CRY OF LOVE are America’s hottest new Rock act, but Rage Against the Machine they ain’t! CHRIS WATTS lands in Sweden to discover a Blues-based classic Rock band stuck in 1974!

At exactly 3pm on the first Monday of every month, Stockholm shakes to the sound of the city’s air raid sirens. It has never been fully explained just why on earth a major nuclear power would want to launch a tactical strike on Sweden. It has also never been explained just why the Swedes are thoroughly mystified with the Blues.

Sweden loves the Blues. They love it even though they go and watch it in a grandiose opera house that has neither alcohol nor atmosphere. It’s like watching Cry of Love in an airport lounge.

Everybody knows that the Blues is the real universal language. Extra-terrestrials would understand Cry of Love. Even Sweden understands Cry of Love.

The band have landed in Stockholm from another planet, but the crowd sit in their chairs and stamp their feet approvingly anyway. From the rural backwaters of North Carolina to this sparkling Scandinavian city, Cry of Love speak the universal language fluently.

North Carolina is second only to California in the amount of golf courses per square mile. US Business magazine Fortune recently voted Raleigh the best town in which to start a new business in the entire United States. It’s an old town, built on old money, and sounds like the kind of place where everyone knows your middle name.

Cry of Love grew up in the countryside around Raleigh. As vocalist Kelly Holland says: “It’s good to grow up in a small town. You learn how to be a human being. I mean, we didn’t grow up taking guns to school!” Kelly looks like Nigel Tufnel. Guitarist Audley Freed is as tall as a building. The girls all fancy drummer Jason Patterson. Bassist Robert Kearns has got flu. They are perhaps the unlikeliest-looking contestants in the fame game. But Cry of Love are here in Stockholm anyway, on the first date of a European tour supporting Robert Plant. It’s a comfortable double-bill.

Cry of Love are utterly in love with music. Specifically, they are all utterly in love with any record made before 1976. They are as passionate about The O’Jays and Sly And The Family Stone as they are about Aerosmith, Alice Cooper and Deep Purple. Kelly and Audley both reckon that music has saved their lives. “A small town is a hard place to leave.” Kelly says. “It’s like a vortex. It just keeps sucking you back. It was my ambition to move one million mile away from the mountains where I grew up. “I’d sit there thinking, ‘My God, I’m just going to rot in this place!’.”

Like the rest of the band, Kelly’s family were blue-collar conservatives. His father worked his way up through the grocery business. Audley’s old man was a war veteran. The whole family went to church twice a week. “There’s a strong work ethic,” says Kelly. “That’s just how it is. When I left school I went straight out and got a job in construction.” Kelly bought a Honda Enduro trial bike to “keep myself sane”. He’d ride it around the mountains and dream of rock ‘n’ roll. Cry of Love were clobbered from an early age.

“Back then, the radio was great,” says Audley. “During my formative years, I remember hearing all these great songs coming out of my Dad’s little car radio, and it was a magical time. I was enthralled by it all. “I remember the first time I heard ‘Walk This Way,’ and I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I was sweeping my neighbour’s roof at the time. They are priceless memories. “I learnt a lot from the rock magazines that would occasionally float into town. I bought a lot on instinct, like ZZ Top’s ‘Fandango’. It was my ticket to the outside world and to me it was very exotic.”

Kelly: “My magic time was when I’d sneak down to the car-port and sit in my Dad’s car, listening to the radio in the middle of the night. “Maybe I’d find a cigarette, check myself in the mirror, kind of pretend I was driving, listening to all these songs by the greenish light from the dash. Music and motorcycles kept me alive.”

Kelly and Audley were total culture consumers. They ate, slept and drank Rock music. They’d tune into Chicago radio, devour the magazines and fool around on their cheap instruments. Music was a passion and remains one to this day. “It was a magic time,” says Kelly. “There was no way to see these bands except in Creem magazine. There was no MTV or anything. It was just like soap operas and sport on the TV. I’d read those magazines through and through until all the pages were all dog-eared. My world was between those pages. “I think it’s sad now that you don’t have that magic anymore. Everything is rammed down your throat all the time.”

Audley: “It’s not underground any more. You see the same shit everywhere. The kids don’t have to search for anything, The mystery has gone. The business has gotten older, fatter, bigger – more sophisticated, I guess. Ultimately, I think the kids are losing out.”

It’s not surprising that Cry of Love’s debut record is steeped in so much classic Rock history. ‘Brother’ is either the nostalgic’s nirvava or the retrophobic’s nightmare.

But Cry of Love could not have produced a Hate Metal record for all the oil in Texas. After all, Kelly had got into Bad Company because a friend had copied the logo into his notebook and it looked “really cool!”

‘Brother’ is a record shaped by the little towns surrounding Raleigh. It is a record Cry of Love themselves would have bought if they’d heard it on the radio all those years ago. Essentially, Cry of Love are still fans.

So, is it true to say that the band are firmly stuck in 1974? “That’s a pretty fair comment!” Kelly laughs. Audley: “I mean, no, we don’t sound like Duran Duran or Rage Against The Machine!” Kelly: “Rage Against The Machine are actually pretty cool. That guitar, those riffs, they’re pretty good. It sounds like early Sabbath.” “But we couldn’t do what they do,” admits Audley. “It wouldn’t suit us. I remember reading all these articles in the late 80’s about Television and Patti Smith and Richard Hell. I couldn’t be interested in them because they were so far removed from where I was at. Musically, it just didn’t appeal to me. “That has always stuck with me as a player. I’m completely content to play the kind of music we play. I mean, the first time I bought a Ramones record, I thought I’d wasted my money! I didn’t get it at all. “Years later, I got it and was jumping around the room to the MC5!”

Ultimately, Cry of Love are a simple band making simple music that even Sweden can understand. As Audley says: “I guess we represent an ‘everyman’ thing. “Specifically, we represent a real grass roots approach with our music and the way we present ourselves. We’re just regular people. “ I genuinely don’t give a f**k how much money I make , because I’m old enough to know that I’m not going to become that different from how I am right now. I’m comfortable with that.”