The musical landscape of the 1980s was pretty far out. And sure, that’s a lame and dated expression from the decade to describe what was happening in both the rock and pop worlds. But in perhaps no other 10-year span did songs from both genres come so close to crossing over.
Look no further than some of the biggest hits of the time. “Heaven Is A Place On Earth” by Belinda Carlisle is basically a rock song. So is “Loverboy” by Billy Ocean. Michael Jackson had Eddie Van Halen tearing up the fretboard for “Beat It.” “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” by Whitney Houston? Yep, that one, too. And European rockers Nestor demonstrated this pop/rock crossover appeal when they covered one of Whitney’s most well-known tunes for their debut record.
“Usually I get the question, ‘What is so special about the ’80s?’” Nestor frontman Tobias Gustavsson said. “The songs were always in focus. It doesn’t matter if you were listening to Alphaville or Dio or KISS or Laura Branigan. The songs were great. And it was just a decision of how to dress them. If you wanted distorted guitars, then it’s hard rock. If you have keyboards, then it’s some kind of synth pop. That’s also what we were looking for (when we covered ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’), to choose something that wasn’t so obvious.”
Nestor is ’80s-inspired all the way. It’s literally the reason the band formed, and they’ve cranked out 10 more catchy rock anthems on their sophomore release, “Teenage Rebel.” ‘’’80s KISS has always been a big influence, and of course Bon Jovi,” Gustavsson said of the band’s primary influences. “(Also) Journey a bit, Toto a bit, Bryan Adams. All of those. Giant. Van Halen. Even Twisted Sister.”
“Teenage Rebel” is out now via Napalm Records, and Gustavsson chatted all things Nestor in this Web Is Jericho exclusive.
What is the songwriting process like for Nestor? “I am in charge of that, so to speak. I do the main part of the writing. But Johnny (Wemmenstedt), the guitarist, is also a big part of the writing. But the rest of the guys, they trust us in that sense. I normally just have some kind of idea — some demo, some vision, some title. Then I normally make a demo, send it to the guys. And of course they have their say if they like it or not. That’s how it usually goes. When I have a demo and send it out, they’ll try different stuff out and send it to me. Then I’ll bring them to Spain and we’ll record it here.”
The band actually initially formed in late ’80s, but didn’t do much back then. What led to getting back together to make Nestor a full-fledged outfit? “We had this confinement thing in Spain during the pandemic. And I was sitting at home playing the piano, and for some reason I ended up playing, (sings) ‘I Wanna Know What Love Is,’ or (sings) ‘Is This Love?’, just 80s songs for some reason. Of course, I love these songs. I’ve made a lot of albums as a songwriter and a producer, and my wife said, ‘It’s kind of strange you’re just playing 80s songs.’ When the world was a bit shaky, you look for something safe and secure, so maybe that was the reason I was playing ’80s songs. Then my wife said, ‘Shouldn’t you do an album of ’80s songs?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, I should.’ Then I called up Johnny, and we had different kinds of bands throughout the years together. I said, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to get into this time machine and go back to 1989 and make that album we didn’t have the possibility to make then?’ He said, ‘That would be super cool. Should we ask the guys?’ So I called them up, and the bass player (Marcus Alblad) said, ‘What took you so long.’” That was the start of it.”
Where does the band name come from? “It’s a comic thing. I don’t know if you have it in the U.S. It’s called Tintin. It’s a comic strip. A little political thing from Belgium, I think. One of the characters’ butler was named Nestor. And we all liked that name for some strange reason.”
I love when I hear parts in your songs that I can tell was inspired by something. There’s a pre-chorus in one of the songs from the last album that sounds just like the pre-chorus to KISS’ “I’ll Fight Hell To Hold You.” “Yeah, that’s ‘1989.’ ‘Crazy Nights’ and also ‘Asylum’ and ‘Animalize’ have been a huge influence on us.”
I’m in a band here in the states, and we do the same thing. There’s little homages to all sorts of stuff in our songs. It’s fun trying to re-create a part without lifting it. “As you say, it’s like a homage. There’s one song on the first album where it has the vibe of ‘Right Now’ by Van Halen, but in the chorus I sing ‘These Days.’ Homage — I love that word. Sometimes people say, ‘Yeah, it’s a little bit of a ripoff.’ But I don’t see it as that. This is what we grew up with. And if we can, we want to contribute or give something back to this audience and the artists as well.”
I want to get into specific songs from “Teenage Rebel” and how they came together. Let’s start with my favorite from the record, “Last To Know.” “You can hear ‘Hysteria’ (Def Leppard) in it. It’s also a bit of ‘Every Breath You Take,’ (The Police) and also a bit of Heart’s ‘All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You.’ But I had this image of cruising down the Sunset Strip, windows down. I wanted that mid-tempo kind of song. That was the start. Then I was sitting here playing the guitar, and I got this sound that felt very much like the ‘Hysteria’ sound, and I kind of built it on that. The song is about, ‘If we won’t make it, please don’t let me be the last to know.’”
How about the lead single from the record, “Victorious”? “The video is very much inspired by Youngblood, the Rob Lowe movie from the ’80s. Johnny had that riff, and when he played it for me I immediately thought it’s a song about being victorious and successful. It’s a song about being successful from your own point of view, so to speak. It’s not up to anyone else. It could be the smallest thing, but it’s about that feeling. I was singing ‘Victorious,’ and that’s what it’s about. It’s a little bit of a sports kind of tribute.”
And the follow-up single “Caroline,” which has a great part towards the end that’s almost like a bonus chorus. “It was one of the first songs for the album I got the demo ready for. We’ve always loved the Survivor. We had a song on the first record called ‘Signed In Blood.’ These keyboard parts, I wanted a song like that. Another inspiration for that was, ‘I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight,’ by Cutting Crew. It has that melancholy feel. I saw this movie with my kids wayback called ‘Coroline’, it’s like a stop motion movie a little similar to Tim Burton’s ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ about this little girl that lives in this strange kind of world. That was the story for the lyrics.”
How about the album’s title track “Teenage Rebel”? “That was the same thing. Johnny had the riff, and I kind of spin off on that one. I wanted to write a song about our hometown. When I was home last summer, we have our own festival, and when I walked down to (where the festival is held), I walked by my old high school. And I got this idea of looking back and remembering how it used to be. Now pushing 50, sometimes it’s hard to feel that hunger and intensity of what you used to do when you were a kid. ‘Let’s take on the world’ – that kind of feeling. So it’s all about ‘I’m gonna f*cking go my way.’”
Nestor has played the Monsters of Rock cruise twice. That’s mostly an American audience. What has the response been like? “It was amazing. The first year it was out of the blue. We had just released ‘Kids In A Ghost Town’ and we got this call, ‘Do you wanna play?’ And we thought that no one would know us, but all of them did. The second time around we had a little bit of a fanbase. It’s been great. We went to Brazil a couple weeks back, and we had that kind of audience that we had on the Monsters of Rock cruise. They came to Sao Paolo where we played. It was amazing. But as you know, the U.S. is a big country. If you go there, you need time to do more shows not just a one off so to speak. But it’s been great. I think what Nestor does, there’s a perfect market for in the U.S.”
Will a U.S. tour happen at some point? “Definitely. We decided we would put the focus on Germany, Austria and Switzerland this summer and autumn. We’re doing a European tour in October. Then we go to Japan for a while. But Japan is a lot easier in that it’s a lot of people in a small space. But for 2025, we don’t know. We just started touring with (Swedish rock legends) Europe. We’re talking about doing something with them, and they used to be quite big in the U.S. and I think we might go there with them. But hopefully yes. We would love to.”
“Teenage Rebel” is available now via Napalm Records.
