Interview with Christher Schütz

Christher is a member of both the punkband Farbror Festing and a heavy metal band, and he is also performing quite a lot on his own nowadays.
What do you want your future to look like?
- It's my big dream to be able to make a living out of what I enjoy, everybody wants that, but it's hard in this business.
What kind of music are you listening to?
- When my music interest appeared it was mostly Tomas Di Leva, after that quite a bit of heavy metal, but currently it's mostly Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson and Cornelis Vreeswijk [Dutch-born Swedish singer/songwriter giant].

That Christher nowadays is mostly listening to Dylan & C, is mirrored quite clearly in his own music when he's performing alone or with his friend Johan Fasth. He has cut off his long hair and he seriously considers to quit the heavy metal band which will continue after his leaving.
What are you up to when you're not playing music?
- I sleep, music is all I do on my time off. I'm 'lucky' to have a long way to bike to school every day, otherwise I wouldn't get any exercise.
So, how does it agree with school and homework?
- That's no problem, we've got nice teachers that doesn't give us very much homework.
Christher is now in the future taking part in some gigs that he is co-arranging, he did sing on the first schoolday when he had been asked by the headmaster to perform. So we will probably get to hear more from Christher Schütz.

(from the schoolmagazine Mummel i Bänken, 1994)

U.N. Day with peace concert

Johan Fasth, Ödeshög, and Christher Schütz, Mjölby, saw to it that the the Kungshöga School payed attention to the United Nations Day.
The both students from the Aesthetic education organized a peace concert in the assembly hall on the Monday. With themselves on the stage. An unusual venture in moderate Mjölby, it seems.
- No, this was just a thing we thought of when the semester began. The school management liked the idea so we started rehearsing on leisure hours, they say.
Misters Schütz and Fasth offered with vocals, guitar, harmonica and grand piano both Dylan and Lennon. Plus some own material, songs that Christher has written himself. The latest came into existence as late as last Friday.

Two concerts

'Concert for Peace' was given in two editions, so that as many teachers and students as possible should be able to attend.
If you think that the guys are typical representatives of Mjölby's orchestras you are wrong. Ordinarily they belong to the rock music trade and are every now and then being seen in different bands.

(Östgöta Correspondenten, 941025)

Gala in Mjölby against nuclear tests

The initiator of the concert, Christher Schütz, 19, has taken 1,000 kr from his own pocket to pay the arrangement.
- It is so important. 50 years have passed since the atomic bomb over Hiroshima and the French haven't learned anything, he says indignantly.
- Now we have to show the public and the politicians that we do give a damn about what's going on in the Pacific.
Christher himself is playing the guitar and sings in the pop band Christher & the Peaceflowers. The name of his master is Bob Dylan, and in honour of the day Christher has written a few extra lines for the classic 'Blowing in the wind':

How many bombs can a French plane drop
before we must put out the sky?
How many dreams can one man stop
without even understanding why?
How many eyes must Jaques Chirac have
before he can see people die?

Other bands on the stage by the old homestead museum was the punkband Virus, the gothic rockers Zilch from Tranås, The Crowd from Boxholm and the singer/songwriter Jimmy Welleby, 17.
- Thinking of nuclear tests and the risk of that the crap spreads to other countries is scaring me, Jimmy Welleby says. We must all be active in the fight against this kind of insanities. And the music is one of the best ways.
Jimmy is performing with his own material which is mainly pierced with melancholy, as he puts it. Most songs are about a future dreamworld where violence and war have been repealed.
- Music must have a message, he resolutely remarks.
The audience in front of the stage amounted to around one hundred. And the majority agreed to that the message was important.
- Nuclear weapons? Oh, it's horrible, Birgit Alfredson exclaims. She is serving the guests coffe at Cafe Octacon, a stone's throw from the stage. The future belongs to the youths and it's important that they care.

(Östgöta Correspondenten, 950807)

Many chords on Christher's lyre

When we meet Christher you can tell rightaway that he is an aesthete. With a white shirt, a light-blue corduroy jacket, and small circular glasses he looks like John Lennon but with curly hair.
- My main reason for writing is that I enjoy expressing my feelings, Christher explains.
He is a really gifted person. That is what both me and the photographer really saw and heard. We met Christher in his home in Mjölby. In the big garden we experienced our own, private troubadour afternoon. Everything he sang was his own works. Both lyrics and music. It was about four years ago that his interest to play the guitar and the harmonica awoke.

125 songs

- I was listening to the radio one day and heard Bob Dylan's 'Blowing in the wind'. It was performed with guitar and harmonica and I just thought: 'wow'. And that's the way it all started, Christher says.
He wrote his first song for about three years ago and now he has done 125 pieces. All the songs are in English. He sang three songs for us. What a co-ordination! To play the guitar and harmonica at the same time and to do it by heart.
- My first songs were mostly about peace and protests against things that I didn't like. Today they're chiefly about love.

Speaks with the paper

Christher passed senior high school on an Aesthetic education with a musical direction. By then his music interest was growing fast despite that he was forced to learn to read & write music. That was neither "fun or easy".
Simultaneously with the music Christher is alos writing poems.
- When I write it's like speaking with the paper and the best thing is that I don't get any complaints.
- My biggest inspiration is nature. It's calm there and I can work in peace. I often sit up at nights to write.
Do you read much poetry?
- I don't read that much poetry. I'm afraid of imitating as it's so easy to be influenced by others.

Writing a book of poems

In February, on the Troubadour festival in Linköping, Christher met a very skilled artist, Eida Steen, 16. They talked with each other and all of a sudden they decided to make a book of poems.
Christher would write the poems and Eida would illustrate them. They got started immediately and today they are almost done.
- We're gonna send some poems and drawings to a couple of publishers. Hopefully some publisher likes it and decides print the book, Christher says.

Always in love

What are the poems about?
- They're ambiguous. Nature and love are woven together and you could interpret them in several ways. The reason why I'm writing about love is that I'm always in love. In love with the world.
What are you doing in ten years?
- I've recorded many albums and I am an acknowledged artist. In some way I wanna help the helpless people in the world. It is only fair.
All I say is: Remember Christher Schütz!
This guy from Mjölby has talent. Talent that will take him far.
Who said the talents come from Stockholm?

(Östgöta Correspondenten, 960614)

Christher got 25,000 kr for songwriting

- I'm going to London to write songs. Apparently that motivation was enough for STIM to make me a grant, Christher says with satisfaction.
The Swedish Performing Rights Society (STIM) is anually making grants. Christher applied and wrote that he wanted to use the money to go to London to widen his horizon and to get new ispiration.
- I feel that my inspiration has ceased back here. In London, there's a completely different cultural climate than here in Sweden, he says.
When Christher was about 16 his music interest awoke and he began to write songs, entirely by ear as he could neither read nor write music. After entering the Aesthetic / Musical direction at senior high school he was more or less forced to learn it, which he found both difficult and boring. The 25,000 kr from STIM come in handy now when Christher leaves for London. He does not know anybody there and he has no idea where he will be staying.
- It'll be all right, he says quite light-heartedly.