“We Don’t Believe in Time” – Henning Furst and Alexander Havelda on 9entle at Way Out West

At Way Out West, I meet Henning Furst and Alexander Havelda, the men behind 9entle, a new project built on intuition, collaboration and a refusal to let time dictate what music should sound like. We talk about starting over, creative freedom, growing older without becoming less curious, and the search for something that still feels truly magical.

”So I went to my family grave just to see my family name.”

That lyric has meant more to me than most lines I’ve ever heard, ever since I stood by my father’s grave and felt like someone had written it specifically for me.

I’m 33 now, almost 34, and somewhere along the way I’ve started to realize that I still have time to change my life. I’ve found love. I’m still extremely hard on myself and struggle to see the journey for what it is, a journey, everything I’ve been through along the way. The Tough Alliance have been part of that journey. So has Broder Daniel, along with a handful of books and films that have stayed with me in the same way.

That is the baggage I carry with me as I stand in the VIP area at Way Out West, waiting for Henning Furst, the man behind some of the music that has meant the most to me, now working on an entirely new project.

You might think it would be difficult to balance the fan in me with the job. In hindsight, it’s surprisingly easy. Maybe it doesn’t matter anyway. Music is always at the center. The influences, the culture, it’s all part of the same package.

The Wait

I first meet Alexander Havelda and Maria Garmer, Henning’s wife and 9entle’s manager. Henning’s phone has died, they explain, and they’re trying to get hold of him.

Shit, this is over before it even started, I think to myself.

But there’s no panic. Alexander is here, and even before we sit down, I feel a genuine sense of happiness. He’s warm and kind, and you can tell immediately.

I’m in no rush. When it comes to a project like 9entle, where every lyric and every sound already means so much, the important thing for me is to take the time.

After their debut single and the newly released follow-up, which I’ve played to death ahead of their show at Skeppet, I already know that 9entle is something special.

Gothenburg, Soul and “Such Love”

There is a particular kind of sound that could only have come from Gothenburg, and the new single “Such Love,” released on the very same day as this interview, carries it like a watermark.

Henning Furst and Alexander Havelda borrow the dreamy, slightly hazy warmth that once defined the Sincerely Yours circle and bands like The Embassy, that feeling that the music is floating rather than moving, as if every synth was recorded through a thin layer of mist.

But 9entle never stops at the reference. The sound may whisper of that heritage, but at the same time it builds something unmistakably their own.

Victoria Bergsman’s voice is, of course, no coincidence. She naturally brings with her the scent of Taken by Trees, that introspective, airy, almost whispered way of singing a melody rather than laying it down, and it fits beautifully with 9entle’s rhythm-led, soul-influenced foundation.

You can hear the Saint Etienne elegance and the Patrice Rushen groove, Marvin Gaye, Manchester, Belgium, disco and indie. But the references never feel forced. They already seem to belong here.

Alexander tells me he has written 45 songs. The two singles released so far already feel like songs that refuse to obey their own time.

We talk about the Embassy documentary being screened during the festival, about The Tough Alliance, Nordpolen, Air France and JJ. The influences have always been there, a lot of hip-hop, both Henning and Alexander tell me.

I immediately recognize that. Especially ’90s hip-hop has always been important to me.

Henning plays a big part in the Embassy documentary, but explains that The Tough Alliance never really wanted to be loud, alternative or weird. They had big dreams.

Just like Franke, Henning says.

They made an incredible record but never broke through on a larger scale.

“They deserved so much better,” I say.

He agrees.

Victoria Bergsman

Eleven minutes into the conversation, I ask my first real question: About Victoria Bergsman.

Alexander tells me he wrote the song in anger. But within that anger there was also love, which is why he sent it to Victoria.

She really wanted to sing it.

Alexander speaks warmly about her, describing her as a beautiful person with a beautiful voice. Having her voice on the song is an honor, he says.

“We Don’t Believe in Time”

Are there any rules for what is allowed to be 9entle? I ask.

“We’re very united in our love of music,” Henning says. “We have insanely similar taste, but completely different ways of relating to it.”

Rules?

He laughs and takes a sip of his second beer of the day.

“No, no real rules.”

He tells me he is the most negative person his wife has ever met, while Alexander is easily the most positive person he has ever met himself.

The tension is necessary. The differences make the band.

Alexander adds:

“It has to feel true.”

It has to feel true.

Then he says something that stays with me for the rest of the evening:

9entle doesn’t believe in time.

Time is a construct.

That is why, rather than releasing an album, their ambition is to release a song a year, at least for now. A little bit like The Smiths did it. It would be fun to build an entire album that way, one song at a time over the course of a year.

Liberating, Alexander says.

Henning tells me he has talked to Rasmus Hägg, one half of the duo Studio, about the same principle. Not starting a new band today and trying to recreate a younger version of yourself, the person you were at 23.

You make something new, in the present.

Not the same journey as before.

Even if you still love the same music.

The bands and artists are still in their DNA: Broder Daniel, The Embassy, Public Enemy, Daft Punk, The Smiths, Ebba Grön. Dr. Dre. Early Chicago house. Dance music. The creativity of artists who discovered entirely new codes.

9entle was born at a big party outside Småland where Gothenburg scene figure Ludde Halldin was DJing. Henning and Alexander, both natural dancers, heard the music and decided right there:

“Should we start a soul band?”

That became 9entle.

Carola, Brian Wilson and the Magic

I ask about their dream collaborators.

“Carola,” Alexander says without hesitation.

Not necessarily the person behind the artist, but the singer. Her ability. That God-given voice.

Henning tells me about listening to “Evighet” out in the rural countryside of Småland. He compares the feeling to Brian Wilson’s reaction when he first heard “Be My Baby.”

That is exactly what it felt like with Carola.

It also says something about 9entle. There is no great fear of letting different worlds collide. Chicago house, Motown, disco, Swedish pop, ’90s hip-hop, Gothenburg and schlager can all meet.

Everything fits.

The Cinematic

Alexander writes screenplays and has made films himself, and I light up.

I’ve long thought that part of the strength of Sincerely Yours and the best bands from that scene lies in the cinematic way they think. The music feels like images.

I talk to Henning about “25 Years and Runnin’.” They were 25 when they made it, but it is more than just a song. It is a song that seems to keep running with you.

And when I listen to it today, time still stops.

Alexander talks about von Trier, Lynch and Bergman. Henning says it is difficult to articulate what music actually is.

“Whatever it is,” Alexander adds, “it has to leave room for the listener’s own imagination.”

“Max Martin is fantastic,” he says, “but leaves zero room for imagination. Beautiful architecture, incredibly well-funded, but if an image means exactly the same thing to everyone, it becomes kitsch.”

Good music can mean a thousand different things at once.

Why It Matters

“You’ve chosen the good side,” Henning tells me.

“You’ve chosen 9entle.”

“It’s easy to criticize it,” Henning says, but I find myself questioning my own feelings in that moment.

Why do I actually love 9entle?

The lyrics hit exactly the right places, especially on “One Thing.” Complex but simple. The feeling that you could just change one thing.

For me, that song is about love.

About my girlfriend, who I met in London. She has listened to the song and understands my complicated life, accepts me for who I am and the fact that I’m constantly trying to change myself.

When I explained the meaning of the lyrics to her, something beautiful and honest happened between us.

And then there is the line:

“Went to my family’s grave, just to see my family’s name.”

It helped me through the grieving process after my father died.

Music has always worked that way for me. Film too. There has to be something in the lyrics, the rhythms and the transitions that you can lay over your own life.

The Tough Alliance were more about alienation.

I tell them that I once played “My Hood” at a party where everyone just wanted to listen to Eddie Meduza all night, and got told:

“What the fuck is this gay shit?”

I stood my ground anyway.

I do that when music has that kind of power over me.

Not Having to Be Young

We talk about growing up, football and not being taken seriously.

Henning played as a defender, despite being short.

I ended up in goal because I was fat as a kid, and somehow got chosen for the position almost like it was some ritual nobody was allowed to say no to.

Alexander tells me the bullying was so brutal that he eventually had to leave school.

Henning describes Alexander as tall, handsome and cool. A winner.

Henning himself was the smallest during puberty and the last one to grow.

We end up talking about masculinity. About how you have to “roar like a man” to be taken seriously.

I recognize that.

I joked around a lot at school. I was kind of the class clown. I never really knew how to show what was going on inside.

Those limitations remain even after you break free from them.

Maybe that is also why Henning keeps returning to age and relevance.

He is 45.

He doesn’t care what people think anymore.

The revolution he wants to be part of is about not having to look young to be relevant. Resisting that idea. Showing what it can look like to create something new at 45, with Alexander by his side.

It is really the same thing they said earlier.

You don’t have to follow time.

A Rescue Kit

There is a seagull in the song “My Hood.”

I took the risk of playing that song at the Swedish country-rock party, got basically kicked out, but fuck it.

It was worth it.

“Do you live in the countryside and feel lonely? Call us,” Henning jokes.

Sincerely Yours as a crisis hotline.

There is something in that. Discovering things a little too late. Finding people through music. Realizing that someone else feels exactly the same way.

We talk about Broder Daniel, Theodor Jensen, Fucking Åmål (Show Me Love 1998) and how Alexander and Henning first met.

I missed parts of that wave when it happened, but discovered it through the films, the music and the internet.

Maybe that is why it still feels so alive.

Tim from Sacramento

After the interview, I meet Tim Skalland from Sacramento.

He flew all the way to Gothenburg for Way Out West, the Embassy documentary and 9entle’s show. His flight home leaves at 7 a.m. Sunday morning. Five hours after Skeppet closes.

He once had to choose between studying in Perth and Gothenburg. Through a guy from Gothenburg, he was sent the video for The Tough Alliance’s “A New Chance.”

Then he was hooked.

He describes a time when people sent music to each other and it meant everything. You trusted each other.

Tim tells me about Air France, The Embassy and how an entire world opened up to him. About Pitchfork. About South by Southwest. About TTA shows.

He discovered Air France online, then bought the album three times, plus the vinyl.

That is the kind of music fan he is.

And maybe that is also why he has flown across the Atlantic now.

The Tough Alliance were a chapter, Tim says. In their own lives, but also in the lives of their fans.

We have videos. Flashback threads. Old articles. Friends who still talk about the same songs.

Somehow, we have each other.

Friends for life.

Henning tells me he is slower when it comes to making music now.

During the TTA years, everything moved fast: an EP and an album in less than a year.

Now he has a regular job at Volvo, where he has worked for the past eight years.

But 9entle is something else.

He wants to create magic for at least three or four people.

That is enough.

I tell him he already has two.

Tim and me.

We’ll love it no matter what.

Starting Over

Tim and I talk about why TTA broke up.

Tim is still devastated.

I understand him.

The “Be Still” photo on the Sincerely Yours website.

Tim genuinely believed the scene was about to explode.

Then it all disappeared.

TTA. Air France. Boat Club are among the bands we mention.

Henning thinks TTA split up at exactly the right time.

Maybe.

But for those of us standing on the outside, it didn’t always feel that way.

The Embassy means a lot to Tim because they continued. The Radio Dept. too.

And then, suddenly, the old names start appearing again.

After 20 years of silence, there are new projects. New songs. New shows.

Faithfool Records is putting out new music, while Hello Stranger! — Joel from Air France — and Mythologen are among the artists helping bring parts of that world back to life. Small signs that something that once felt over is still moving.

9entle stands right in the middle of it, but they are not trying to recreate it.

That matters.

I ask Tim if he thinks there will be a TTA song during 9entle’s show.

No.

I agree.

That belongs to the past.

9entle has to stand on its own.

Skeppet

What can I say about Skeppet?

An explosion.

A weekend that has been building toward exactly this moment.

TTA songs have been playing in the VIP area. The Embassy too. Something has been hanging in the air all weekend.

It is around 12:20 a.m. when I’m standing at the bar getting another beer.

The music starts.

9entle takes the stage.

I get my beer and can finally just enjoy it.

Alexander has an energy that almost knocks me off my feet. Henning and Alexander work as two opposing forces that are somehow moving in exactly the same direction.

Skeppet feels almost like a movie theater.

Everyone there is there for the same thing.

The music.

Then it ends.

When you’re at the top, truly on a high, it just ends.

I find Tim before he has to fly home a few hours later. He is happy with the time he has spent in Gothenburg, 9entle, Joel from Air France, Mythologen and all the other artists.

For me, it feels like 9entle woke something in me that I’d almost forgotten was there.

It’s difficult to take in.

No Time for Us

I stumble home through the Gothenburg night, thinking about Skeppet, hearing 9entle’s outro slowly fading into the darkness.

Lost, scared, happy, exhilarated.

Every emotion at once.

And maybe that is exactly what 9entle has awakened in me:

The feeling that time isn’t over.

We talked about time during the interview.

Alexander said that 9entle doesn’t believe in it. That time is a construct.

Henning is 45.

Alexander is 41.

I’m 33, almost 34.

And somewhere along the way, I’ve started to feel like I’m late.

Late to create.

Late to do what I actually want to do.

As if the train has already left and I’m still standing on the platform, trying to figure out where it went.

But then I think about Broder Daniel.

No Time for Us.

I think about when they played Way Out West in 2008. About The Tough Alliance. About 25 Years and Runnin’. About everything that disappeared and everything that is still here.

About people who stopped creating.

People who started again.

People who never stopped.

And maybe that is where I need to land.

Air France once called it No Excuses.

No excuses.

I still have time.

Not the time to wait, perhaps.

But time to do it.

So thank you, Alexander and Henning.

For the music, of course.

But also for awakening something that had been waiting. Something I had almost forgotten I had.

I’m 33.

Almost 34.

33 years’ runnin’.

And maybe it is only now that I’m beginning to understand that the race is actually mine.

Photo: Ester Persson