Dennis Lyxzen

Dennis Lyxzén is a Swedish musician, writer, and revolutionary. He is a Gemini, aptly the most unpredictable of the lunar signs, born on June 19th, 1972 in Vännäs, a small working class town in the north of Sweden. Growing up, he felt alienated, and let that out when he got into punk music. He contributed heavily to the bizarre and amazing underground punk scene in Umeå, Sweden, where he had moved to and still lives to this day. This was the run-way into his musical and political career.

Early in 1991, the band hardcore Refused was formed. The band changed a bit near the start between their first demos and EPs, but the final members for all their albums where: Denis on lead vocals, David Sandström on drums, Kristofer Steen on guitar and bass, and Jon Brännström on guitar, as well as many guests and friends. They released three albums as well as many EPs and compilations. They were: Songs to fan the flames of discontent, this Just Might Be the Truth, and their pinnacle Album, the Shape Of Punk To Come (1996), one of the most creative albums ever, in a gengre often acused of being generic. Its originality was the result of much stress in the band with them all having different visions and ideas. It combined all these ideas and musical influences from almost every style of music, using techno-like sounds, singing, screaming, punk guitar lines, complex beats, and all sorts of distortion, carefully played and mixed together.

Their lyrics were very powerful counter-culture political messages. They had many unique views on society and politics and sang about problems never thought of before, but very much real. Deep issues such as the value of art (new noise), censorship (liberation frequency), the feeling of excitement in running wild (the shape of punk to come) and much more.

One of my favorite song by them is tannhauser/derive, a song about the beauty of life and truly living to the fullest for every moment- "So where do we go from here? Just about anywhere". The music in this song features violin and a stand-up bass solo mixed in with the hardcore sections. It is very inspiring.

The liner notes for Refused are also very-well written. For the shape of punk to come, it explains the meaning of each song and features the famous Shape of Punk to Come paragraph, about the ideal shape of the future influenced by punk. It is a vision of peace, love equality.

Refused broke up that year, early in their release tour after a show in Atlanta, Georgia. On the way to the airport from which they would fly back to Sweden to part ways, a guitarist from another band on tour with them talked them into playing one last show in his basement. They had twelve hours to advertise and prepare, but still about 400 people who arrived to witness what would become a legend. Three bands played before them, then Refused graced the stage one last time. Throughout the night, the police showed up several times threatening to close down the concert because it could be heard on the street. They gave a final warning, and the next time pushed through the crowd to turn off the power. Refused was playing the song "rather be dead", and was reaching the crescendo where Dennis was to scream "rather be alive" when the police pulled the plug, but still the crowd unified and all sang the last chorus of "rather be alive" together.

The (international) Noise Conspiracy
Three quotes: 1."the perfect rock outfit would be a combination of Elvis and Che Guevara"-singer/songwriter Phil Ochs. This is the quote that T(i)NC was based on.
2."O Bailan Todos O No Bailan Nadie!"- written on a upper-class nightclub in Sweden by a group of revolutionaries. Either everyone dances or no one dances. T(i)NC has claimed that this best describes them.
3."Every true revolution is driven by love" They strongly believe this, but it was behind the name of their latest album "Armed love" Right after Refused disbanded, The (international) Noise Conspiracy was formed with Dennis as lead vocals. This band is hard to describe. It is punk-influenced indie rock, with a dash of ska and pop, some R&B, basically anything they want to play. All very artistic. They are currently still together and it is rumored they are working on a new album, called The Cross of my Calling. Their recent album, Armed Love, is a masterpiece and uses lots of organ parts, that fit well with the guitar chords and bass lines. The sounds don't try to outdo each other, but rather blend to create a soundscape. The Noise Conspiracy currently has four studio albums (in order of release): The First Conspiracy, Survival Sickness, A New morning Changing Weather, and Armed Love, and the album: "Live at the Oslo Jazz Festival" where they took songs from their first three albums and then jammed them in a ska/reggae/jazz style. Their lyrics are also of a political sociological nature, but many are about love. This band writes very well in songs, liner notes, and on their website, trying to right any wrongs they see, or at least inspire action. Every time they see something wrong in he world or society, they point it out and call for people to fix these problems. They try not to be leaders, but rather "put our ideas out there" and let the audience react and think about for themselves. They are very humanitarian, saying "there's a light that shines in everyone"- northwest passage.

My favorite song by T(i)NC is undoubtedly "let's make history", a touching song about missing a lover and wanting to change the world "When i think about the revolution, you're sill in my dreams, your every time i look in the mirror, i just want to scream. How are we going to make history, when you're not here with me?", and ends with all members singing "let's make history right now!". Their politics are very undefined, as they don't want to generalize, which they find confining. It is a mixture of radical left-wing communism, anarchism, situationist, anti-capitalist, and much more. They say that so many political bands make things seem bleak whereas they are driven by love and hope for a better world. They want to change the way we live and the systems we live by so that there can be equality and justice. They are very diverse in their styles and one way they show that is by playing at nearly any venue from big outdoor and indoor stage shows in the US, jazz and music festivals in Europe, protests in China, and much more. They write all their songs and music together, through just getting together and experimenting with different ideas until they have a finished song.

In 1999, the lost patrol band, Dennis's solo project, released it's first album: Songs in the Key of Resistance. Dennis played guitar and sang in this band. It was a fairly political mood, but the next album, Songs About Running Away (2003), was a very emotional album because Dennis had relationship trouble that year. With the next album, self titled The Lost Patrol Band (2004) was a mix of both. Their most recent release Automatic, was back mostly to politics and society. The sound of this band is light folk/punk, with very fast songs, definitively punk, yet the "lightest" of Dennis's bands. Some people criticize Dennis of "growing soft over the years", becoming less political, but he claims that even with relationship-based songs, he tries to look at things like: "how capitalism affects relationships". With some friends, Dennis has also started a club/record label Ny Våg in Umeå which supports many local bands.

Dennis is my hero for so many things he has done. He is a great singer, and an stunning writer, but I also admire all the work he does to try to make the world a better place. He acts on his beliefs, and is in many political organizations such as World Won't Wait, which organizes political action against the war in Iraq. He is Vegan and Strait edge, and he wants everyone to be able to live in peace and happiness with each other. He wrote on their website a message about imagining what it would be like to live in Palestine and Lebanon in peace. He has played at protests in China, which can be dangerous because of the Chinese government is very totalitarian, but he did anyways because we wanted to support the cause. His only enemy as he sees it is a system that calls for violence or hurting human lives. Even where I don't agree with his views on something, he always makes me think and expands my perspective. For example, he has said that he doesn't mind if people download his music "as long as they come to a show and buy a shirt" because he approves of file-sharing as a way of accessing art without it being controlled and put through the market. I disagree, but I thought about this for a while and found that I could see that side of the argument.

In the end, I admire Dennis for his skills, am inspired by what he has done, and have learned very much from him. He is my hero.