Swedish drummer, composer and improviser Anna Lund lives in Stockholm where she divides her time between different projects in several genres. She has long been part of the band around the well-known pop singer Ane Brun and in recent years has also been active in bands such as the jazz-oriented quartet SOL SOL, the superb free jazz ensemble Anna Högberg Attack and, of course, the trio SPACE, with pianist Lisa Ullén and bassist Elsa Bergman, who released their second album last year with ‘Embrace The Space’. A few years ago SPACE made a huge impression with an exciting and intense concert at Summer Bummer, a performance they are eager to repeat at this year’s edition.

You live in Stockholm but you grew up in Mariestad. Geographically it lies inbetween Oslo and Stockholm, at a big lake. What sort of music or sounds were you exposed to in that town?

It’s such a small town that it’s hard to understand how I got involved in music in the first place. I grew up outside the city and my parents are not musicians or anything like that. The music I heard when I was little was Bruce Springsteen and the like. Nothing more. But in Sweden, and I don’t know if you have this in Belgium too, when you are nine years old, you can go and play an instrument at the Culture Schools or Kulturskolan, and that’s where I went.

What instrument did you choose?

Drums of course! But since everyone wanted to play the drums I had to choose my second instrument. I chose the guitar and played that for a while.

What kind of guitar did you play, a classical one or maybe electric?

I played some electric guitar, but the main thing was classical guitar, which was horrific. It was so hard for me. It’s like the opposite of drumming because you have to really hit the exact spot with your fingers to get the right sound. With the drums, the area you can hit is a little bit wider (laughs). When I first got interested in music, I was immediately fascinated by the drums. So this drum romance already started when I was a kid. From the beginning I just loved the sound of drums. It took some years, but then I actually started to play drums as a teenager and started listening to drummers.

Can you give an example of what you were listening to then?

We didn’t have a computer at home or maybe just an old one, I can’t remember, so we listened to the radio. One time my mother turned it on and it played ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ by The Beatles when I was nine or ten years old. I remember I liked the sound of the drums so much. It’s a typical Ringo Starr kind of drumming, and that tune has a lot of nice feels: the sound of the snare, that warm sixties sound! Eventually, all that led me to studying music. I just couldn’t resist the thought of playing drums every day.

Was it possible to study music in Mariestad?

Kind of. When I was sixteen, I went to a school in a neighbouring city, an hour from Mariestad, where you could study music. When I studied there, somewhere around 2005, it felt like heaven. It was the feeling of going to New York, that’s how huge it was for me. In the bigger cities in Sweden like Stockholm or Gothenburg, you could already study jazz from that age, but not in the countryside where I lived at that time. It was more a mixture of styles, from classical to funk. After that, I went to Gothenburg to study jazz.

How did you become interested in jazz?

I had a really great drum teacher at my school. He was not only teaching but also freelancing, playing jazz and improvisation. He introduced me to drummers like Tony Williams and Andrew Cyrille, whose playing I came to love since then. I remember he showed me things when we had these moments alone: we would play a little , improvise with two drums. Then we took a chewing gum and looked at YouTube clips with Andrew Cyrille and Joey Baron. I applied for an improvisation program in Gothenburg after that and it was nice to finally come to a bigger city and play. I remember when I started that among students it was quite hip to study free jazz, actually. I thought: shit, this stuff is really weird but also very exciting and fun! It was nice to be able to do that because previously I had played a lot of pop music and beat oriented stuff which I still do, and still love doing by the way. But it felt like I had missed this free playing, the flowing of it, the physicality, the playfulness…

You’re performing often with singer-songwriter Ane Brun, playing some very big venues. How different is it to play in front of thousands of people compared to improvising before a more intimate audience?

I like the contrasts. It took some years for me to figure that out because I thought that you were not allowed to play free jazz if you play pop or the other way round (laughs). I would never do flat commercial stuff, but I like pop music a lot and I’m glad I can do both. Sometimes I have to play with a click track in my ears, which is really special but it swings in a certain way, so I like that while free jazz swings in a whole different way. Like with SPACE, you can probably hear that Lisa has a classical background and you can hear that I play a lot of pop.

I wouldn’t suspect a pop background in your playing with SPACE, to be honest.

I think the common thing between all those things and genres is swing, to make it come together. A small or big stage, that doesn’t really matter. But sometimes you have to flip a switch in your brain, when you’ve been playing pop for a few days and your next performance is free improvisation. But that’s also the fun of it, to have that variation.

With SPACE, do you make any basic arrangements in advance before going on stage or do you just play and see what happens?

We don’t decide what to play, because it’s improvised, but in the past we’ve used some frameworks. For instance: tonight we’re going to play five songs. But of course we don’t know how the songs will turn out. We only know we will do five pieces. Or four or six, because that also happens (laughs). But it has worked for us, because in a weird way we come together in this mutual feeling. It happens that we decide that for one of the pieces, the bass should start alone. Stuff like that. But that’s about it, all the rest is open and unpredictable.

Do you use a similar approach for going into the studio?

Yeah, it’s quite similar. But on the two records that we made, we have done quite short pieces. We’re thinking of them more as songs. Live, we play longer and do some transitions in some cases.

SPACE is actually the rhythm section of Anna Högberg Attack, a band that Summer Bummer visitors will not be unfamiliar with. Is the trio a direct result of your involvement in Attack?

In Attack we always felt it was a nice rhythm section and we loved playing together. Then, I think it was around 2016 or 2017, Lisa had a gig at Fasching in Stockholm with her big project that involved two drummers and two bass players. She had the idea that we should perform as a trio before the big band. The concert went really well, we liked it a lot. It was different of course, because in Attack we have a different task as a rhythm section. After that concert, it took a while before the trio started being active, because I had my first child not long after and then Covid hit the world. In Fylkingen, a venue in Stockholm, we played and recorded for a few days during the Covid period. That became our first album.

The concert of Anne Högberg Attack at Summer Bummer festival in 2019 was very intense and one of the highlights of that edition. It was also special, and maybe that had something to do with the intensity, because some of you still had babies with you. I remember the strollers in the backstage and all that. The one moment you were changing diapers, the next moment you were ripping it on stage. It was stunning performance.

Yeah, that’s a great memory and I remember that that was a great show. It was some kind of release for many of us in the band I think, because we had been away from the music for some months. We were experiencing the extremes in life. The beauty, the exhaustion. Doing nothing with music for some months, bringing new life into the world. And then to have a gig suddenly. It was certainly good timing for some of us in the band.

With SPACE there is a similar intensity when experiencing the trio live. It’s almost as if you have so much energy in you that it wants to come out with a burst. You seem really eager to play. Is that something you recognize?

Yeah, I recognize that because I think in SPACE we allow ourselves to play how we want. Really free. That’s not always the case in free jazz groups because sometimes you have a concept or a band leader that has an idea of how the music should be presented and you’re trying to play that idea. That can be beautiful as well, but in SPACE we don’t have a vision or a concept of how we want it to sound. It comes out spontaneously.

Do you meet regularly to play, since you all live in Stockholm?

Lisa actually has been living in Berlin for almost a year now, but I think she will go back to Stockholm. But also, I had my second child two months ago and Elsa had hers about nine months ago, so we haven’t played much for obvious reasons. When we play with Space, it’s always nice because we know each other well musically. We think the same in form and rhythm. That doesn’t disappear when we’ve had a break for a few months.

What other projects are you involved in at the moment? Because in 2017 you released an album with your project Hurrakel!, but it seems to be the only one up until now.

That was not only a record but also more of a performance. It also involved two actors so that was a whole ship to work with but it was really fun. But now, next to SPACE, it’s mostly playing with Ane Brun, which is a big
machinery with long tours. I also play in a rock band called Rome Is Not A Town which will release an album in 2026.

You have played Summer Bummer several times. What are your strongest memories from previous visits?

It’s not only an outstanding festival but it’s also very warm compared to some pop festivals I’ve played, where no one really says hi to you and everyone’s stressing because you have to do the gig within a certain time. We’ve always been warmly welcomed and we even stayed at Koen and Christel’s house for a while. You also feel that the people involved here are really interested in the music, they’re interested in you. As an artist, you feel that instantly. In free jazz or improvisation, that’s very important because you invest a lot of time, you travel a lot and you’re not earning high fees because you’re playing before small audiences. But when you notice people share you interest in the music, that they’ve listenend to your latest record, that connection makes it worth while.

Did you take a look at this year’s line-up? Is there something or someone you would like to see yourself?

I’m not sure how long I’m able to stay, but I saw that Hamid Drake is playing with Ava Mendoza. I would like to see that! I love Hamid’s playing, he’s such a nice guy also. Lisa told me she will be playing with a big ensemble that seems interesting, with saxophonist Amalie Dahl.

Have you been reading or listening to good music lately?

I’ve been reading a very nice book by a Polish writer, Olga Tokarczuk. It’s mysterious and the language is beautiful – I’m reading the Swedish translation. It has a really twisted end. The book is called ‘Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead’. I’ve been listening to one of Sven-Åke Johanssons solo albums, ‘Schlingerland / Dynamische Schwingungen’ and Little Simz’ new album ‘Lotus’.