Wolves and Thistles | Varg²™

In the 032c archive, we highlight the best pieces from over 20 years of printmaking. This print feature with Varg²™ by Shane Anderson was originally published in 032c Summer 2024 (Issue #45).

When producer Jonas Rönnberg was growing up in the small town of Ursviken in northern Sweden, his mother called him “wolf.” From an early age, he identified with the hunted and misunderstood animal that’s “just trying to eat” and began using the Swedish word for wolf, varg, for his musical projects.

In 2018, he received a cease-and-desist letter from the German metal band Varg. But instead of giving up part of his identity, Rönnberg doubled down and changed his name to Varg²™, thereby trademarking the name and trolling the metalheads, even calling his first EP under the new moniker Fuck Varg (2019).

Behavior of this sort has led some to call Varg²™ the “bad boy of EDM,” and the savagery of the Stockholm-based producer and DJ doesn’t always end in lols. Having taken a critical stance on the monetized world of electronic music and broken unspoken rules, such as by playing trap, jungle, and trance on the hallowed grounds of Berghain – where “techno” techno, and only “techno” techno, reigns supreme – Varg²™ takes the stance of an outsider, a wolf, who described himself in 2019 as a “bullied fucking fat guy from northern Sweden” in “Why Varg²™ Hates Techno,” his first large feature, for Resident Advisor. In that article, Rönnberg also details some of the trauma that has marked his life, including battling depression since age 12, suffering the loss of his roommate who was killed when he was 18, and almost being killed himself when he was thrown onto subway tracks. These harrowing encounters and others have marked his sound, which is dark and harsh and often probes the throbbing gristle of post-industrial techno.

A prolific artist who has released more than a hundred singles, EPs, and albums over the past 11 years, Varg²™ has a varied palette, ranging from the bone-shaking dub techno of 10 år av skog, natt & stjärnor (“Ten Years of Forest, Night & Stars,” 2023) to the experimental drone and ambient of Norrskensflamman (“The Flame of the Northern Lights,” 2020). His discography also includes trap-, metal-, and hyperpop-influenced records such as Body of Content (2021) that are aligned with his friends and fellow Swedes Yung Lean and Drain Gang, artists with whom he has collaborated on numerous projects. On his most recent venture, Nordic Flora Series, Pt. 6: Outlaw Music – which was recently released on Drain Gang’s Year0001 label – he is joined by Earth, Eartheater, Skrillex, Ecco2K, and Rx Papi. Lush and banging and emotional, it is his most developed album to date as it moves from pop-structured trance to trap to witch house to jungle to acoustic guitar, sometimes within seconds. The album knows no boundaries, and Rönnberg doesn’t seem to, either.

Apart from his numerous musical releases, Varg²™ also runs the Northern Electronics label with Anthony Linell and is a graffiti and visual artist. Like his music, the content of his paintings is often menacing. In the joint 2023 show “Fucked for Life,” with Drain Gang’s Bladee at the Hole in New York, the two created sinister, demonic faces on repurposed bedsheets that were covered in tags and dripping in neon. In a GQ interview, Bladee suggested that the name of the show was in reference to their methodology: “We want to just attack and fuck up the canvas.”

Varg²™ was quick to intervene, suggesting that “it’s also this life, the life we are living … the path chosen by us. It’s what it is and it’s a rocky road.” Rönnberg is rather reflective on the life he lives, the life in which he is trying to carve out a niche for himself and others within a Swedish society that he perceives as restrictive. We talked about these things and others, even touching on his love for flowers.

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SHANE ANDERSON: The new record starts very big, very dancefloor friendly, but slowly becomes quieter and more introspective. Was this intentional?

VARG²™: In a show, it’s very hard to do something like that, since you’re supposed to always bring people up to ecstasy – but on an album, you can. I actually didn’t intend to create that journey; it happened naturally. I hadn’t made an album in years, since I’ve been busy doing other stuff, but I guess all the hardships I have been going through seeped in, and I wanted to create something more gentle, something which I haven’t done in the past. All of my stuff has been very dark, but I’m starting to understand that without light there can be no dark. If you want to make someone laugh, you need to understand how to make them cry. And it goes the other way around, too. The album is still very extreme in some ways. It’s like my paintings, which are very maximalist and minimalist at the same time.

SHANE ANDERSON: Did some experience or thought spur this?

V: I think I’ve always shown a softer side in music that is very emotional, but it was bleak. You know, the world is dark, and for most people the journey will be bleak. There’s a very gloomy vibe to Stockholm and Sweden. Everything is really beautiful but really dead and boring. There’s nothing going on. FOMO doesn’t really exist here. Everything is so fucking quiet. You have a lot of time to think and get to know yourself and whatnot. Making music is easy here, but maintaining a scene and putting on events are not. Life has been beautiful, but it’s been a long and bumpy ride. I’ve been through a few rings of hell, and I’m very thankful to have come back to the light. When you experience that, you become more humble. You understand that the world is dark as fuck, but that it’s very important to express that, even if it’s difficult.

SA: I read that you were a schoolteacher at some point but that you never graduated school. How does that work?

V: I’ve done so many things to get money, both legally and illegally. I was kicked out of school at an early age, and I’ve been entertaining myself since. I’ve been hustling since I was 12, when I started working at a skate and graffiti shop. As a kid, it wasn’t fun to wake up in the world. I just felt really stuck. It didn’t really help that I was living in a tiny-ass town, and every single cop knew me and stamped me as a bad person while I always felt like a good person. With that said, I’m very lucky to have a beautiful family that always supported me.

The teacher thing is crazy. I was 20 and fresh off racking and selling shit and going crazy when I got offered a position as a substitute teacher. I thought I’d be hanging out with a bunch of kindergarten kids, but I was told I had to teach fifth graders. I did that for a while, and then they started a new school for kids with special needs. They weren’t kids with any disabilities, but [instead] people who were doing what I did when I was young – trying to get money and bitches and cutting. I can’t say much about it because of NDAs, but I wasn’t a traditional teacher giving math lessons. It was a more intimate, closed situation. There were around 20 kids, and we would sit down and have talks. It was more of an emotional thing. You know, Sweden is such a crazy country. We try to do what Japan is pulling off, but nothing really works. Our economy is weak, crime is up, and nobody cares about the government or the police. So, this project was really important to help these kids get out of trouble, and it was important for me to see that free-form structure. I love helping people who don’t feel like they fit in on this planet, because I’ve always felt that way. I stayed there for four years, and I still have contact with a lot of my students today. It was fantastic.

Courtesy Varg²™, Jonas Rönnberg

SA: Why did you leave?

V: I released my first record at the same time, in 2013, and I was getting invited to play shows internationally on the weekends. Then I’d have to clock in on Monday morning at 7am, and it was such a crazy sleep schedule. I would go to work and then be up all night, so that I could go to work the next day. It was too much. I left when things started going really well, but I am grateful for the experience. It helped me manifest what I was always wishing for. What I mean is, just because you’re physically a part of this world, it doesn’t mean you have to abide by its rules. I don’t mean you have to become an outcast or a criminal, but that you need to create your own magical place and live your life according to your own core values. You need to be tough and nice at the same time.

SA: What you said about creating your own space makes me think of the title of this chapter of your “Nordic Flora” series, Outlaw Music. It’s like a cowboy, living by a set of morals that differs from that of society.

V: When I meet my old friends, who also have a dysfunctional background, they say things like, “The world sucks.” But then they follow its rules. They don’t have the energy or ability to get out of it. I’m saying you can just live in your own world. Even your apartment can be your world. It’s about your mentality. And that’s what I did. As for the “Nordic Flora” series, it is something I did many years ago and was my first world-building project. I was constructing my world in my studio, and I was just doing whatever I wanted. Outlaw Music is the final stage of that project that started when I stopped being a teacher.

SA: Why is the series called “Nordic Flora”?

V: To be honest, I just really love flowers. One of my biggest dreams when I was still trying to be a part of this society was to work with flowers. I really wanted to do funeral flowers. I had a friend working at the garden of cemeteries here in Stockholm and wanted to apply there. This might sound like some mushroom-head shit, but flowers helped me a lot when I was a teenager, even as a kid. There wasn’t much around where I grew up, but there was nature. We have these dark forests that are hard to navigate because they all look the same, but then you’ll suddenly come upon a field of flowers. Sitting down, and looking at the different kinds, the different shapes, that were all related … I’ve never explained this to anyone before, but flowers have always been very special to me because they’re like the songs. There are all these different organisms sprouting up. It’s a limitless system that blooms wherever it thrives the best.

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SA: Do you have a favorite flower?

V: I really love thistles. They have this luminous blue or purple color, and they’re so spiky and soft at the same time. They look like part of the forest and also not.

SA: Do you identify with thistles? You just mentioned that people should be nice and tough at the same time.

V: I kind of do. Plus, they dry nicely.

SA: You could also say that your projects are like thistles. They are very spiky and hard but then very delicate. What’s interesting to me is that you’ve gone to extremes and released very different titles under the same name. There’s the dub techno album 10 år av skog, natt & stjärnor that has a spiky, Hard Wax sound throughout, and this new album, which is very delicate at times. It seems intentional that all of these projects are released under Varg²™ and not [under] some other monikers. Is that true?

V: I come from noise, industrial, and punk, where there would be ten different bands with the same five members. They would release these tapes of secret side projects that were maybe slightly more distorted or whatever than their main project. To me, this isn’t world-building. It’s building a scene. It’s just a bunch of dudes hanging out in a basement, a Dungeons & Dragons group. It’s a scene that remains insular and, so, quite arrogant. Most of these scenes end up being shit at some point anyway. It’s not impressive. What is impressive is trying to stay positive and walking a path of happiness.

But to be honest, I used to release material under a bunch of different names. On my record label Northern Electronics, I would put out all these records with fake names to build a story. But then I realized that this is disappointing. If you want to create a world, you need to invite people in from the outside, and they have to know where to find you.

It’s funny because I was talking about this with my friend yesterday. I painted graffiti for 20 years, and I could shift. I’m a bomber, a tag artist, and you might see me hitting the street with a very hip-hop graffiti style at the beginning of the block, and then it might be some freeform, weird tag that’s in a totally different style at the end of it. But I’m always me, and you can still see that it’s me in some way. It has a lot to do with reacting to my surroundings and how I analyze the area. It’s the same with music. I make music to listen to when I go make graffiti, but I also make music for when I want to go out for a walk. Every day isn’t the same, and I’m just trying to create a world where I feel like I belong. People still don’t understand what I’m doing, though.

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SA: Is there a political dimension to your work? I learned that your album Norrskensflamman [2020] was named after a communist newspaper from the 1940s.

V: I was at the police museum with my students, and there had just been the biggest robbery in the country. A helicopter had landed on the roof of the depot where they fill armored trucks with bills, and they blew off the roof to get to the money. It was some serious Mission: Impossible shit. So, we’re at this police museum, and they give us paper to draw our own police helicopters on, but we were all just drawing the helicopter used in the robbery. Anyway, one of my students walked over to a display where they exhibited a model of the Norrskensflamman building, where the police confessed about how fucked up they really are.

SA: How?

V: You have to remember that we had socialist labor camps in the north during that time, and it was a left-wing newspaper. The story goes that a military captain, some officers, and the owner of a right-wing paper burned down the building that the newspaper’s offices were in. Five people died, two of [whom] were kids. And the police, these fucking bullies, were given the same punishment for their terrorist act of arson that they would receive for breaking a window at a bus stop or tagging on a wall. They killed these people for their political views, for criticizing the right wing. And the one woman who stood up to them, who also lost family and friends, got a worse sentence than the police. And so, this miniature in the police museum had a wall text that wasn’t really apologetic, and I thought, that’s some bleak shit. That’s what I mean, Sweden is pretty bleak. We’re a neutral country, but we’re selling war jets all over Europe, no matter what side they’re on.

SA: So, the album was calling attention to something that might have been forgotten and showing allegiance to the newspaper?

V: Yeah. And it’s also storytelling. It’s inviting that into the room and saying that it was unjust. It’s not fair. And I don’t like it. That’s my whole project. To speak to the people who have seen shit. We need each other, since it can be really tough to find things to relate to in what is considered the “normal” world.

But in a way, everything I’m saying about world-building is like wearing a pair of noise-canceling headphones and walking away, onwards to where you want – or maybe even don’t want, but need – to go. The whole thing is maybe escapist, but in a positive way. Instead of hurting people or being addicted to drugs, I’m trying to help myself and people around me. I’m not just building a world for the people here but [one] for all outcasts to momentarily step into. Whoever wants to come and look at this puddle in the woods with me and play with it is welcome. Let’s just let this cannibalistic society consume itself while we share our light.

SA: At the beginning of our conversation, you mentioned your paintings. I hear that you’re also opening a gallery and that you’ve collaborated with Bladee on some artworks.

V: The gallery wasn’t anything Anthony [Linell] and I planned. It just had to happen. We’re going to have exclusive stuff at Galerie Bäckhästen, and we are also going to sell all our records. You can’t find anywhere to buy them in Stockholm, even though there’s always been a blooming scene with many artists and labels and other inspired underground movements here that are globally significant. A lot of the clubs are shutting down, too, due to “normal” law-abiding people wanting to shut culture out of the cities. No vibration, no noise.

SA: But if there was no record store and all the clubs are gone, how did the scene form? At least internationally, there seems to be a lot happening in Stockholm.

V: It’s funny because people always ask about the Stockholm scene. There’s a lot of crazy music here, but that’s because you stay at home and make your shit. It’s so boring, there’s nothing to do. You have to go into your own mind. It’s a good way to overcome boredom, find clarity, and transcend depression.

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SA: When you took over the Instagram of Resident Advisor, you called out the techno industry for the absurd amount of money involved, saying you made more on a single night as an underground DJ than you did in a month as a teacher. They even ran an article called “Varg²™ Hates Techno.” What I’m saying is that your project and persona aren’t just hippie vibes, [that] there’s a critical element, too.

V: Everyone always thinks I’m so anti and negative, but I’m not. I’m happy to be alive. Every day I wake up and feel lucky to be here. What I was doing there was just stating the fact that I get paid a lot of money to play a couple of records and made almost nothing when I was taking care of people that needed the help the most. But I don’t have anything against techno. I love the old Hard Wax records; I have every single Mauricio record. You put that on, and you leave this world, you know? And I think that’s the thing with Swedish music: it has this tongue-in-cheek, winking of the eye that says this world is fucked, but let’s go.

SA: Laughter is one way to deal with the pain of the world.

V: Exactly. That’s also labeled as being negative, though. But I don’t care. All that matters to me is … things that are made with passion. I think you can feel when something is genuine, when it’s made with passion. I don’t care what you do, as long as you’re genuine to yourself. It can be techno, metal, working in a restaurant, or whatever. But nowadays people are struggling to do that. Everything is so oversaturated and overexposed. Everyone is trying to sound like Future. It’s so whack. These people don’t even know what they like. They’re just sheep. You should do whatever you want to do. I might make a gospel record one day and a breakcore album the next. But the really important thing is that people are good at what they do. It’s the only way the world can move forward.