REFUSED have issued the following statement regarding their bassplayers:
We went through 13 different bassplayers* in 7 years as band. This positively Spinal Tap-ish figure was due partly to us being difficult to be around, but the actual root cause was that we never managed to restock the Hamer-silhouetted chasm left by the magnificent Magnus Flagge (then Björklund).
Flagge joined the band in the fall of 1992, solidifying a pretty wobbly little hardcore band with his rythmic stability and firm grasp of time. His playing was crucial to our musical direction in the early years. He eventually left us in the summer of 1995 to focus on his own band Cobolt and during the last three years we enlisted assorted scenesters to try and compensate the lack, but we never came close. Sympathetic to our plight he rejoined us in the studio for both the “Songs to fan the flames of discontent” and “The shape of punk to come”-sessions (1995 and 1997 respectively), adding body to both records and giving them the steady footing that is the seal of the gifted bassplayer.
When putting the band back together there was never any discussion of who we wanted on bass. Magnus has a steady job and a family now so there was uncertainty whether he could find the time, so we were elated and relieved when he accepted. It’s a singular job, but in our minds it is, and always was, his.Catch the band live this spring and summer. See the dates here.
* Besides Magnus there was (in order of appearance):
Jonas Lidgren
Henrik Jansson
Kristofer Steen
Jesper Sundberg
Anders Johansson
Jon F Brännström
Magnus Höggren
Jonas Babyface Eriksson
Håkan-Håkan Strandhag
Inge Johansson
Andreas Nilsson
and last but not least, Ulf Nybérg
REFUSED live:
