it to be a fascinating study of the legendary international soccer leader’s life growing up as a poor boy from the outskirts of Stockholm, who had the unusual gift of being able to bring people together to work toward fair play in a game that includes everyone. I highly recommend Sulo’s terrific book to you. So for all those reasons and many more, I’m deeply honored to welcome to StoryBeat, the exceptionally multi-talented author and rock singer Soren Sulo Karlsson.

to StoryBeat today. Sulo, thanks so much for joining me. 

Sulo Karlsson: Thanks for having me. 

Steve Cuden: Oh, it is. Um, it’s a pleasure. It’s my great pleasure, believe me. So, let’s go back in time just a little bit. You, you’ve been singing and writing songs and books for a while now. When did your interest in music and writing begin?

At what age were you? 

Sulo Karlsson: Oh, I just, I just spoke about, we had a very chat about that for some other reason. It’s, um, my interest in music came from when I was six years old or so, five, six years old. Wow. ’cause the thing is, uh, when I was six years old, uh, I think my first single was Elvis, my boy from 1970.

Four maybe, or something like that. And don’t ask me why I bought it, but, you know, I thought it, it looked cool. But then I, then I had some, uh, what was the name of that TV show? Uh, happy Days. Remember that? Happy Days. 

Sulo Karlsson: Yeah. And, and Henry Winkler, he had a compilations coming out, uh, named F’S favorites.

Remember them? 

Steve Cuden: I do. 

Sulo Karlsson: Yeah. And I’ve got the first F’S favorites and, and, uh, it was like running beer and, and you know, shabby sheer and stuff like that. But I think the fourth track on the first compilation is rip it up with Little Richard. And when I heard that song, something started in me, it was like, this is, you know, this is what I wanna do.

And to close that circle this year in January. We released an album recorded a year before in January called Making Georgia Giant. We did a little Richard, uh, uh, tribute to Little Richard, uh, diamond Dogs, together with famous, legendary guitar player, UK guitar player, Chris Beding. 

Steve Cuden: Wow. 

Sulo Karlsson: The guy who discovered Sex Pistols and produced the first crem demos and everything.

So we did that. We did that album in 10 hours and then it mixed in four or five hours and it came out. We have massive, you know, great reviews from America and from England and from over the world, which is a bit dangerous to kind do Richard and, and then figured out it, it was actually the first Dear Richard full album tribute ever done.

So when, when the reviews started coming in, we got emails from something we thought was a commercial thing, but it was actually the Macon, Georgia, the city Macon, Georgia. They wanted to have contact with us. So they invited us to Macon, Georgia in um, April. So we went to Macon, Georgia in April, and we played a big, uh, amphitheater.

Uh, we met up with OTI Redding’s daughter and his, uh, wife. And we recorded at the Capricorn studio and the Richard’s, uh, cousining came there. Uh, and you know, we filmed everything. So that’s when I got the question, when, when did you discover Lil Rich? And I thought, you know, that was the, that’s what was my first love of music was Lil Rich and 

Steve Cuden: all the way back to the beginning of your career.

Sulo Karlsson: Yeah. 

Steve Cuden: Do you know, do you know who the bassist Susie Quatro is? 

Sulo Karlsson: Yeah. I actually traveled in a tour bus with her and Ian Hunter. 

Steve Cuden: So Susie’s been on this show twice. 

Sulo Karlsson: Oh, right, yeah, yeah. Talking 

Steve Cuden: about her music and her writing. ’cause she writes books too. 

Sulo Karlsson: Yeah, I know. Yeah. 

Steve Cuden: And in fact, she’s published by the same publishing house that you are under, which is New Haven Publishing.

And, uh, she was on Happy Days. Did you know that? No. Yeah, I didn’t know that. 

Sulo Karlsson: She, 

Steve Cuden: she played leather Tuscadero on Happy Days. Okay

Sulo Karlsson: now, I mean, when I met, when I, when I was traveling with, uh, it was just one, we did a big festival in Sweden and, and I was guesting with Ian Hunter doing all the young dudes and, and, uh, all the way from Memphis. And we picked up sushi Quare. At the airport. So with me, Ian, hunter, Suzy, Kurt and Steve Holy from Wings, you know, sitting at the table.

And it was a bit, it was strange for me, you know, it’s like all those, all those stars you see on the albums. I, I’ve toured a lot with Ian Hunter, but with, with Suzy, Kurt became, you know, it was almost over the top. It was fun. 

Steve Cuden: So, alright, so what point in your life did you start to sing? When did you figure out you were a performer?

Sulo Karlsson: This year in mid, you don’t celebrate Midsummer in America, but we celebrate midsummer and this midsummer. We, we played the biggest festival in Spain, uh, ASNA Festivals and on the, on the Midsummer Eve Diamond Dogs, together with Chris Bedding was headlining. We had John Fogarty just before us on the same stage and Wow.

And the day and the day after a band, great friends meet helicopters was headlining and they had manic street preachers just. And everyone was there. We, you know, we met with the dead candidates and Lucinda Williams and Margo Price and everything. But the thing is me and Bobba, who plays the keyboard in helicopters, we formed our first band when we met in school, when we were 16 years old.

It was, you know, it was a nice feeling to sit backstage. Me and him, you know, 40 years later and headline in this big festival when we started out in that basement when we were 16 years old in a small town in Sweden. So I would say when I was 16 that, that’s when we started to get manic about it. 

Steve Cuden: Did you know before that, that you had a voice that you could sing?

Sulo Karlsson: The thing is, you know, it is the thing with, with music. It’s the, you, you gotta have that passion for it. Sometimes they, they hire me to, they want me to have like classes talk, music classes to talk about how it is to be a professional musician. Everything I talks about is the passion. So it doesn’t matter if you have, if you think you have the voice, you, you gotta have the, the feeling that you this, we gonna make it, we are gonna do that, we gonna do this thing.

And that’s more important than any talent because if you don’t have that. Call it whatever you, you know, I’m gonna get there. It doesn’t matter how talented you are, but I think I was just convinced I was gonna sing and, and, but when we started writing songs, it was just such a joy. You know? It’s people who are religious and, and found, you know, found their way to God.

It was the same thing for me like. Fuck me, I can do this, you know, I can do it. And, and ever since then, you know, I have a procedure and, and it sounds a bit weird, but I actually write a song every day. 

Steve Cuden: Every day. 

Sulo Karlsson: Yeah. Because it, it’s a, it’s like training, you know, you gotta keep your fantasy going all the time.

And I jump between different genres. It could be country or jazz or punk, or glam rock. I need a challenge all the time. And then one song every day. And I’ve done that for. You know, 15, 20 years now. 

Steve Cuden: Wow, that’s impressive. You, do you write a whole song or just pieces of the song? 

Sulo Karlsson: A whole song with the lyrics and everything.

Steve Cuden: That’s amazing. I 

Sulo Karlsson: write it and I record it to, you know, easy record it to my phone or something, and then I send it to my publisher and he, he, he’s been a, um, he worked with Abba back in the day, but he said, this is just mad. He, you know, it comes to song every day. Sometimes my, my. My record so far was during the pandemic, when I probably was a bit, you know, bored and tired of everything.

I wrote seven songs a day. That’s my record. 

Steve Cuden: Seven songs a day. Yeah, so, so how long does it take you to write a song? It can’t be very long. Then 

Sulo Karlsson: the thing is, uh, it takes me. It depends. I have, I have a, I have the same procedure every morning. I walk my dogs, then I come up with a melody in my head. Uh, usually the first thing I need to have.

But I collect them. I collect titles. I’m a title freak. A good song can be a good song with a, you know, poor title, but a great song needs to have a great title. 

Steve Cuden: And that’s the hook. That’s your hook, right? Yeah, that’s, 

Sulo Karlsson: you gotta have a great title. And the thing is that that spoiled a lot of movies for me because you, you’re watching a movie and then you hear a line going.

Oh, wow, that’s a great title. Now I don’t listen anymore. Watch the movie. I just think about that title. But I have that title. I, I go for a walk and I come up with a melody and, and then I go back, uh, with the dogs, and then I take up my guitar and then I. Taken out a melody, and then I write down the lyrics.

And that’s the way he works for me because I work, I have a very famous Swedish author who’s done a lot of, you know, famous books and sold thousands of copies, and he’s very disciplined. You know, he, he writes down the whole story. He had some books, but he writes down by his hand the story before he writes it down.

And, and I said, because I’m the same When I’m writing books, I’m sitting down and I’m writing 10 pages. Just from out of nothing. That’s it. And then 10 pages next. So, so I said, is that common? No, he said, but that’s a wonderful gift to have to, to just be able to pour it out. 

Steve Cuden: But that is a marker of what you referred to a moment ago as passion.

You are a passionate writer. Yes. You’re writing songs and books and singing and performing, and all of it has to come from some part in your, in your makeup that’s very passionate. 

Sulo Karlsson: Yes, yes. And and, and it’s all about fantasy really. But I mean that, that, there’s a downside to it as well, because. On Saturday in Sweden, they have the Swedish Academy of Literature.

They have a, a big meeting in this, on this festival where I am right now. And they hired me to hold the speech, you know, for the board, for, you know, 

Steve Cuden: for the Are you the keynote speaker? Yeah, yeah. I’m the, 

Sulo Karlsson: and this guy who films for me now, he says. Have you written down anything I said? No, can’t do that. Uh, I never do that.

I’m just, I have to shoot from the hip. I have to take it from 

Steve Cuden: Wow. Wow. 

Sulo Karlsson: And I, that’s what I think I need the challenge, you know, I need that, that nerve thing that will this work, uh, you know, you can call it whatever you, you need to be, not nervous, but get that, you know, tense feeling. 

Steve Cuden: Have you ever gone out in front of a, a crowd like that and didn’t know what to say?

Sulo Karlsson: I always say something, but I, I never prepare anything. Uh, I always take it. That’s amazing. I never prepare. I mean, I worked as a, as a morning host on a, on a rock, classic rock station in Sweden, you know, for a couple of years. But it was hard to tour and do that because when you work between six and 10 in the mornings, I never prepared anything.

We just, you know, and, and I think. That’s also the kind of artist, you know, the entertainers like, uh, you know, Rob Stewart and Mick Jagger or Ray Davis, because back then in the sixties, you need to be able to entertain, even if it’s were 30 people or 30,000, you need to make them happy. And I like that old fashioned style of doing it.

Steve Cuden: Do you, when you’re performing, there are a lot of performers that have to forget about the fact that they’re in front of tens of thousands of people in a stadium. They have to think about performing for one person. Is that how you are? No, 

Sulo Karlsson: no. I love it. I take everything in When we play now with, with. In Spain, we had like 10, 15,000 people.

And so the band walks on. People are sharing, but I know they’re waiting for the big hell when I’m running in. And I love that people. And that that moment where when you run up the state to the microphone and you just take it in, you know that’s such a boost. That’s a boost. There’s no drug that can do that.

Steve Cuden: Well, there’s, there’s nothing like that roar of the crowd to get you going. 

Sulo Karlsson: Oh, no, I love that. I love that. 

Steve Cuden: I, I, I am not a rock and roll star, but I’ve been on stage a couple of times where I was in front of a lot of people and when that roar happens, it changes everything for that time. Yeah. It’s just, it’s, it’s amazing.

Sulo Karlsson: And, and, and I think it’s addictive. Uh, I mean. If you want to be in the, I mean, I’ve been doing this for 30 odd years now, and if you want to be in the business, you need to get, have that addiction to like, embrace that as much as you embrace traveling or, or, you know, someone asks me, aren’t you tired of traveling by bus?

No. I said, no, we’re professional bus travelers. We can, we can go, we can go for 11, you know, 11 hours straight and, and not, you know, you just enjoy it. 

Steve Cuden: When you’re not on the road, are, are you missing it? 

Sulo Karlsson: Sometimes. Uh, the thing is happening when you’re on the road is a strange thing that I think a lot of people would say the same.

That if you do like 12 or 15 gigs in, in a row and you do the three first gigs and it’s like, you know, in Spain you’re dripping of sweat. You’re doing two hours every night and you, and you try to, you know, shower four times and you sleep three hours and up again and in the bus. And the first two, three gigs are kind of hard.

Then they come to the fourth gig and you’re going, you walk into some kind of a cloud of, you know, you have your space, your place, you have your water bottle, you have everything, and you don’t have a clue what the first gig was. You know, it’s like, it just passes by and it’s, it’s strange, but it’s also a bit, you know, I like it.

Steve Cuden: You, you enjoy the road? 

Sulo Karlsson: I, I, I enjoy, I enjoy everything, everything that artistic, because it’s, it comes with a freedom, uh, it comes with freedom, uh, in, if you know what I mean by that? Freedom is like, like Ian Hunter told me once, I think, I think it’s a good thing. We played in Birmingham. We had an acoustic tour.

It was Steve, Holly, and him and some guitar player, and I, I had a guitar player and keyboard player and we did theaters around England. We played in, in Birmingham and uh, just before we was gonna walk up and it was, it was a so loud gig and it was sitting kind of close to the gi to the stage. And he said, Hey, Soula, have a look at what do you think about her?

And it was like a, a lady in her sixties or so sitting, you know, in front of the, what do you think about her? And I said, wow. Yeah. You know, I was kind of, you know, I was much younger. I said, yeah, well, no, she’s fine. Yeah. And he said, yeah, you know, if we keep on doing this too, we’ll be teenagers forever.

That’s the feeling. We’ll be teenagers forever. It’s that, you know, and that’s the thing with touring too, because you never stop. It’s like you kind of think, oh, people live in this house as they go to work, but we’ll leaving them tomorrow. 

Steve Cuden: Think about Mick, Mick Jagger and Paul McCartney still out there knocking out in the eighties.

Sulo Karlsson: Oh yeah. And I think, I think actually it’s about, they always talk about the money, but I think. The issue with those, it’s like they can’t stop At the moment, I’m writing a book about a very, very famous Swedish, it’s like the punk, the y rotten of Sweden. He’s played in, in industrial music, very dark and you know, and, and bringing like 16,000 people coming to see him in Stockholm everywhere.

And he’s never doing any interviews. He’s not doing any tv, any radio. He doing the book with me and the thing, and the thing with, he lives in Berlin, so I went down to him in Berlin. He had, he has his own little studio in the Hansa, in the, you know, legendary Hansa where Bowie and everyone hang out and he’s, he’s like, I think he’s 68 and said.

If I’m not gonna do this, who, who am I if I’m not doing this? You know, it’s like so much of your personality, it, it’s more than a profession. It’s like a lifestyle because you sacrificed so much, you put so much in, so you can’t really, you can’t leave it. 

Steve Cuden: So, so when you first started in the business and and formed the Diamond Dogs and you were working all that time, did you think back then you’d still be doing it decades later?

Sulo Karlsson: Oh, well, yeah. I mean the, the, the thing when we start with Diamond Dogs, because, you know, it’s, I had another band and then I, I was, someone put me together with a, with a guy to recording a, some demo. So I had a band. But when I met this guy in, in the, in his little studio, also in a basement somewhere. Uh, we kind of did everything, just me and him, because that was Max Martin.

Steve Cuden: That was Max Martin. 

Sulo Karlsson: Yeah. We did 10 songs. Wow. We did 10, 10 songs and, and, uh, just me and him, you know, I played the bass and he, you know, we played little bit everything. We building gospel choirs and stuff like that. And I got a record deal and that was the first time I thought, you know, this could, it sounds great.

You know, you know the first time when you do something and you feel like. I can do this. This is, you know, this is great. This is great songs. Uh, and of, I think that was actually the kick into, I’ll always do this because, uh, that’s what we do. And, and the funny thing with Max Martin is like. 18 years later, no, 15 years later, uh, I was working on a, on a solo album, and we needed some male backing vocals and we were sitting in the studio, we need some male backing vocals.

Do you know anyone? And we talked about, you know, yeah, I could call him and I said I could call Martin if you want to. And they went, okay. Yeah, so call Martin. And he answered that I wanted to do some backing vocal. I went, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m coming and I won’t pay you anything. And he came back. So, so he did, he did three tracks, uh, on that album.

So he’s just an amazing, he’s just a talent, so talented musician and producer and everything. 

Steve Cuden: Well, for the listeners who may not know, tell them a little of who Max Martin has produced. 

Sulo Karlsson: Well, max, well, he started out in something called, uh, um, uh, what was the name of the studio now? I can’t remember now.

But he started out with another famous Swedish producer called Dennis Pop. Sharon was the name of the studio, and he did some Swedish acts, but then he did Backstreet Boys and he did everything mm-hmm. With Britney Spears. And he did. Mm-hmm. Bon Jovi’s comeback. He did Brian Adams. When he c came back to see that, um, to do that back invos me.

I said to him, I haven’t heard about you for a while. Have you done anything? Well, you know, yeah, I did. Uh, Kelly Clarks on the, the US uh, idol winner said yes he did. And I said, was said, oh, would you turnaround, right? He said, well. It was the most played song in America, and it’s gigantic. I could, I could take the most played song in California.

That’s enough for me. 

Steve Cuden: That’s enough for you. You, you’d probably be happy with the most played song in Stockholm, right? Oh, yeah, 

Sulo Karlsson: yeah. Or this band where I’m sitting at at the moment now, uh, they play in Australia. You don’t really have, do you know Dog Sam? 

Steve Cuden: I do not. 

Sulo Karlsson: Um, is anybody going to San Antonio? Have you heard that song?

Oh, 

Steve Cuden: sure, of course. 

Sulo Karlsson: Yeah. It kind of a light country music style. Uh, we have a style in Sweden where people go and dance to, and that’s, that’s, that’s a big genre in Sweden, dance bands they call them. And I just, uh, figured out, I, I, I wrote the biggest dance span song ever in Sweden. Uh, because it, it streamed in Sweden 24 million times.

So it’s, uh, wow, 

Steve Cuden: that’s pretty good. So they, what is the difference in your world between what you did with the Diamond Dogs and what you did with the Crunch? Is it a totally different sound? 

Sulo Karlsson: I mean, the crunch was, was, um, the crunch started out of a book, a book that I did with a Swedish, um, journalist, music journalist.

We, we are really big fans of English football in Sweden, and, and he, he made a book called The Dream 11, but it wasn’t 11 best players of the English League. He was actually the 11 worst players of the English League. You know, the hard drinking, the, the rock and rolls like George Best, and, and you know, the people who were, they have all the stories.

So we met on a book fair and he said we should do the same thing but with music because he knew I had a lot of contact in England. So. We do that, we travel around, we do different portraits like you know, of all those. Different, you know, forgotten stars like that. And then you record a song with each and everyone.

And I thought, well, yeah, that’s the way it worked with me. They gave me, you know, I come up with an idea and then I just go for it. So three weeks later we were on the flight over to to London. And we then, then we did that book called Keep Yourself Alive, where we met, um, Steve Hackett. Uh, we met Tom Robinson.

Uh, Robert Wyatt and all those, you know, and I actually recorded a song with everyone as a soundtrack to the book. And during that book lounge, um, Terry Chimes and from The Clash, and Dave Trina from Champ six nine launched a new church and Mick came over. So we did. Uh, and that was actually the first time Terry chimes.

Played the drums for 20 years. So, uh, really we, we did, we did a couple of clash tracks and, uh, after that, Dave Trigan said we should form a band. And, uh, I said, do you think Terry wanna play? Yeah, I think I can see it in his eye. He’s back on it. And it was, uh, so, you know, like three months later we were recording in London at the Berry Street Studios.

And the big difference was that was my childhood, the punk thing, uh, the English punk scene. So. I had the opportunity to go back and write songs like they did back in 60, 76, 77, and I mean, diamond Dogs is probably more 7 19 72, but, um, 

Steve Cuden: well, diamond Dogs am I, am I correct that Diamond Dogs is less punk and the Crunch is more punk?

Sulo Karlsson: Well, diamond Dogs isn’t punk at all. I would say I think Diamond Dogs is, I mean, when, when we formed Diamond Dogs, it was probably, you know, the worst moment in music, uh, history to do that because it was in the beginning of the grunge era, you know, and, and I just discovered. The beauty of the early Rod Stewart stuff, which was completely wrong when, when the grunge was going, you know that of course when you mix, when you mix folk music with soul and Sam Cook with the, you know, uh, so we went full into that, all that early British, like, you know, rod Stewart, um.

Of course the Stones, but also Slade, the whole, you know, that thing, which is a mix between glam rock, boogie pub rock and everything. And so kind of far away from the crunch, because Crunch is more of a punk power pop group. And uh, so that was different. Yeah. But Diamond Dogs been doing the same thing for 30 years.

We’ve done 15 albums so far. 

Steve Cuden: Wow. And you, um, are very comfortable in all these different genres. Yeah. 

Sulo Karlsson: Yeah. Uh, I always take a challenge. As I said, I knew I was able to write good country first. I did the biggest country star we have in Sweden, uh, who actually had a, had a TV show in Nashville in the eighties, American TV show in Nashville that she broadcast.

Uh, and she was, she sold like 3.5 million albums in Sweden. She’s one of the biggest stores we have with like. And she’s also headline queen with the, you know, drink driving and blah, blah, blah. So when I met, talk about challenges when I met her on a TV show, she hadn’t done an album in, in 18 years. 

Steve Cuden: What’s her name?

Sulo Karlsson: Kiki Don son. Uh, and I got her back. So we did, now we’ve done six albums and we, we touring and I wrote the book about her life and that became a theater play. And then I, you know, when I did her and I could do the country that she liked, I thought I might have a go see if I can do it over the pond. And then when I send the song to Crystal Gail, and she said, yes, and Maria McKee said yes.

And, and, uh, Janice Ian said, let’s do it. And, and, you know, then they’re like, kind of, you know, I, I thought. I can write country songs, so, so I, I like to put a challenge. I’ve done some jazz songs for another girl. I didn’t know I could do that. 

Steve Cuden: Do you listen to lots and lots of different kinds of music all the time?

Yes. 

Sulo Karlsson: Yes. 

Steve Cuden: What do you, when you really are in a mood just to listen to something, do you have a particular genre that you prefer or do you just, it’s everything. 

Sulo Karlsson: I would say I’m, I’m very weak for those, uh, you know, one of, one of my great heroes died a couple of days ago. Terry Reid. 

Steve Cuden: Yes. 

Sulo Karlsson: Yeah, I recorded with him too.

Uh, in, in London, uh, I’m quite weak for, for that soul music from the, of course, the southern soul from the sixties and also the, the white u, you know, blue white soul from UK that tried, did their best to sound. As black as possible, but sound even more white. I kind of like that thing. So I like Rod Stu and Frankie Miller and Terry Reed and, and, uh, you know, Joe Cocker and, and I love Van Morrison.

Of course, van Morrison can save any, any night. Uh uh, so, so it’s, you know, all that stuff. That’s probably my favorite music. Then you have albums that you only listen to. You know, very specific time. Like, 

Steve Cuden: like, like what? 

Sulo Karlsson: Like London calling because if you put on London calling Clash, you have to listen to it all.

You can’t really listen to a song because it’s, it’s so good. Or a blonde on blonde with Bob Dylan or, uh, Exxon Main Street, you know. 

Steve Cuden: So I’ve, I’ve spoken to a huge number of people in the music business and you are very unusual because most of them, though they may have likes in different genres, you are very widespread.

You like it all. 

Sulo Karlsson: Yeah. Yeah. And, and during the pandemic, when I actually stopped watching, listening to the news, you know, before the pandemic, I kind of used to listen to the news in the morning. But then I, you know, I can’t listen to the news because he was so depressing. Everything I started to do, uh, breakfast with Chet Baker, I started to listen to Chet Baker, which was a much nicer way to start a today with Che Baker or that 

Steve Cuden: that’s as, that’s as much in the jazz genre as it gets Chet Baker.

Sulo Karlsson: Yeah. Oh, I love Chet Baker. 

Steve Cuden: So how do you think then this is what fascinates me. So you absorb all of this different kind of music. How does that then come out of you in, let’s say, something that you’re writing for The crunch? Does it, does it, does it inform your music in some way? 

Sulo Karlsson: I had this discussion with my, with a bass player in Diamond Dogs who played a lot of jazz in his early days, and he said, I love to hang out with freaks like you and, and, and, but because he said, no, don’t take it like that.

You’re a genius. He said, but you’re freak too because. You are writing songs in a very, you know, well known genre, like 

Announcer: mm-hmm. 

Sulo Karlsson: But you can’t, it’s, you don’t nick it, it just, you just color them the way they, that they colored them back then. 

Announcer: Right, right. 

Sulo Karlsson: And you do it when you do in the country, you call them the same way, but you can’t say, oh, this is.

This is a Tanya Truck. Truck or this is No, because you just call them and I can’t really explain that. You know, I love buying records. You know, I don’t have Spotify, uh, I never had Spotify, uh, because I love buying records, which is a, is a vi 

Steve Cuden: vinyl or CDs, 

Sulo Karlsson: I have to say. I’m a CD guy. I love because he’s such a great sound.

I kept a couple of those Sony Walkman CD players, you know, you know the ones they had before. You have a, a volume limiter 

Steve Cuden: with cassettes? 

Sulo Karlsson: No, no, no, no. With CD CDs. With CDs, 

Steve Cuden: got it. 

Sulo Karlsson: Yeah. And you can play really loud and you can bring it with you, but you know, sometimes when you sitting on a train and you have like, you know, in your bag, you have like a couple of seed and you put on it in it.

You feel like a, you know, a dinosaur when they’re looking at you. But, you know, I don’t care because I love, I, I love and I love digging down deep in, in every genre. So if I, I’m gonna step into the country music, you know, I, I dig down deep just to understand, okay, what, what was he they listening to when they wrote that song?

I shake up different, you know, songwriters, I end up really. Old stuff, uh, you probably haven’t heard about. Uh, and they read anything, everything about them, because I wanna hear the story about who, who they were playing with and, and, and you know, how they connected with different kind of things, you know?

Steve Cuden: So when you’re writing and you say you write all these songs every day when you are writing, do you feel like as many creative people do that the music and the writing and the words are coming through you from somewhere else? Yeah, 

Sulo Karlsson: I just put up the tap and I, and I hope that tap will keep on pouring, you know?

Well, 

Steve Cuden: yeah. 

Sulo Karlsson: You know it. I think I did, I think I two, three years when I did five albums. Not for me, but I wrote for other people. I’ve done five albums a year, which is strange. You’re doing five albums with stuff. 

Steve Cuden: That’s a lot of albums. 

Sulo Karlsson: Yeah. When we speak now I have the Little Richard album is out. Uh, I didn’t write about, I was singing on it.

And then I have two books coming, three books this year and, and it’s, uh, an album with this band, uh, in a, you know, in a couple of months just, and it’s, it’s kind of high profile stuff and I never think about it like that, but a lot of people just ask me all the time, how do you manage to, to do so much?

You know, how, how many hours do you have on. 

Steve Cuden: On the day. You, you’re, you’re, you’re what they call prolific. You’re just churning it out. So well, you, you bring up books. Let’s talk about the Leonard Johansson book for a moment because that’s, uh, yeah. You know something obviously that I read and very much enjoyed.

Have you always been a fan of football? 

Sulo Karlsson: Yes, I come from a football family, you know, everything was, was, uh, gathering around football. My dad, when he took a holiday, he went, if you went down, you know, with a caravan on a holiday, he pointed out different cities we can watch different kind of games every, so it’s been football all the way and, and, and it’s been a specific club.

If you, if you saw my phone now, you should see a blinking because we are just now meeting a team from Hungary and we have two Neil in half time. So it’s, I’m, I’m fine. Uh, it’s, it’s, it’s a club. It’s a club called I-K-A-I-K. 

Steve Cuden: That, that was, that was his team. Lennar Johansson’s team, was it? That was team. 

Sulo Karlsson: And this is one of the Sweden’s oldest teams from Stockholm.

And uh, I did, uh, what do you call it? I, I was, um. Conference, uh, on the ice hockey. 

Steve Cuden: An announcer? 

Sulo Karlsson: No, not announcer. I was doing the interviews with the players and, uh Oh, you 

Steve Cuden: were, you were interviewing people. Sure, 

Sulo Karlsson: yeah. I had to interview people on the VIP section, which, what a couple of hundred people. So I do the interviews with the players and the coaches and, and different, you know, people.

I did that and for a long time, like 10 years, uh, I did, when I had time, I was there doing the interviews and, um. Then I wrote another book for, for two famous football twins who playing on the same team. And, and I, I became a profile in, in, you know, a character in the club. So everyone knew me and, you know, and, and, uh, that’s why they, they called me and they said, do you want to have a meeting on, on the, in the big room?

Steve Cuden: Had you met Leonard Johansson before then? 

Sulo Karlsson: No. 

Steve Cuden: You’d never met him before. 

Sulo Karlsson: Never met him before. 

Steve Cuden: And at that point, was he sort of toward the end of his career? 

Sulo Karlsson: Yeah, but he, he was an honorary chairman of the club. Mm-hmm. Uh, and he was, uh, he was still doing, you know, he was still going to the, to the Champions League final and the, and the European final because he was such a big part of that for, for such a long time.

They, they wrote a book called The Dirty Game in the, uh, in the nineties, I think some guy called Jennings, I think it was English. And he called me actually when I did the Leonard Sison and said, Leonard is the only one who’s never been in in corruption. Uh, he never did. And, and then that’s made him so much bigger than the other one, even if it, if they just were, you know, people were thinking they’d probably do stuff.

But that’s what made him such a big. Person. And for a long time he was, he was the most well-known Swedish person outside Sweden in the world. Together with that. Uh, 

Steve Cuden: would you say that that’s what made him completely unique in the world of football is that he was not corrupt? 

Sulo Karlsson: Yeah, that’s true. 

Steve Cuden: So how did you get to start to work with him on the book?

Did they actually bring you in to work with him or did that just evolve. 

Sulo Karlsson: No, they did. They just, they brought me in and asked me, uh, if I want, if I could do the book, because, uh, they wanted to have the book to his 90th birthday, and this was in May and we have a, you know, spring, fall season. So it was in May and it was looking pretty good.

And this is typical IIK style to us, and I ask them. When you want the book done. And they said, well, what about when we take the championship? You know this? And I said, okay. Of course. 

Steve Cuden: And how long, and how long would that have been? A couple of months. 

Sulo Karlsson: Yeah. Yeah. Five months or something. Like four or five months.

And, and, and then they called the landlords in the room and, and, uh, and we, you know, decided to meet next Tuesday. And then it just took a couple of days. And then we, you know, we talked every day and it was just. He was just amazing. I mean, the nicest, the biggest thing for me about this book was after, you know, a month when he said to me, when we were sitting, listening to Frank Sinatra, we did that between the questions we were sitting, he wanted to have a gin and tonic.

Uh, so I fixed him with gin and tonic, and then he listened to Frank Sinatra. He knew all the lyrics, uh, so he could sing, and he taught me some lyrics too. And, and, um, and then he said, you know, the, be, you know, the best thing with this book. And I said, no. What’s that? It’s that we became mates. He said that’s the best thing.

Steve Cuden: Nice. 

Sulo Karlsson: So that, that was the, you know, he was such a warm and such a, and I never have had a VIP treatment like I had learned up because we had a, we had a game. He said we had a, you know. Do you want to join me on the game? Yeah, yeah, I can. Then they picked me up with a, you know, with a fancy taxi and we’re going out to this big, our big arena and you know, I’ve been there many times before, but this car went into the arena and all the way, all the way into a elevator and then straight up and straight out to a table that was like behind some.

Flowers from the other VIP sector. It was just, and, and, and we just sat down. It was a scotch on the table. Wow. It was just amazing. 

Steve Cuden: So, so you, did you spend most of your time interviewing him where you’d get information from him? Is that how it worked? 

Sulo Karlsson: We actually talked a lot about different, you know, uh, he was, I mean, he was, he was almost 19 years old, so he told me some amazing stories.

I mean, I, I remember when I, I had some fantastic four words. I, I was really proud of my four words because I talked about, uh, him and he was, uh. He went to the Olympics 1948 in London. You know, this is long before that you can actually know anything about anything. Sweden won. They won the Olympic games, and, and one of the players was his, the, the girl.

He was gonna marry his brother. 

Steve Cuden: Right. 

Sulo Karlsson: And then I, I thought it was amazing story. And I then I wrote this story, I, I think it was perfect. I wrote about Leonard Johnson, you know, in 1948 in London, the Olympics before that was 1936 in Berlin. And the most well-known suite back then was a guy called s Sw HaDin.

He was actually a Nazi. And I, I said the difference between Leonard, uh, and Van Heine couldn’t be bigger. I said, you know, I was really happy with that because he was just a man of the people and that was just, you know, something else. And then, then he said, when I, I read the whole forward for him. And he said, yeah, that’s good.

That’s good. He said, but you know, I was there and I said, what? I was there. What, what do you mean there? No. No. And I went, I thought, you know, I thought he was, you know, he was old. I thought, listen, no, no, it’s 1936. Leonard, you, you, you’re like six years old. Yeah, no. You know, my friend, I had a friend in school, he was name is Eric.

His mom was from Germany, and I joined him on holiday 1936. I went like, what? So we went down. And they, they said, we have the Olympics in town, you wanna watch. So he saw Jesse Owens, you know, win everything. And I went, like, my whole forward just went bust. And he said, and then I saw him standing there and I said, who?

Jesse Owens? No, Hitler. He said, 

Steve Cuden: Hitler. 

Sulo Karlsson: And that was like, wow. So he told me so many stories. I mean, he, he visited Frank Sinatra a couple of times. He was his Frank Sinatra’s home. It was just amazing stories, uh, of a time that you, it was, it was like watching a film. It was amazing. It was fun writing, fun work with him.

And it was so much knowledge. 

Steve Cuden: So did you do a lot of research beyond talking to him? 

Sulo Karlsson: I had, yeah. And I had a, I had a, a very good, uh, what do you call it? Uh. Guy that helped me, like a researcher. He’s like the, you call him the foot, the rain man on football, we call it. You know, which just like you can ask him like, you know, in 1974 that, you know, world Cup game against where Joe?

How many corners from the left? So he must be eight. I think if you don’t count that, you know, he is like that. So he helped me quite a lot. But you know, then I did, yeah, a lot of research. 

Steve Cuden: What was the most difficult part of doing that research? 

Sulo Karlsson: I think the most difficult part was to talk about the corruption thing and, and you know, um, you know, when, when you did it, you kind of figured out, oh yeah, it’s like, um, there was some corruption in the, what we called it, it called con ka.

It’s like the Central America. It’s like, uh. Cuba and, and, uh, you know, uh, Trinidad, Tobago and stuff like that. And, and someone, they, they spent a lot of money in that area building something for the kids, like, uh, athletic grounds and football grounds, but it, it was just money down, you know, they, they just was money laundering and, and then all, then I just figured out, oh, that’s why Sweden were.

Meeting Trinidad Tobago in the World Cup 1996, how the hell was Trinidad Tobago? How, how could they qualify for the World Cup? Everything made sense, you know, and, and, and, uh, that was probably the tricky part. Then we have a tricky part in Europe too, because in, in 1992, Leonard Jones made the European Championship.

They did it in Sweden, but at the same time, the war started in former Yugoslavia. And, and at that time, Yugoslavia, all those countries together called Yugoslavia. They probably had the best football team in the world. And when, when that happened, Nan, you know, the fm, he called Leonard to say, we can’t have him.

You can’t because it’s war. You know, they, we can’t, they can’t, you can’t be in the tournament. And, uh, Lena had to say to them that he, in, you know, that he couldn’t be in the, in the tournament. And that was became some bad blood from the creations and the Serbs and, and, uh, stuff like that. And Denmark got there.

And, and, and they thanked for that and won the whole European championship. And so that, that was the tricky part because that was, that was when he was shooting at him and stuff like that. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Which is very uncommon really. In in, in that, in Sweden or in Europe. Other, otherwise, 

Steve Cuden: well, he had a really huge life.

I mean, he lived not only all these experiences and all these parts of history, but his own life was quite crazy. His own personal life was quite 

Sulo Karlsson: crazy. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. He had a, he had a crazy life and he, he was. Uh, we talked a lot about it, and I think it’s the same thing with me. The thing that keeps you going is that you need to be curious all the time.

If you stop being curious what’s around the next corner, you might as well give up. You know, and he was curious. He was, he was still curious when he was 89, and unfortunately, he, he, he got sick and he died, uh, when he was eight, nine. And, and I sang at his funeral, uh, which probably the only time. I’ve been, I was so nervous.

I’ve never been so nervous in my whole life. I was singing, um, my way, uh, you know, of course, uh, Frank Sinatra in to, to a organ when there’s no beat in an organ. I had to put my feet on a shirt, you know, to keep the beat. And, and there was like thousand, thousand people. It’s like a, you know, huge funeral.

Everyone was there, the prime minister, the whole, everyone was there. And even, uh, pla that Mitchell Platini, the French football player that was actually, he was a fraud. He, he had a, he was corrupted. Uh, and so he came too. And he was just, he was, uh, he was amazing. I, I, I told, I was thinking about Leonard because he’s, I, I, I became a close friend to his family.

Asked me to sing and I said I couldn’t say no. You can’t really say no to that. But, and, and I tried to tell myself, if I can do this, I can do anything. That’s, if I can stand up and sing that you can do anything. So I did that with all the, you know, and my f my team, they, they were all there every pray They came up and lift it up, the coffin and everything.

And it was just, uh, you know, I can’t believe I did it. And then afterwards, Leonard told me before he, he went, he told me. You know, when I’m dead, when you, when you have the funeral for me, I don’t want you to sit around and have some coffee afterwards. I wanna have, I want to go with a bang. So we went to the big grand hotel, you know, next to the castle.

The 200 people closest to, you know. To him and to the club. And then we have the three, three main, you know, three dishes, like a full dinner, and then of course a free gin and tonic and champagne bar. 

Steve Cuden: So he, he wanted a, he wanted a joyous celebration, not a sad one. 

Sulo Karlsson: Yeah. Yeah, 

Steve Cuden: so let’s go back to the book for a second because I’m curious how you did it once you’ve, you spoke to him and interviewed him, and you got all those good stories, and then you did the research that you needed to do.

How did you start to write the book? Did you outline the book in advance or did you do what you do when you speak? Did you just start and go? 

Sulo Karlsson: I did just sort and go, I think, uh, 

Steve Cuden: the book is chronological, right? 

Sulo Karlsson: Yes. But also it, it’s also written in him as the first person. I hadn’t done that before, but when you do that, you kind of rush into the story and the story just come rushes you because that’s the actual person speaking.

Right. Which is amazing. That’s amazing. Reading this, this kind of, so I, I try to get, have that feeling all the time, uh, about, um. I mean, always when I write books, I see it like a movie you see in it on scenes, you know, you, you wanna, you see it like a script, how it happened and everything. And uh, do you know anything about boxing?

Steve Cuden: Do I know about boxing? Yeah. Little, little bit. 

Sulo Karlsson: They call him the lost white champ to Ingmar Hanon Ino. He won 1959 against 

Steve Cuden: I know, I know who Ing Ingmar Johansson was. Yeah. Yeah. 

Sulo Karlsson: And they, and they celebrated mid, some reve. That was just one of those, you know, like a film scene. They celebrated mid, some re on the outskirts of Stockholm in a, you know, in some garden.

They have a mid summary. Leonard and a couple other friends, and he was still active boxing and this, you, you kinda see it as a, as a film. Like, and when you having some drinks, what you do the snaps as you do at Midsummer and Leonard says, oh, shouldn’t we do some boxing and everyone? Wow. You think so? So he put up like a, some tape around, they made the squares.

You can box that. Le and, and Inger Ingo said, oh, you want to have a golden? Yeah, of course. Yeah. So he went, went in and he told, when he told me, he was like, he like just a lovely little film scene. And then he said to, to Lena, here you go, goodnight. He said he just knocked him on the cheek and he went over.

And he’s just, that, that’s, and that’s, you know, that’s how I saw the book all the time. It was because it was like memories, like, like a film from a long time ago. And, um. It’s biographies when you’re writing a biography. I remember Terry Schein for The Clash. He said, don’t read the Keith Rich’s biography.

I’ve been bloody reading 150 pages and he’s still six years old. And that’s, I wanted to make it like a, like a story, like you could film it. 

Steve Cuden: Well, I was gonna say, I, it felt like it could be adapted into a movie of some kind. Yeah. Yeah. Have you tried to get that done? Is that something you’re working on?

Sulo Karlsson: We have, we have talked about it and, uh, uh, I think it would work very well. And, and, um, 

Steve Cuden: so now a, a screenwriter. Sulo may come in and say to you, you know what, we’re not gonna, we’re not gonna make this chronological, we’re gonna bounce back and forth in time and we’re gonna start with, I’m just making this up, of course, but we’re gonna start with Leonard on the, on his deathbed and think and remembering back to his life, and then you bounce back and forth in time.

That’s one way to think about it. 

Sulo Karlsson: I would love that. That’s the way I, you know, that, that’s actually how I wrote the book from the start. When I did the first 10 chapters, I was like. It was now, you know, this is now. He talks about it now. Then we jump back to, to memory. Right. Then we back to now, and then we back to memory.

So that’s how I wrote it. So you can actually say, I, I wrote it as a, as a script in, in that way. Really. 

Steve Cuden: Mm-hmm. About how long did it take you overall to write the book once you started? 

Sulo Karlsson: The thing was I started in May. We had a game home in early, in late October. That was actually the game where we could have secured the champion, so it was like 50,000 people.

It was a big, you know, tifo, it was a big tifa with Leonard Johnson. It was all set for amazing. For my book too. He is like, this is amazing. We have a fu uh, because, you know, he name that he, there’s his name on the trophy, you know, the, you, you, you win the Leonard on trophy, that’s the thing, right? But we didn’t manage to win, to withdraw that game.

And I was like, no. So I went home, uh, and I’m a bit superstitious when it comes to football, so I went home and I was really disappointed and Leonard called me and said. You want to come down to down south in Cima, Sweden, where was the last game? We are gonna win it down there. He said to me, and I said, no, I can’t do it.

But because I was so nervous to go down there and, and I’m a bad loser to go there and lose it and don’t win, you know, that would be horrible. I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t, I didn’t wanna be there. So I stayed, I stayed in the room writing on the book as the game went on, on my phone. So I watched it on the phone, writing on the book, and, uh.

Then we won. And it was just a relief. Uh, it was a perfect, it was perfect me, and I was done with the book. So I hold, I hold, uh, with the agreements. 

Steve Cuden: All right. So you have spent most of your career in collaboration with other people, either artists or someone like Leonard. You obviously do a lot of writing on your own, but you also spend a lot of time in collaboration.

What makes a good collaboration work? How does it make it successful? 

Sulo Karlsson: If you’re writing songs with people, you can write, I, I wrote some songs with Randy Beckman from Beckman Turner, RAF it was great. We did, you know, we did three songs in a day and we, we, we threw, threw some lines back and forth and some riffs and stuff like that.

I think you need to fill in something that the other one won’t think about. You need to give each other stuff all the time and, and of course in the end, learned from each other. That’s why I kind of, I love to work with older people because. You can learn so much about, they’ve done so many things, you can, I love that.

To pick up those skills they had back in how they were thinking and how you, so I, I think it’s, um, you need to come in with an open mind, but. It doesn’t always work. That’s, that’s a, you know, you probably have that a lot probably in America too. They have like songwriting teams where they’re writing for some, you know.

Oh, sure. So, yeah, of course. And you see it with some people and, and half of them can’t even take a chord of guitar. They just, you know, and that, that won’t work for me. I was, I once was invited for this eurovision, you know, you pick 10 songwriters to write. I didn’t know it was all about that. Uh, it was just, this is not me.

I thought, you know, so I, faith, I had a, had a appointment at the dentist, I left.

Steve Cuden: So the important part then is, is to, to find partners or collaborators that feed off of you and you feed off of them. 

Sulo Karlsson: Yeah. And, and, and to have an open mind. Because if, if you work with someone that, that says, oh, it’s got to be this way, it’s gotta be, you know, for me it’s like. If 

Steve Cuden: that won’t work, 

Sulo Karlsson: nothing’s got to be anything.

You know, be doing what was gonna be the best. But that’s why I always, I love to work with producers because I believe that producers are adding, adding stuff that I wouldn’t do myself. 

Steve Cuden: They are adding what touches flourishes of ways to look at things. Thoughts, 

Sulo Karlsson: thoughts and plants. You know, like, uh, you know, they say, let’s skip that thing and do like this, or, you know, take it down there or add the accord, you know, color the cord and put a mine or you know, where it was, a major.

Stuff like that, you know, little pieces and stuff that I, I, I have a full confidence that, you know, I would love to work with Rick Rubin. 

Steve Cuden: Have you read his book on creativity? No, 

Sulo Karlsson: I haven’t done that. That, oh, 

Steve Cuden: I highly urge you to get Rick Rubin’s book on creativity. It is astonishing. I’ve read it twice already.

Yeah. I feel like I need to read it a third time. It’s like a total revelation. 

Sulo Karlsson: I made a big gig with the cult, the English Span, the cult, uh mm-hmm. We, we, we shared a football arena in Spain, in Benor, uh, in front of 12,000 people. We did like a double bill, 90 minutes each. And we, and I spoke to Ian Opr about, about Rick Rubin, and, and he said when he, when he did that electric album and they wanted to do all those gothic, you know, flang guitars and all those choruses and everything, and he said, are you a rock and roll band or where are you?

We’re Rock and Ruben and took everything away. He was over dry. Like, now 

Steve Cuden: you’re rock and roll. Well, the amazing thing about Rick Rubin, a allegedly, is that he really isn’t a musician at all. No, no, no. He’s just a guy that, he’s a psychologist. He gets people to do their best work. 

Sulo Karlsson: We have actually have our own Rick in Sweden.

He was, he became the biggest. Death metal producer. 

Steve Cuden: Okay. 

Sulo Karlsson: I don’t know if you heard about Entuned or Dismember or you know, it’s 

Steve Cuden: no 

Sulo Karlsson: huge bands in, and they did American bands. They were flying in to, to work with him. I named him the Swedish recruitment because very strange. He never. Himself been into death Metal because he is been into, he loves the Beatles and David Bowie.

So everything he records when he says, you know, he, he, he can record a, a death metal bound, you know, grinding and growling. And then he says, says to them. You need to think a little bit more like, you know, in the White album, have you heard a white album? And he go like, what? He’s, I remember he, he, he played something for me.

It’s called, I think it’s called Noise Core. It’s like, it was like 40 seconds it sounded like. Then it just stopped and, and looked at me and said. It’s a little bit blues, don’t you think? A little 

Steve Cuden: bit blues. And 

Sulo Karlsson: I think, I think that’s recruiting too. He see, he listen, he hears stuff and he sees stuff that, you know, that we don’t see.

Steve Cuden: They are psychologists. They get people to think differently, and by doing that they become their, their better selves. And so, yeah. It’s fascinating when someone is like that. Yeah. Well, I’ve been having just the most marvelous conversation for an hour now with, uh, Sulo Karlsson. And he’s in Sweden. I’m still in Pittsburgh.

Uh, and we’re going to wind the show down a little bit, and I’m wondering, in all of your experiences beyond the great stories you’ve already told us, can you share with us a story that’s either weird, quirky, offbeat strange, or just plain funny. 

Sulo Karlsson: I, I would pick, I have, have many, uh, I would probably put ’em in a book later on, but, uh, you know, there’s, there’s so many. I had the opportunity during my career to meet and, and work with, and play with many of my idols, like, as I said, Ian, hunter and Nazareth. Uh, the damned, you know, we toured a lot with Hunter Rocks and, and sometimes I also had the opportunity or the bad. Bad timing to not see who, who people are.

I remember we played in London once we had, it was a great gig, and then we was like a party afterwards and, and we had, um, Dan Bird from yo satellites and, and um, uh, was his name from flaming Chris Wilson, flaming groovy, joining us on stage. I was, you know, I was on a high and then the kid walked in. A man that actually I thought he was, he was working in the.

You know, working, taking care of the clothes in, in the wardrobe. I thought he was working there. So he came in and he had a really, you know, nice English accent. He said, oh, thank you for a lovely evening and rock and roll, and Oh, thank you. And I was like, you know, I didn’t push him away. It was like this, well, you know, I’m hanging with Chris Wilson.

I was like, but Dan Bird and Chris Wilson went like, oh, so I think you should say hello to, I said, well, you know him. He works. You know, I was like that, you know. And then it, it was John Paul Jones on that s and and and I thought, fuck me, you know, oh, I can’t do, you know, I won’t do that again. And then it happened again.

Then it happened again. Then we played at the Cocoa At the cocoa, you know, the Camden Palace in, uh, in London. We had this, yeah, it was a book, no film lounge for Joe’s drama film called I Need a Dodge. So it was like pretenders and ruts and, and saints and, you know, we did the crunch, we did some clash songs with the crunch.

It was Don Lets, it was everyone was there. It was like I was living my childhood dream and there was a nice old man in the dressing room, you know, pouring tea and saying, you know, I want a cup of tea. Oh, thank you. He was really nice. So I, I was completely convinced that he worked, he took care of us, you know.

He was the guy who took care of the dressing room. And then I, we walked back and forth all the time, jumped in. It was double drummers, you know, it was just a great team. And I walked in and he was like standing in a suit with his back against me and I, and he had like Cuban high heels. I thought, Jesus, what’s he doing?

You know? And then he had these old guitar case, he opened the guitar case and they put up the guitar and I, and I said, oh. And I said, you know, I wanted see him to notice me. So I like, okay. So then he turned around. He was the American flag and he said, what’s my turn now? So he walked down on stage. He said, it’s time to testify.

It’s a kick out. The jams motherfuckers. He was Wayne Kramer. I thought he was taking care of the dressing room. 

Steve Cuden: That’s hilarious. He was just being a cordial, nice person. 

Sulo Karlsson: Yeah. Yeah, of course. 

Steve Cuden: So, so you have to be careful who you’re talking to backstage then, don’t you? So, alright, last question for you today, Sulo.

Um, you’ve shared with us pretty significant number of bits of advice throughout this whole show, but I’m wondering if you have a single solid piece of advice or a tip that you give to those who come up to you and say, you know, how do I get into the business or how do I get to the next level in the business?

Sulo Karlsson: I usually say, well, as I said before, it is the passion, but keep on being curious and believe in it, you know? And sometimes, uh, I say the truth is you can, you have to spend those 10,000 hours first, and, uh, you have to be comfortable doing all those, you know, there’s a lot of downs before it comes, the ups.

But if you, if you can do that, if, if you can manage that, you still have the passion, you’re still curious, you still have the. Spirit, then it’s a tiny little chance. Just grab it. 

Steve Cuden: I think that is exceptional advice. You’ve got to put the time in to make it happen. Yeah. It’s not just gonna happen just because you feel like it.

No. You have to do the work. Yeah. And clearly you are a hard worker. You’ve worked your whole career. Yeah. And you continue to work. And that’s what it takes. The people who succeed and continue to succeed. Don’t stop working at it. You have to. No, that’s what professionals do. Sulo Karlsson, this has been an absolutely wonderful hour on StoryBeat, and I can’t thank you enough for your time, your great energy, and all of your wisdom.

I greatly appreciate your being on the show with me. 

Sulo Karlsson: Thank you for having me. 

Steve Cuden: And so we’ve come to the end of today’s StoryBeat. If you like this episode, won’t you please take a moment to give us a comment, rating, or review on whatever app or platform you are listening to. Your support helps us bring more great story beat episodes to you.

StoryBeat is available on all major podcast apps and platforms, including Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, iHeartRadio, tune in and many others. Until next time, I’m Steve Cuden and may all your stories be unforgettable.