Formed earlier this year in Stockholm, Out of My Way has taken little time to craft an engaging and hook-heavy melodic punk sound. 

Please list all of your band members and their roles in the band.

Christian Gehlert - guitar / vocals

Tobias Eriksson - bass / vocals

Charlie Österlund - drums 

For starters, what bands were you guys a part of prior to Out of My Way? How long has the band been around? 

Christian: All of us were a part of  “Seaside Youth”, a quartet playing a mix between pop punk and metalcore (i.e. A Day to Remember, Four Year Strong). After a couple of years we grew more or less tired of it. We took a break from each other as bandmates but kept being close friends. We started jamming on what eventually would be our EP “Whistleblower” in the summer of 2017. Out of My Way was officially born in February of this year .

What’s the origin of that name and have you changed the band’s name before? 

Christian: Honestly, there’s no deep origin. We’d basically decided on a name but after three or four beers one night I just didn’t like it anymore. Charlie and Tobias said: “Well, come up with something better”. So I chugged down one more beer and started firing out ideas on my phone for 30 minutes or so. Then I said: “Choose.”

Charlie: “Out of My Way” just happened to be one of the many suggestions Christian came up with on the spot and we all collectively thought it sounded cool enough. It was a very spontaneous event, but the name have definitely grown on us since.

 Tobias: We tried finding a band name that had some sort of meaning to us, but we really couldn’t agree on anything or come up with anything good. We had one other name that we almost ended up with before changing to our current name in the last second and that was “A Punch or Two” which was taken from Neck Deep’s song “Can’t Kick Up The Roots”.

Who writes your songs? What are the main themes or topics for most of your songs and do you think these topics will change over time?

Christian: I write some, Tobias writes some, Charlie writes some. But we all help each other through the process and finish it up together during rehearsals. I’ve mostly been writing about politics and social issues but some personal stuff as well. You never know what’ll come up. Will the topics change? Well, you never know and that’s what’s great about music. You can do whatever you want, sometimes without even knowing what you want. With that being said, injustice, oppression and people who think they’re worth more than everyone else will always piss me off and I’ll always be interested in politics so it will always be a good source of inspiration. Even if I’ll might want to use other ones in the future. 

Tobias: My approach on writing is I basically just write about everything that’s currently happening around me whether it’ll be politicians acting like complete hypocrites, a friend being a jerk or a good video game i recently played that I thought was good haha. Although my lyrical content mainly consist of things that pisses me off.

What bands are currently inspiring the music that you’re making? 

Christian: My roots will always be in the early 90’s California punk scene: Nofx, Rancid, Green Day and The Offspring. Currently I’ve mostly been into Swedish punk like Asta Kask and Lastkaj 14.

Charlie: My musical background is very diverse and not at all rooted in punk music ‒ I never gravitated towards that style of music until my sophomore year in high school. As of right now, I’m really digging Travis Scott’s new album “Astroworld” and Architects’ new single “Hereafter” that’s been on repeat since it came out, haha.

Tobias: This is kind of a hard question to answer since it constantly changes for me. But the bands I always tend to come back to when it comes to writing is basically anything from the late 90’s like blink-182, Sum 41, New Found Glory etc. More recently I’ve been inspired by a lot of more modern pop punk/punk bands, some of them being Neck Deep, We Were Sharks, Between You and Me and The Interrupters.

Was there a particular band/artist or concert that inspired you to start a band?

Charlie: Red Hot Chili Peppers and Linkin Park had a humongous impact on me as a kid. I also owe a lot of Youtube-drummers my career since they made me want to pursue my instrument full time. Meeting Luke Holland (of Youtube fame)  five years ago is still one of the most surreal experiences I’ve had. 

Tobias: I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Sum 41 and Deryck Whibley. I got their logo tattooed on my right arm the day I turned 18 to honor them and I will be eternally grateful for what their music have done for me. I remember telling my mom that I wanted to get that tattoo when I was like 14 or something and she said “That band will mean nothing to you by the time you turn 18, just you wait and see”. That was one of the few times were my mom was wrong about something haha.

 Christian: I will always remember the 13 year old me watching “Bullet in a bible” and thinking: “That’s gonna be me”. Even though my taste has drifted more towards old school punk rock, that kid is always with me. 

What do you do to prepare for a show? Any flexing, exercises, etc … 

Christian: We edge each other on. We bring up something we know will make the other one pissed. Not pissed at each other but pissed at a shitty boss, a shitty job, shitty politicians or that the world’s just shit.

What has been the biggest highlight of the band’s career so far? 

Charlie: Seeing our latest track “Built to Last” surpass 20.000 streams on Spotify definitely comes to mind. I’d also consider our release show back in March this year as a strong candidate. Having an entire room packed with friends vibing to our music right before a beerpong-tournament made for a banger of a night. 

Tobias: I would say our release show for our debut EP “Whistleblower” back in March was definitely one of the coolest highlights so far. It was so surreal to have play for a full venue (even though it was kinda small) and hearing people sing the lyrics to “Why She Left” back at us. It was so cool to go back and relive that night once we got the video for “Built to Last” which was partly filmed at that show. Then all the stuff that have been going down since we released “Built to Last” is also so surreal. I still can’t believe it.  

Christian: The release show for “Whistleblower” will always have a special place in my heart. The crowd singing along, the energy, everything.

The response on “Built to last” has been amazing. Seeing it hit 20.000 streams in such a short time was more than I could imagine.  

If you could tour with any bands, past or present, who would they be and why?

Charlie: The Story so Far for sentimental purposes (their second album is something I hold very dearly), Red Hot Chili Peppers because I want to hang out with Chad Smith and Post Malone because the after parties would be insane. 

Tobias: A tour with Neck Deep would be cool. For one, they are a really good band and I think their audience would dig our sound and also I’d love to hangout and party with those dudes. I think we’d have a lot in common other than music, like video games and fashion  (we are all huge nerds in this band, believe it or not).  

Christian: Tough, there’s so many. NOFX would be awesome, their shows are insane. Green Day would be unreal (if I could jump back to 1994-1995, that would be a bonus, haha). Nirvana would’ve been really cool. Not only because of the great music. Their influence on all alternative rock can’t be measured.

Is there anything else you would like to add? 

Charlie: Not really, we’re just really appreciative of all the support at the moment and are looking forward to take even bigger strides forward next year. You’ll have to wait and see exactly what that means, though!