News

Been a while, sorry. Been a bit busy, you know. Anyway, a lot of stuff has happened.

Overdrive - the vinyl "The Angelmaker's Daughter" has been released and is already almost sold out! We just recorded a new song, "New Beginning (Arata Na Stato)" for a Lion Music Japan benefit compilation. It was mixed by Pelle Saether last week.

Locomotive Breath - It's been awfully quiet, but also we have recorded a new track for the Lion Music Japan benefit compilation. Recorded the drums last weekend, guitars and bass two days ago, vocals yesterday and it will be mixed by Johan Blomström tonight. Title: "Rise Up".

Zoom Club - Working on new songs, planning a recording session.

Constancia - Still working on guitar arrangements for the second album!

The Encyclopedia Of Swedish Hard Rock & Heavy Metal Vol III - Continuously working on it! The plan is to be ready by July. Not sure if I can do it, but I will sure try!

FUZZ Magazine - Done a bunch of interesting interviews lately with Doug Aldrich, Mick Box, Evergrey, Ghost etc.

So, spring is here, life is good!

New album released... and up/downloaded

Today the new OVERDRIVE album "Angelmaker" is released on Lion Music!! The reviews have been outstanding so far!
However... I get kinda sad and frustrated. A couple of days ago I did a web search to see if there were any reviews up. What did I find? Two pages of links to download the album!!
It's so incredibly fucking frustrating to put months and months of work and effort into an album just to have a bunch of cheapskates upload your work for everyone to download, even before it's available!! It's fellow JOURNALISTS (or whatever the hell they are) that do it, which is even more frustrating! People you trust by giving them access to the album prior to its releas to listen and review! It feels like the utter treachery when people you trust stab you in the back by putting the album up on torrents and download sites. Why the fuck should I bother to put a lot of my own money and effort into making an album, when some people just piss on my work by stealing it? It it wasn't for the love of music I'd get out of this fast! But, even though I love what I do, it doesn't mean I want to pay to do it!

PLEASE, support the bands and musicians that put their time, heart and money into giving you great music by PAYING for their work and effort!! No matter what your defense may be, in the long term it IS KILLING music!

Listening to (purchased music):
INTO THE PRESENCE - s/t - Awesome melodic hard rock
URIAH HEEP - Very 'Eavy... Very 'Umble - Classic!!
VOODOO SIX - Fluke? - New awesome heavies!!
GHOST - Opvs Eponymvs - Blue Öyster Cult meets Demon!

Toehider - Toehider @ Progfest Brisbane - 14th Aug 2009

Toehider from Australia, featuring Swedish drummer Rickard Evensand. This band is absolutely brilliant!!! Check them out!!!

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!!!!!!!

Sometimes you just get soooooooooooooo tired of yourself. As if it wasn't enough with all the other crap, now I have to create some of my own... Damn...

I've been working on and off with the new book. I've been way too busy with other musical projects and endeavors to be able to fully concentrate on the book (Vol 3 of my encyclopaedia that is), but nevetheless, I've been struggling to keep up the work. I'm now working on finishing the letter E. I have a separate document for each letter. I write the stuff in Word and will then, when I'm finished, transfer the text to InDesign and do the layout. Anyway, since I did the last up-date on my Office for Mac it's been giving me nothing but problems. It freezes, suddenly shuts down Entourage etc. When Word freezes the only solution is to force it to shut down, and then re-start it, losing what I have just done.

However, what really made my heart sink was when I realized I had done a fatal (well...) error. The last time I was working on the letter E, and Word collapsed on me, I shut down and re-opened the program. It opened a re-created copy of the "E" document. I re-saved it, not notocing the program wanted to re-save it as... "A"... So when I open up my finished "A" document to add some new information... up comes "E"... I have overwritten my "A" document with my "E" information. No back-up, no extra copy anywhere, no NOTHING!!!!! FUUUUUUUUUCK!!! This means I have to re-write everything on "A" AGAIN!!!

As if I didn't have enough to do already!! Soooooo tired....

Crap... I'm going to bed...

On a good note however, Overdrive have just signed to Lion Music for the new album "Angelmaker", to be released in January.

Listening to:

STAR ONE - Victims Of The Modern Age - Arjen does it again!!!!

LÅNGFINGER - Skygrounds - Great Swedish retro!

DEGREED - Life Love Loss - Great melodic hard rock!

CURT ANDERSON - For Some Time Now - Chubtone rocks!

Looking for a deal...

Well, first of all sorry for being such a slacker (thanks, Dave ;-)).

The world is not fair. When people like Jason Bibier and Håkan Hellström can get a record deal, and we seem to be all out of luck. I'm talking about the new Overdrive album. We have 18 tracks recorded, mixed and ready. This feels, by far, like the best album we've ever made with the best production, the strongest tracks and our best musical and vocal performances. Still, it seems noone's interested... I mean, I've sent out around 25 promo packages. I've received two lousy deal proposals and three "thanks, but no thanks". Well, maybe it is actually better to take matters into our own hands, set up some good distribution and release it ourselves? We've already more or less decided to make a CD and a vinyl version, with different tracks (just to confuse people :-)). We've put up some medleys from the new album on our MySpace and Facebook and the response has been great. Seems at least we have some fans out there. Too bad the labels aren't among them... Well, since I'm also the only one in the band engaging in trying to get us a deal (and in most things for that matter...), my patience is starting to run low. Right now I feel more like, fuck it, I'm moving on! We'll see... a miracle may happen...

On the other hand the Guts train has now seriously started moving! We've got a shitload of great songs already written, and this feels really really exiting! The plan is now for me to get my butt up to Stockholm for a weekend of rehearsals and recording! Drummer/singer Peter Hermansson is one of the most prolific persons I've come across in years! And I thought I had a lot of extra hours on my day!

On the third hand, I will now also start arranging and recording guitars for the new Constancia album! The material I've received from Mikael sounds great!

Well, if one train has stopped moving, the best thing is to try and get on another one. Who knows, it may be an express!

Here's some new great stuff I've picked up lately:

BLACK COUNTRY COMMUNION - s/t - The album Chickenpox... sorry -foot, should've made!

RAZR13 - s/t - Dug Pinnick doin' the King's X dance with some other boys, sounding great!

PRETTY MAIDS - Pandemonium - Their best in years!

SHARKATTACK - s/t - New great CDBaby discovery! Cool rockers!

THE NAUGHTONES - s/t - see above!

Rockin' in Finland

So, we've returned from a highly... interesting... trip to Finland. It started with a gig at Sigurdsgatan in Västerås, supported by Sour System (a really great band featuring a former Carnal Forge member). Very small audience, but a really cool gig! We continued to Stockholm, where we spent the night and entered the ferry to Finland. We met up with the boys in Watain, who was all up for some headbanging to the Blues Brothers covers band in the dance hall. Just for the hell of it. We also spent some time with the boys in RAM, who were also accompanied by Pelle from Nifelheim. A great guy, which a cool sense of humor. He turned us on to the extremely cheesy Turkish versions of Superman and Star Wars, which just HAVE to be seen. Just go to YouTube and type in "Turhish Star Wars". You won't regret it!!

The festival in Helsinki, Metal Warning, was a really cool festival at a great venue called Gloria. Went out together with Henri Juvonen to do some record hunting, too. Bought some stuff, too. Some stuff that happened during our journey on and off the ferry I'm just dying to tell, but I have to protect the innocent (and I'd be killed by the main person). Anyway, I still laugh my butt off just thinking about it!

The Overdrive album is all finished. Now we just have to find someone interested in releasing it! We'll see what happens.

Listening to:
TRILLION - New demo tracks! AWESOME pomp!!
ALTER BRIDGE - III - They are back with another killer!
GOV'T MULE - By A Thread - Blues rock played the way it should be!

Back from the dead... or something

Haven't written in a long time, but now life has returned to its old routine (or something like that).
I've spent the past four weeks working on the new Overdrive album. Editing drums, recording rough guide guitars and bass. Bouncing tracks for the other members to record to. Then recorded my own final rhythm and lead guitars. 19 tracks times 3-4 guitars per track. Also recorded some final bass in case our bassist couldn't make it. That's a lot of tracks... and a lot of time. As I feel the song material is really really strong this time around I want my performance to be as perfect as it can be. I must've re-recorded a couple of the solos at least 20 times before I got them the way I wanted to. Some, however, I did re-record several times, but picked the first take anyway. Sometimes it has a certain flow and spontaneity you just can't re-create. Then I waited for the other members to send their vocals, bass tracks, acoustic and lead guitars, so that I could add them to the ProTools project, check them and then consolidate all the files to make life easier for Pelle Saether, who was going to mix it. It's however a bit frustrating, to say the least, when you sometimes have different ambition standards.

Last week me and our drummer drove the 600 km's to Studio Underground in Västerås to start mixing with Pelle Saether. The first day we started checking and transferring the files to his system, we gave him our reference discs (we want this and that drum sound, bass sound, guitar sound etc) then we left him to it. He always wants to set the sound alone with no interference from the band (understandably so). Instead we went record hunting and did some great finds! In the afternoon we returned to the studio and listened to the basic sound, which was just plain killer! Brutal! Our drummer just drooled when he heard the drum sound and it all came together just great! It took us 6 days to mix the tracks, however seven of them still lack vocals (lack of time) so we just mixed the basic tracks. The vocals will be finished this week and the final songs finished mixing in two weeks. We got back Saturday evening, one day off and then back to work. Feels like I've had no vacation whatsoever...

So, now all we have to do is find ourselves a label that wants to release the new Overdrive album. It will without doubt be our best album ever, and it's definitely one that I've put a hell of a lot of work, effort and love into!

Some song titles: Angelmaker, Signs All Over, Thriller, Run Out, On With The Action, Brand New Sinner, Cold Blood Chaser, Wavebreaker, Short Moments Of Freedom, It's Not As Easy As It Seems, See The Light, I Know There's Somethimg Going On (cover)...

Listening to:
Overdrive - checking for flaws, things to fix...
Furyon - Gravitas - New UK unit, powerful and melodic!
Iain Ashley Hersey - Nomad - Reviewing it. Decent retro style.
Paul Gilbert - Fuzz Universe - Really dig Paul's playing!