ROCK MAGAZINE - Italy 2001

Interview with Tommy Denander (PRISONER)

1) Hi Tommy! The first thing I would like to ask is if you can give us a little summary of your various projects at the time, 'cause counting, we have Sayit, Rainmaker, Prisoner and Radioactive going on! Don't you feel a little bit confusedn with all these bands on your hands?

- Hi!, of course.
I love having a lot of things happening cause this is what i do for a living, something that most people don't know about of simply forget.
I'm not just a member of a band (or 2:-) who makes guest work on other albums, i'm a session player, songwriter, producer, studio owner etc...so this is my work.
I know there's been a lot of "projects" it seems but it's not all what it looks like...Sayit is one of my best friends and a great guitar player so when he asked me to kick start his career a little by doing a solo album for him i ended up doing so much cause he wasn't really in a position to do it himself.
For his new album called Sayit "Again" that will be out in september i have a big role again but Sayit's role is also much bigger and for his next CD he will be the main guy behind most of it.
Prisoner is my own band with Ricky Delin, Geir Rönning and Pierre Wensberg and really my only band cause Rainmaker is a project that Z boss Mark Alger visioned and asked us to do for him which was a big thrill and Radioactive is of course my thing but it's a once in a life time project and not a band at all.
It's not confusing for me but i know it's been a bit confusing for some fans but i think the picture will be clear for all soon on what i do.

2) Can we talk a bit about your new Prisoner album. What are, in your opinion, the main differences between your previous one and the new one?

- We've taken quite a beating on the new one because it's not so close to the first one and that's ok, i understand why.
We ended up sounding a little too close to Prisoner with the Rainmaker album and the idea of really separating the sound between them came up and that's why the second Prisoner is much softer than the first album.
I still think there's a lot of great songs on the new album but the drum machine production is kind of lame.

3) What about the choice to include in your album a Britney Spears' cover (if I'm right... I'm not too much into that kind of music)? This will certainly sound outrageous to the classic rock/metal fan!

- I know the guys behind Britney, Backstreet Boys and NSync and they'rehuge fans of westcoast and AOR, if you listen to most of their songs it's really AOR with less guitars and a pop production.
So i wanted to do this song that always sounded VERY AOR to me but in the way that Max Martin and the guys would have wanted to do it themselves!
I think the AOR fans are often too narrow minded and this prevents the genre to evolve naturally...if we don't experiment a little and have fun it's just gonna keep sounding EXACTLY the same album after album after album...and selfdie again!

4) Talking for a moment about "Blind", can you tell me what's the story behind "Italian girl (Rome is still there)"?

- I wish i could but Ricky wrote that lyric!
I love that song it's one of my all time favorite songs of the albums i've done.
Ricky is very good at writing lyrics and i guess he just had a lovely vision of this story and that's all.
We're all huge fans of Italy and think it's one of the most beautiful and romatic places in the world.

5) Let's return to "II". How is it to work with two great singers like Geir and Pierre? Did they split equally the songs on the CD (concerning lead vocals)?

- I love them both and have always been a fan of bands with more than one voice.
It's great cause they're so far from each other in sound but work so well together.
It's always me and Ricky who decide when we write who will sing what but a couple of times they've felt that the other would do it better so we of course agree....don't want two mad singers after us you know:-)))

6) Now we jump to your Radioactive project a little. Can you tell me why this project holds a special place in your heart?

- No album that i'll ever do in my life will mean more than this...for obvious reasons!
It's not gonna be the best album i'll ever do and the most sold (i hope:-) but it's 10 years of my life with 30 of the biggest names in the westcoast/AOR genre and i still can't believe that i pulled it off!
Any fan of Toto, Chicago, Richard Marx, Tubes, Giant etc should not miss this album.
I could tell you a million things that makes this special to me but i'll just say that recording with Jeff Porcaro and David Foster who are my biggest idols as a musician beats anything i'll do in my life!

7) With all this great music being produced by you, it would be logical that the next question hinted to live activity. However I've read on your biography that you had a severe burnout, and you're still recovering from it. Are you beginning to feel well now (I hope you are!)?

- Thanks, i'm doing better but it's been 8 years this summer and i'm still not well enough for live shows.
I hope i will be next year cause i have offers to tour the whole world with both big stars and even my own music.
having my "hobby" as work is the greatest thing i could ask for but this business eats people up quickly so it takes a lot to stay strong.
2003 will be my 20th aniversary as a recording musician and i've been working a lot every year, i'm coming to a point where i need to see some changes to keep me happy but i wouldn't trade a single day of my life for anything.

8) Do you think that you'll be able to play live in the near future?

- Absolutely, i love playing live but when it's time i can't say right now....time will tell.

9) Being such a prolific songwriter, you had the opportunity to work with a lot of great musicians. What is the collaboration you loved the most, and the one you still dream about but haven't fulfilled, yet?

- Thanks for your kind words...it's hard to pick any single persons out cause there's been so many.
I think anyday that you get to work with brilliant people is a great day and i have these days quite often but of course almost all persons on Radioactive have meant something huge to me and doing the Fee Waybill solo album in 1996 with Richard Marx, Randy Jackson and Steve Lukather was incredible plus the album i did with Bruce Gaitsch called Counterparts where Bill Champlin sing also stands out.
Right now i'm totally excited about several projects i'm writing with my dear friend Bobby Kimball, there's a man with more talent than most people i've known or met plus it's hard to find a nicer guy.
Same with my "brother" Geir, we've had so many absolutely magic moments together that few things will ever come close, like Bobby he is just the nicest guy you could ever know!!!

10) Tommy, before finishing the interview, I would like to have your opinion on the actual AOR scene. To me it seems that there are a lot of great records out there, but the TV and radios still don't believe that the genre will come back and have a rebirth of great proportions.

- Well, it will never come back cause no style from the past really do, not in the same format anyway.
But if you look really close with an open mind you'll see that i's actually back right now but in the shape of young artists like Britney, Hanson, Backstreet Boys, Celine Dion and especially Savage Garden who've sold some 30 million CD's and it's Michael Thompson, Michael Landau and these AOR guys playing on the albums...
The old guys like Toto, Jouney, Chicago etc have had their time in the sun and the new generation takes over but this doesn't mean that the "legends" won't keep making good albums...they're just not gonna be back on top of the charts again.-

OK, I think that's enough. Thank you and good luck for your records. Is there something else you would like to say to the Italian rock fans before saying goodbye?

- Big thanks to you for you support.
Please visit me at www.tommydenander.com sign my guestbook, send me mails if you like and in general be kind to each other and keep your lovely country alive and well.
Best wishes
Tommy