Additional Information
Volcanic sax player, band leader, composer, improviser, performer, Mats Gustafsson is a regular at FIMAV and on Quebec’s avant-garde stages. FIRE! has already performed in trio form, but with a full orchestra for the first time. To overcome the financial impossibility of touring a large ensemble, FIRE! Orchestra developed the Community Based Activities (CBA) formula, inviting musicians from the markets where the group performs. As a result, 14 musicians from Quebec and Canada will travel to Victoriaville to rehearse ahead of the concert scheduled for May 17. Founded in 2009 by Mats and Johan Berthling, FIRE! is part free jazz, part groove, part psychedelia, part rock. Big Saturday ahead!
PAN M 360 : FIRE! , The Thing, Gush, Swedish Azz, Fake (the facts), Ensemble E, Cosmic Ear and more: is there a hierarchy of your artistic priorities across the bands you’re involved with?
Mats Gustafsson: Every project has its own focus and priorities. But with Fire! Trio and Fire! Orchestra we look at the groups as working groups – which means they are touring a lot and playing festivals and projects as well So, yeah – that is a priority right there. Swedish Azz and Fake (the facts) is on a pause. The thing is over for now. Ensemble E will try to make some festivals and projects in 2026 and 2027.
Cosmic Ear and the upcoming Backengrillen (with the founding members of Refused) will be touring and working as a prioritized group in 2026/27. I feel privileged to be able to work with so many great groups and artists. An amazing possibility to push the music deeper and further.
PAN M 360: You record a lot, your Bandcamp page is quite impressive ! Has this become a way of life, or is it simply a state of your high energy as a bandleader, composer and player ?
Mats Gustafsson: My Bandcamp is run by Trost and Catalytic and I am not really active here. I just don’t have the time to spend on such. I like to make records and I like to collect records. I like my music to be available – so, yes, Bandcamp is a good platform to find stuff. I try to hold back on releasing records that are just documents from live shows. I prefer to work on an album in a real studio with all what that means. At the moment there are so many great projects going on. Time is not enough. I try my best to keep sane in this immense flow of new projects and ideas. There is no other way than just put everything you have into it. All my dedication, love and energy have to go into these projects. No holding back. If the energy is not there, I rather stay home.
It is important to record the projects you are involved in. In order to make records and from there getting possibilities to work at festivals and clubs. In order to spread the music. There is no point letting your records just stay filed on a shelf somewhere. You bring them to sell / give away on tour. That is our responsibility towards the listener, as artists.
I love the act of making records. Making albums. Real albums with a track order, cover, liner notes, artwork and design. I am totally allergic to the one click / algorithms mechanics of today. Real albums for real people. Playlists are cassettes only.
PAN M 360: Over the past few years, what have been your most motivating projects?
Mats Gustafsson: Every project needs to be motivated. Otherwise, I would rather stay home. No question. If I don’t feel 100 % about a project it is put on hold or just stopped. I need to be totally true to the music and the people I work with. There is no other way. I need to find a balance between working groups / long-running projects (Fire!, GUSH, AALY Trio etc) and new projects and ad hoc situations. I need both. And one is feeding the other with content, energy and inspiration.
It has been a ball starting up some new projects in the last few years. “Cosmic Ear” and “Backengrillen” most of all.
Last week a new project started up: “Action Now” initiated by the great Norwegian bass player Nicolas Leirtrø together with Kit Downes on organ and Veslemøy Narvesen on drums. Hilarious. Next year will see the light of a great garage/ beat / free jazz group: “The Mag-Nuts” with the great Norwegian guitar slayer Hedvig Mollestad.
New shit will continue to happen. There is no lack of ideas, I can tell you that. No rest for the wicked. But it IS an amazing time for creative music. So many great younger players around at the moment.
PAN M 360: Your Cosmic Ear project is launching an album at the end of the month. Could you briefly describe this project and its members? How does it fit in with your other projects?
Mats Gustafsson: It fits like a hand in a glove! This is an old dream of Goran and myself. To create a smaller group setting where we can play together and very much to include our hero and maestro Christer Bothén. It took some years to decide…. And to find the perfect line up. Now we have it. Great without a regular drummer and just percussion. It opens up the music and gives a lot of space for the string instruments of Christer´s. We are picking bits and pieces up from the legacy of Don Cherry and also deeper folk music from Mali, Morocco and Scandinavia. Mixing it up with some live electronics and all. Very psyched about this group!
PAN M 360: Does FIRE! Orchestra, as a trio, tour a lot? Does it operate in creative cycles, with other projects in between?
Mats Gustafsson: Fire! as a trio is touring a lot now. We have a new agent: Swamp booking. They are great. We are more busy than ever. After having an almost 2 year long pause. Music is happening and we look forward to all coming up. So, at the moment we do 4 tours a year plus projects, residencies and festivals. So, yeah – we have never been this busy before. A good feel.
All three of us do other projects in between, but we really try to put prio on the work with the trio and the Fire! Orchestra. The new version of the Fire! Orchestra will be with 19 members of the group and we will have our premiere of the new piece “WORDS” in November of this year. Expect more riffs!!
PAN M 40: FIRE! has 18 recordings – that’s a lot! Do you have any favorites?
Mats Gustafsson: 18 recordings? With the trio and orchestra and special projects? Wow. That is a lot. Ha ha. But we have been active for a long time now. Starting in 2009 already. The idea is to release a studio album every 2nd or 3rd year, both with the trio and the orchestra. It is a good plan, we believe. The upcoming one is always my favorite. I cannot point any fav out. I have to say I am very happy and proud of all we did. To run an orchestra in these times…. And to tour with it IS impossible. And we wanna show that the impossible is still possible. We want to pay our members decently, so we turn a lot of offers down. But, somehow it works out… and we are still on our feet. It is truly amazing to work with a large ensemble and we are super happy about the new idea of CBA (Community based activities) where we work with local musicians. As in Victoriaville. It is a win-win. We extend our circles / network – getting new people into the Fire! Orchestra family. And the local scene is getting connected to our music. And in theory it should be cheaper for the local presenter to do this. So, we do both CBA projects 4 -5 times a year and the regular activity with Fire! Orchestra. We just finished the ECHOES version with a concert in Gdansk in Poland. And we look fwd to play parts of ECHOES (and some new stuff) in Canada.
PAN M 360: What have been the latest developments in the ensemble?
Mats Gustafsson: Well, the addition of some new names is what is affecting it the most. We are writing very specifically for the members of the group, in the same manner as Duke Ellington and Sun RA did. Using the individual voices of the group in a collective setting. So, we actually managed to include a few people from previous CBA projects into the band. That Is the way it works, and should work. The inclusion of Anna Neubert – violin and Emily Wittbrodt – cello gives us a very cool string trio with our own Anna Lindal on violin. And to have Maria Portugal on drums and vocals is just great. Spectacular! The young and fantastic Adia Vanheerentals on tenor and soprano sax. The spectacular Mariam Rezaei on turntables and electronics and of course so great to include Canadian Lina Allemano on trumpet. We will be 19 persons in this new line up. A mix of new names and some from our old pool of Fire! Orchestra related artists. There will be riffs. There will be Fire!
PAN M 360: How can you briefly describe the trio’s formal evolution? What is the basis for our work today?
Mats Gustafsson: Simply stripping things down. When we recorded our latest album “Testament” with Steve Albini in Chicago we decided to take things down a bit regarding instruments and all. So, now we are focusing on what we can do with only baritone sax, electric bass and drums.
No electronics, no keyboards, no extra instruments (well, a bit of flute can’t hurt….). It creates an open music of endless possibilities. What the future will give us, we have no idea. But in 2025 this is what we are working on.
In the beginning there were a massive amount of extra instruments and lots of noise electronics and all. I love that as well. But at the moment, this is what Fire! is all about.
PAN M 360 : Please tell us about the specific strengths of the members of your trio.
Mats Gustafsson: They are just the BEST! As persons. As musicians. Tight, open and full of energy! Andreas and Johan have a magic power of locking into each other’s groove. It is like telepathy. And it was the same vibe from day one. We are having FUN together. And we respect each other to 100 %. It is all about trust and respect.
PAN M 360 : Why did you propose this specific ensemble for your Quebec dates?
Mats Gustafsson: We really wanted to play with Fire! Orchestra in North America, but it was impossible to fly over with 19 people. And impossible to play in the USA at the moment. I would need to sell my record collection in order to bring 19 people over. And I am not ready to part with it yet. So we decided to go for a CBA version instead after discussions with Scott.
It was a very creative discussion with Scott about the line up. We had to stay at 5 original Fire! Orchestra members flying over because of budget. In our CBA projects we usually travel with 5- 7 people and the rest are local. It was a creative affair and quite easy. I know a lot of the names and have already played with a few of them. Of all the CBAs we have been doing this is perhaps the most exciting line -up. I kid you not! The Line up looks amazing. Total KILLER. Great scouting from Scott & Co. He is a musician himself, so he made it easy for us.
PAN M 360: In the extended line-up, can you explain how you went about doing this?
Fire! trio was on tour in Europe in 2011 and after the final gig of the tour we had a sit down. We made a 3am decision to gather all our musician friends in Stockholm and play TRIO music. Done deal. We met and played “Exit” at Fylkingen in Stockholm in 2012. 28 musicians playing their brains out, smiling. We had to continue. No question. We did many new pieces after that, all with different line ups. Including a rewrite of Penderecki’s “Actions for free jazz”, with the composers’ blessings. Fire! Orchestra is very much alive and continuously changing. That is a necessity.
PAN M 360: How do you distribute instructions to the musicians?
Mats Gustafsson: These days, there is a google Drive file – with sheet music, music files, links, videos and what not. We have a rough plan of what to play. Most is material from our latest version “Echoes” , but we might do a couple of new pieces as well. Plus some open formations. Ad hoc formations and solos. It all depends on how the rehearsals go. We can change things around a lot until the gig. Some musicians have emailed us asking about specific things and we try to answer it all. It will all be clear when we meet and rehearse together. That is key to having a few days of working together. Learning to know each other and get familiar with the ensemble sound of this version. We can’t wait.
PAN M 360: How do you balance composition and improv in a large band context ? Are there some written parts ?
Mats Gustafsson: Wait and see / hear!! Yes, there is a mix of written arrangements and composed materials and melodies. The basic riffs are the foundation for all our music. So, riff you will hear! Horn arrangements by Mats Äleklint who is joining us on this trip. Bad ass trombone. The loudest and greatest around. I am doing a lot of conductions as well, controlling and fucking up the forms and structures. The conductions can and will appear at any point of the piece. Indicating certain arrangements, solos and instant composings. It will be all different. The rehearsals will be one thing- and the concert might be something entirely different. Let’s see. We have 5 -6 pieces that we will do, all having arrangements and a basic form idea. There will be a lot of space for open bridges between those pieces. And also introductions and outros that will change from day to day. Johan and I are communicating during the piece and will be able to change things around in a split second, when it is needed.
PAN M 360: How do you see the act of conducting such a large ensemble ? What are the challenges ?Mats Gustafsson: See above. As long as people are attentive there are no real problems. Just JOY! I work with quite simple signs and conductions and usually they are not really hard to follow. No rocket science here. I love conducting – and it is such a privilege to do it with great musicians. And this lineup is spectacular! Pure JOY!
