I don’t think that Swedish progressive rockers Beardfish need any introductions. The band that released eight albums since their formation in 2001 and toured worldwide is one of the leading acts of the contemporary prog.

The band’s founder and multi-instrumentalist, Rikard Sjöblom has been part of the other bands and projects over the years, and he is currently readying a solo album titled “The Unbendable Sleep,” due in February 2016.

About this new adventure, Rikard talked for Progarchy.

What made you go for a solo project? You had ideas that are not fitting with Beardfish or? 

Yes and no, haha! I do write a lot of music and most of the proggier stuff goes straight to Beardfish of course but once in a while I really enjoy doing stuff where I am in complete control. I’ve always enjoyed locking myself in the studio and just work for hours, hearing a song come to life right in front of me. With Beardfish I do write the songs, but we always work together on them and that’s an awesome process, but the solo process is very nice as well. Many of the songs on “The Unbendable Sleep” are in a very different style from what I would call Beardfish though and I had some spare time this fall to record so I just went for it and it came together a lot faster than I would have expected.

What are your expectations from “The Unbendable Sleep”?

I’m just hoping that it’s gonna find its way into the listeners heart (and that its potential listeners are gonna find it, haha!) so I can start working on more stuff, because it’s been a while since I did anything on my own and I noticed that I really miss it! So if enough people like it and buy it I can put that money into recording and putting out the next one – it’s like a little eco system!

What did inspire you to come up with ”The Unbendable Sleep” ?

It was actually because someone had posted one of my older songs (“Rumbling Boxes”) on facebook and it hit me that I really missed recording on my own. So I got inspired to write some new songs and then I had a lot of other stuff going on for a while so I took a break from the material for about six months and after that I just wanted to get going and record the songs. I started with a couple of them and after that some more songs just came to me and all of a sudden I had a new album!

How long did it take for you to create this album?

All in all it took about a year with the writing and so on, but the actual recording process took about a month.

I saw on youtube that Beardfish’s bassist Robert Hansen recorded bass for the album or one of the songs. Are there any other musicians involved in the recording process of ”The Unbendable Sleep”?

Yes! Apart from Robert playing on the last song of the album (I just thought that song suited his style of playing very well) I have the Diamant brothers, Petter and Rasmus playing drums and bass. Petter plays drums on four of the songs and Rasmus plays bass on two. They are all amazing players and they did a fantastic job with the songs.

What are lyrics on ”The Unbendable Sleep” about? Is there a certain concept in the story of the album?

They are mainly just observations and based on what I see and feel.

The unbendable sleep is referring to the image of yourself, or mainly a person’s view of themselves. We all have our own sense of who we are, what we look like and so on. I think most people struggle with trying to live up to something that we think we should be. Many don’t like their face in the mirror. Sometimes it can be that you haven’t seen yourself for a while and then all of a sudden there is a mirror and you’re almost startled at the person staring back at you – is that me? You know.. I thought it could be interesting to toy a little bit with the notion that the mirror image is an entity on its own, forever trapped behind that glass wall, waiting to stare you out and fill you with, well whatever emotion you get from looking at yourself in a mirror…

What are your plans when it comes to performing songs from ‘The Unbendable Sleep’ live?

I noticed that some of the songs work really well in an acoustic setting, so I’ll probably be doing some solo gigs in the spring where I’ll mix stuff from all over my catalogue with Beardfish, Gungfly etcetera. I also have some friends who have said that they would like to play this stuff with me so I’m gonna start poking around for some live opportunities. Look out, we’ll be coming around soon!

What was the biggest challenge in your career so far?

I’ve had a few but the main ones that come to mind is:

1. Learning “Moggio” by Frank Zappa for a cover band called The Homo Zappians, together with Per Nilsson from Scar Symmetry (and then we didn’t even play it!).

2. Joining Big Big Train and learning all those songs, haha! But I really do love the music that (mainly) Greg Spawton and David Longdon are writing for the band, it’s fantastic stuff.

3. The ongoing challenge is just to get out there and play as much as possible, to get my music heard. I’m really terrible at promoting and booking shows and such, so that’s something I should work on.

You are on a level that most of the musicians want to be on. How does it feel?

Thank you, but that’s for others to decide. I feel happy if I’m able to keep doing this, that’s all that matters to me.

“The Unbendable Sleep” is out in February, pre-order album from Rikard Sjöblom’s official website. Follow Rikard on Facebook here.