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HEART OF THE ROCK 2001 RADIOACTIVE - TOMMY DENANDER This is the 'In The Spotlight' page. Tommy Denander is a very
busy man. And a multi-talented one at that too. Of late, Tommy has been
involved with Swedish acts such as Talk Of The Twon, Sayit, as well
as two bands close to his heart Prisoner and Rainmaker. However, in
between times, Tommy and MTM Music have finally seen fit to release
a series of tracks released ten years ago, initially under the guise
of his debut solo album on the Sony label. However, the petals fell
off the rose, and things didn't quite eventuate. Kept under wraps for
a long period of time, the year 2001 sees the unveiling of those tracks
under the banner 'Radioactive'. Basically Tommy and every decent melodic
rock muso you can throw a stick at in tinseltown Los Angeles participates
on this one.. The album 'Ceremony Of Innocence' is out now, and Editor
George Thatcher gets a few appreciative words from Tommy about it. Tommy!! Welcome mate. Thanks for giving us some time
to talk about a few things.. Totally my pleasure, I love your site and I'm grateful for your support.
From what I have seen, my own thoughts and opinions about
the Radioactive album as reflected in our review, seem to be amplified
everywhere else. It must be great to get that consensus of opinion from
your peers? It's been a little too unreal to be honest! I was a bit naive in the
last years of making this album because my only focus was to actually
just finish it and somewhere along that line I forgot that this album
would most likely do big things for me all over the world, so I wasn't
really mentally prepared for the bomb that hit:-)... but I couldnt be
happier and I can't thank people enough for all the love and wonderful
feedback I'm getting. Just how much of a labor of love has this Radioactive
project been for you? 100%!!!... It had nothing to do with trends or "stardom"
or any lame crap like that. I just had the great fortune to be placed
in a situation that I knew I could make something great out of... luck
has a part in anything good that happens in life otherwise it wouldn't
happen of course but even though I was only 23 when I started this I
knew I could make my dreams come true once the simple question was asked
to Toto "will you play on my album if I get a deal?" From
day one all I wanted was to make the kind of album I loved hearing these
people do, so it was a pure labor of love. Surely though it wasn't a case of purely listening to
the L.A scene and being influenced by it? What about your own personal
musical upbringing locally in Sweden before moving to California? Very true, I listened to all kinds of music since I was very young
like Kiss, Steely Dan, Van Halen, Judas Priest, Santana, Whitesnake,
Accept, ABBA, Clash...disco, jazz, punk, pop, fusion, hard rock all
of it and I found a lot that I liked in all these styles. This was one
of the reasons I wanted to be a session player because I liked and could
play most styles fairly easy and at a young age. I had great help from
my uncle Henry as a kid because he brought all these wonderful LP's
to me everytime he came for a visit, Miles Davies, Steely Dan, Larsen/Feiten
etc so he opened my eyes and ears to some very good music plus he introduced
me to Santana and that made a big change in my style because I was mostly
into Ace Frehley and Kiss at the time. My mom played piano and guitar
and my uncle also played guitar so I learned some chords from them but
the rest I picked up myself. I was scared of getting a music teacher
because even though I was very young I had this feeling that I had so
much music in me that I should discover myself and if I get a teacher
he or she might lead me in the wrong way and I'll lose that... I'm very
happy that I never got a teacher:-) I played in some bands and on a few minor tours with swedish artists
but more than anything I wanted to become a session player and when
I was 12 I started playing on friends shitty demos, and when I was 14
my band ATC got signed to Polygram and quickly my reputation as "the
kid who can play like Eddie Van Halen" spread, and I got some calls
to do "flashy" solos on pop records and before I knew it I
had become a session player! But I've done pretty much all kinds of
gigs you can imagine from weddings, funerals, biker parties, "Vegas"-style
shows, rap tours and so on...it was a great time I can tell you. The move to the States must have been an eye opener.
How long did it take for you to settle into the groove and find your
feet musically? The best years of my life except now! I moved there for several of
reasons, first because I was tired of a lot of things in Sweden and
had to get away for a while, second because I always wanted to live
in USA, third because I met this great musician who invited me to move
with him and start a band in LA... my goal was mainly to watch and learn
once I got there. I had been a pro player for 4-5 years in Sweden so
I had a pretty good idea of what I could do but I was eager to learn
and there's no finer place in the world to meet and see the best musicians
alive on the planet. I felt at home right away, I remember on the second
day there saying to myself "I'm finally where I belong"...and
it was true. You must wonder some times where you get the balls to
enable you to call on the right contacts, open the right doors etc.
How did you do it for one so relatively young back then? I never question my balls:-)))...kidding! But I often think about how
many superstars I've had the enormous privilege to meet and work with...
I guess I've always been fearless about walking up to people like this
because I knew in my heart that I'm a nice easy going guy who handles
the languange well enough and do know how to play if it comes to that.
I was 16 when I spent a whole week with Van Halen in Stockholm and even
at that young age I impressed some top players so I figured that I must
at least have talent and from that my confidence grew over the years
so when the time to ask Toto and the rest of the guests on Radioactive
came I never doubted my ability to make it happen... so my balls were
under control but I'm still stunned I made it happen:-))) In hindsight, the Sony label came onboard, and by the
sounds of things, it was a case of 'too good to be true'? The Sony thing was too easy in a way because when I met Toto and asked
them to play, the same day I met this nice A&R guy from Sony
(the only nice one from that label!!!) and told him about the situation
and of course he got interested. A few days later i'm in their office
with a deal almost ready...before I even had played any music or told
them what I wanted to do and that made me wonder. They were so happy
about just sending a fellow swede to USA to record with Toto that they
forgot all about business and even common sense but hey I got my deal
and money so I wasn't complaining...until I got home and the party had
died down to say the least! The nice A&R guy wasn't in charge of
my deal and the knucklehead that was is widely known here in Sweden
as a "how not to do your job on a label" example! But fate
apparently had this plan for me because if the nice A&R guy would've
taken care of it, this album would've been released in 1992 without
90% of the guests and it'd be forgotten about now!!! Initially, this was going to be your solo album. Was
it promoted at the time as 'Swedish whiz kid backed by Toto' or something
similar? There where several big articles in the top papers in Sweden and elsewhere
around the world, and here in Sweden it was a case of young whiz kid
etc and I didn't mind of course:-) Only hard part was when I parted
ways with Sony and all the people who called for the next 2-3 years
asking when the album was coming out, that was a tough period since
I didn't know exactly what to do at the time with the album. There is a heavy influence and input from the Toto guys,
not only current members, but from the older incarnations too. Not too
many people can be the catalyst to bring them all together. How hard
was that, notwithstanding egos and reputations etc? Toto has always been one of my absolutely fave bands as people should know by now.-), so their influence on this album is of course big. My only fear when I asked the guys to play on it was that they had this rule to not be more than two maybe three guys at the same time on other people's records because they used to get hired as backing band for artists all the time in the early days because of that magic sound only they had but they all agreed right away so...lucky me i thought:-) After the tragic death of Jeff in 1992 the album became even more unique for the obvious but sad reasons but it also made it more special for the people I asked to wanna be a part of it because we loved Jeff so much. It was a BIG dream for me to try and get all Toto members except JM Byron who I never really thought of as a "true" member but I did talk to Simon at one time and Luke was scheduled to play on it in 1991 but we couldn't make it then. But to put it in to perspective, there's a new Toto compilation coming out in Sweden first week of October called "Hold The Line/Very Best" and in the booklet there's a short story of the Toto history and they mention me and my album and the fact that I got 8 of the members to guest on Radioactive... so it is quite a special achivement I guess. About the makeup of the album, how do you assemble a
group of guys like this together over a short space of time to create
such melodic mayhem? I mean, whats the secret? I have nude pictures of all of them in situations they never wanna
talk about:-)))... just kidding! Well after I had "Toto" as
my backing band anytime I asked someone to play or sing on it they understood
that the simple fact that Toto plays on it must mean it's at least not
a bad album! But it was no easy task in any way and remember it took
ten years!!! plus it costs a lot of money to make albums like these.
I guess there's no real secret to to it... I am a lucky guy who worked
VERY hard for many years to become good at what I do and i've always
had this belief that "dreams are just good ideas to make real"...
anything we want really bad we can get... almost anything of course
because you still have to wager reality in it:-). It looks like "magic"
these days to see an album like this but don't forget that 95% of those
on my album are session players.. that can be hired by simply calling
them, they cost a lot of money but it's as easy as that for the most
part. My luck was that I had the fortune of getting Toto first... an
obvious door opener in many cases. During that session time during 1991, did you have a
particular theme or pattern in which to flesh these songs out? Or were
the songs mainly pre-meditated or arranged beforehand? I had total control of my goals and all songs were written out on note
paper and placed in the right order in a folder for each guy plus I
had a DAT tape with all the songs as a demo in the same order so we
just listened to the demo while they checked the sheet papers and made
little reminders for themselves and bam, in one or two takes we nailed
the songs. I thought this would be a very easy way to get a lot done
in the time we had (two days for drums and bass and one day for keyboards)
and it was, Jeff and Mike were really impressed with how I produced
the sessions and it was without a doubt the most amazing days in my
life. There's a DVD that I'm working on called "The making of Radioactive"
that will show a lot from these sessions plus so much more!!! With the many and varied singers turning up to sing,
were the songs designed with them in mind, or did they have to adjust?
The singers came in very late, only in the last two years. I had few
expectations of getting all these singers involved because they're not
so easy to just book as session guys for lead vocals! I tried to give
them two or three songs to pick a favorite from for as long as there
were tracks left, this made it easier because they all found one or
two tracks that they wanted to sing. I also had the greatest security
because Geir Ronning is one of my best friends and one of the best singers
in the world so I knew that whatever tracks I can't get a "top
name" for I can always have him do it and it's gonna be perfect
so that was a luxury for sure. But most of the vocals by the guys in
USA were done by themselves over there, we just sent tapes back and
forth. Fergie did "On My Own" here in my studio and Geir and
Kristoffer did their parts here as well. I must admit that songs like 'Grace' and 'Haunt Me Tonight'
are killer, though they are effectively ballads. I understand they're
some of your faves too? Very true I love them both. Bruce Gaitsch is a dear friend and he was
here visiting a couple of years ago, we had just done a guitar duet
CD called 'Denander-Gaitsch Counterparts' and he spent a week in Sweden.
I told him how much I loved 'Haunt Me Tonight' and that I wanted to
make a cover for my album and he loved the idea so much that when he
came home to Nashville he made me copies of the original tapes and sent
me those!!! I just replaced Richard Marx's vocals with some fantastic
ones by Geir and added my electric guitars and the song was done! 'Grace'
is one of my best songs I've ever written I think. I had kept this one
away from all people I work with because I wanted to save it for something
special and I never thought of it as a Radioactive song because it was
too much pop but I couldn't let go of how much I loved the track. Ricky
Delin wrote some absolutely wonderful lyrics to it and Kristoffer sings
it in a way that only few can I think. Tell us about the sonic madness of 'Liquid'. This song
is so cool!! Reminds me of Jordan Rudess from his Speedway Boulevard
days. Who was doing those amazing keyboard runs? Was that Greg (Phillinganes)
or Vince (Dicola)? This was meant to be a vocal song for 9 years!!!... but I just couldn't
find the right melody to it. In the last year of making the album I
got in touch with several of my favorite musicians like Dean Parks,
Greg Phillinganes, Vince DiCola, Abe Laboriel, Neil Stubenhaus plus
I knew sax player Dave Boruff from earlier, and I wanted to have them
all guest but wasn't sure where to fit them all in! In the fall of 2000
it was time to get them on tape because Ricky Delin was going to LA
and Nashville to work on his album with many of these people as well,
so I came up with this idea to make this song into an instrumental.
I wasn't sure if it would fit the album at all and Mario at MTM even
asked me if it had to be on the album but I am a musican at heart and
it is sonic madness as you say :-) but I like it. It's Greg doing all
lead fills during the song and Vince making this enormous masterpiece
in the end. The song features Mike Porcaro, Abe Laboriel and Neil Stubenhaus
on bass!!! Gotta have some fun in life! Fee Waybill's input on 'A Case Of Right Or Wrong' is
superb. Did you hear any of his earlier stuff, like on his 1984 album
'Read My Lips' with Luke and Landau playing all over that one? I was a HUGE Tubes fan and Fee's first solo album ranks as one of my
all time top 5 albums. In 1996 I was asked by Bruce Gaitsch if I'd like
to do a solo on one song on this album he was producing with Richard
Marx for Fee Waybill?!!!!! I totally freaked out...he said "It's
me and Lukather on guitars but we need a flashy solo!" I played
on the song 'Dying Of Delight' on that album called 'Don't Be Scared
By These Hands' a totally unreal situation. Fee and the guys were really
pleased with my work so last year I called Fee and asked him to return
the favor by singing something on my album and he ended up co-writing
the track...plus singing his ass off on it. And don't miss Mats Olausson's
(Yngwie M) keyboard solo on it...that should put the fear in any kid
with a ego:-))) I won't get you to go into too much detail on this one
as I know it's fairly sensitive, but you must have been pissed off severely
for not being able to release this album on Sony in 1991/92? Mostly sad at first because the album had been written about and talked
about so much and now it was looking like this huge failure from me
so it was hard. But I was at the same time very relieved because they
told me "ok we will release the album but with absolutely no promotion
etc, you're on your own with that".. and I told them - I haven't
spent my whole life waiting for a dream like this to happen so you guys
can ruin it, and that combined with ugly acts from us both made it so
clear that we shouldn't do this. Trust me, I couldn't be more happy
it went this way when I sit here today! Thinking about it though, 1991 was a slow year, 'Kingdom
Of Desire' didn't create too much waves for instance, despite being
a strong album. What do you think would've happened with Radioactive
if it had been released then? In the shape and form the album would've been in it would have disappeared
quickly I think. It would've been a decent rock album with the cool
"hip" factor that Toto backed me but the music trend was way
off at the time...again I'm so happy the way it all turned out. When the Sony deal soured, you bought back the rights
to the songs, and have kept them in the can for a good while now. Did
you have to do much to them re: mixing etc, ten years after the event?
The only downside to this album taking so long is that the quality
of the tapes weren't 100% anymore, still good but not as good. I also
had to do two transfers because the original recordings were done on
two' 24 track reels and then around 98% transfered to digital ADAT machines
and in the end digitally transfered to my Pro Tools. Also most of the
guest spots were recorded on other formats in various quality so when
I finally had it all in the Pro Tools I was a bit scared if it was gonna
be possible to make it sound good at all. I asked some top names in
the world to mix it but they were either too expensive or don't touch
anything that isn't gonna be huge so I ended up mixing it with my studio
partner Thomas Ulvebring. And considering the quality on the tracks
we made it sound very good but it was scary at times. I might get someone
else to do a completely new mix someday in a big studio and add some
bonus stuff to it but that's years ahead if it happens! So does that mean that all of the songs from those L.A
sessions are now out in CD format? Yes all ten tracks I did with Toto are on CD, there's an instrumental
tune that I wrote with Jeff and Mike Porcaro called "5492"
(in honor of Jeff 1954-92) that's on my first solo CD 'Less Is More'.
It's a 10 minute fusion blues workout with some really cool playing
by Jeff, Mike and David Paich. I personally think you've chosen a great time to release
it now. Especially with an open media environment and the Internet of
course. What are your opinions of the new breed of media? Thanks I think so too, this might be the perfect time for many years
to come so I guess I was lucky in that as well. I'm a big fan of many
new groups and the thing I like most is that it's back to people playing
again, not just producers doing plastic productions with a lame singer
in front even though we see a lot of that still. There's a whole new
generation of great musicians coming and I was scared and sad for a
long time because I felt that most young players didn't care about working
hard to be good at your instrument and so on... but I was wrong and
I see so much new talent all over. Plus like I said earlier, I'm a fan
of all kinds of music so I'm open to most that comes along...except
shitty no brain acts like Venga Boys, Alice DJ and blipp blopp techno
crap like them! The album title 'Ceremony Of Innocence'. Tell us about
that. Is it symbolic of anything? And is it a more recent name given
to the project or one decided years ago? It's very symbolic and has been with me since just before I started
this project and it's one of the reasons I ended up doing it. Me and
my girlfriend at the time got VERY badly treated for a year by the people
I really thought were my best friends...it got so far that my girlfriend
tried to kill herself! What they did were things I'll never forget them
for, and this album became my 'ceremony of innocence' because they were
wrong and in a way it's a musical revenge. Listen to the lyrics of the
song and you'll hear it. I will most likely never do another Radioactive but I will definitely
work with most of the people again. Fergie has asked me to work wih
him on stuff and I'm all his any day any time because he's such a great
guy, Geir I work with all the time and we have several projects lined
up for next year. Geir is just the greatest human you could ever meet
and I love him more than most people I've know or met in my whole life.
And Bobby... I don't have enough space here or letters in the alphabet
to describe what a great guy he is! I've known him for five or six years
and we've shared so many great moments and also some very sad ones with
people passing away and so on. Together with Geir he's the most amazing
singer I know and he's so talented and gifted I wanna hit him hard at
times.-)))...kidding of course! I have some real plans for what I wanna
do next and all I will say is that those who are fans of westcoast/AOR
and my fans will not be disapointed! Being a hack guitar player myself, I've always wanted
to ask you this.. how do your rate some of your guitar playing peers
listed below? and from a 'tech-head' persepctive, what makes them stand
out from a technical viewpoint in your opinion? Steve Lukather Actually there's one guy I heard who I thought was fairly
awesome, and that was Lincoln Brewster, who played on Steve Perry's
'For The Love Of Strange Medicine' album. He seems to have fallen into
a black hole. Have you heard his playing, and if so, what do you think?
I have that CD and I remember talking to Mike Porcaro during the time
he was working on that album and he mentioned this guy. He is a very
good player but sounded a little too much like Neal Schon on that album,
I wasn't sure if it was Perry who asked him to to play like Schon or
if he like me with Lukather, was simply influenced by him. Nevertheless
a great player that I'm sure will become a big name soon, hopefully
he'll become a member of some great band that will hit. Did you ever use any of those high-tech Bradshaw racks
in your guitar rig? I know Landau and Luke did at one stage.. Oh absolutely, I've had four or five of them in various sizes, just
look at my website www.tommydenander.com under pictures-equipment. It
was a lot of fun and they sounded great but it got to a point where
it felt stupid to pay all this money for so many effects and not use
them all the time and too much:-) I finally realized that a smaller
rig would suit me better and it does, but I'm happy I got to play with
the "NASA racks" as we called them:-) I'm very happy with what i use now - Tell us about how an artist like you positions yourself
between three key markets: USA, Japan, and UK/Europe. What distinctions
if any, do you need to make to accomodate each? (apart from the obvious
bone of contention.. Jap bonus tracks) These days Japan is a small market for AOR and USA is even smaller!,
so I mainly focus on Europe. Like you said, for any deal in Japan there's
always the bonus tracks and I like that because it makes the release
more special (I'm a collector) and for USA there's not much to do except
trying to get interviewed by magazines and websites so the big bulk
of work is here in Europe. I mostly see my position these days as a
"behind others" kind of thing because I'd rather spend most
of my time writing and playing for other people even though I do enjoy
making my own albums. If and when the trends change I will change with
them if I can but it's such a small market these days that i'm just
happy to make a living doing music. How do you find managing time to juggle your musical
activities along with your other business activities (studio manager,website
etc)? I have no girlfriend:-))) It takes 12 hours a day 6-7 days a week all
year every year... but I don't complain because I do what I love for
a living and few can say that! But it is very hard work and my health
has taken a beating for sure. Sweden has always been a hotbed of melodic talent. In
your opinion, what artists have you heard out of your fair land that
melodic rock fans should be aware of in future? We quite like Broke[N]Blue
and Alyson Avenue as more recent examples for instance.. It's strange that a country that produces so much good music and talented
musicians has such a poor music scene! Gothenburg and Malmo are pretty
much the only two cities where it's fun with lots of live gigs all the
time but Stockholm is dead!!! My favorite's from Sweden are Lions Share,
Peter Friestedt and a new unsigned band Mister Kite. My problem is that
I rarely listen to AOR at all these days, mainly because I work so much
with it and I need to hear other stuff to get inspired. Good thing is
that I see many new bands like Broke(N)Blue, Alyson Ave, T-Bell (even
though they broke up I think?), Sahara etc coming out with strong albums
and there's gonna be more for sure. Bands like Europe and Treat did
a lot for the swedish scene in the 80's and early 90's. I asked Danny Chauncey this question a while back, so
I'll ask the same of you this time around, as it gives one a good insight
as to your own personal listening space. What are your favorite 5 albums
of all time and why? (PS: you are not allowed to select 5 Toto albums
(ha ha!!)) Ha ha OK...but in no specific order - Would you like to leave a parting comment to our readers
regarding 'Ceremony Of Innocence'? Please look at this album as a trip back in time to the years most
of us cheerish with such joy because music was for the most part better
then. See Radioactive as the result of a young man growing with the
task of fullfilling a dream that was too big to dream! Hope you enjoy
it for what it is. Cheers Tommy, and a big thanks for your time and
efforts in helping put this together. George and the HOTR team. Right back to you...big thanks for a great interview. Tommy |
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