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CLASSIC ROCK NEWS GROUP 2003 TOMMY DENANDER RADIOACTIVE - Tommy Denander - Say Yeah!!! The first RADIOACTIVE album received excellent
reviews. How satisfied still are you with the album from your today's
point of view? Tommy Denander: “The album got so many 100's of top rate reviews
around the world which was very nice after all the time I had spent
on it. I'm still extremely proud and happy with the album but for me
it was never an attempt to show the absolutely best songs I could ever
write, of course I wanted the songs to be great but I wrote them 10
- 15 years ago and has evolved so much as a writer over the years. It
was more a once in a life time project to gather all these legendary
musicians and singers which I succeeded with. I have a secret plan for
the first album that I'm working on that will be revealed in the end
of 2003 and that will explain exactly how I feel about it!” Did you feel any pressure from the excellent
reviews the first RADIOACTIVE album when you started working on the
new album? “Both yes and no. First of all I didn't want to do another album
at all since the first one was so special but MTM asked me and pointed
out that it would be stupid to not work under the Radioactive name since
it's getting spread in such a positive way and I agreed. Then I didn't
know what kind of album I should do. Should I try to get a ton of big
names again etc.? But I quickly decided that I wouldn't care about "names"
at all and just make sure I had really good songs, I also knew I wanted
to make it more of a hard rock album with a lot more guitars which is
what it turned out like as well.” The new record is simply entitled "Yeah".
What's you intention with this title? “I've actually had that name since 1995 as I intended to name
an instrumental solo album I was doing that, when I started to work
on this album and knew I wanted to make it a rocking one I remembered
that title and it just felt right. I never intended it to sound "cocky"
but I had a personal goal that people would say "yeah"
when they hear the album... And you did my friend so I must be right
HAHA!!!” As the debut, the new record features an impressive
list of guest musicians and singers. How did you get in contact with
all these guys? “I really had a plan to use just a very small group of friends
to play on this album, not really big names at all but just great players
but in the last 5 - 6 weeks of making the album I just happend to talk
to Fergie Frederiksen about another project we're doing and he asked
me what I was up to, I told him I was finishing the new Radioactive
and just asked him if he would sing a couple of tunes? His reply was
very kind, "I'd love to cause I know that if it's your stuff it
will be great!" It's hard to not be pleased then. Then my friend
Khalil Turk from Escape Music called me about a couple of projects we're
working on and he asked me the same thing and he said that I should
have Steve Overland singing a song, I absolutely love Overland's voice
so of course I said yes and Khalil helped me make it happen. Then I
e-mailed with Tony Franklin who has become a friend after we did Rainmaker
and the Jason Becker tribute so I got him to play a song in the last
week of recording... The same with Matti Alfonzetti who I've known for
almost 20 years but haven't done much recording with, a cool fact is
that he actually sang on an early version of the song "When You're
In Love" for the first Radioactive album! Marcel Jacob is a close
friend for many years now and I've played on Talisman stuff for him
so I asked him to play most of the songs on this which he did in a brilliant
way as always, he and Franklin are such brilliant bass players. Kimmo
and Erkka from Urban Tale have also become friend and I co-wrote the
song "Son Of A Gun" for their new album, I got them to sing
a little background vocals for Jim Jidhed's album and really wanted
Kimmo to sing some lead for my album cause he has a great voice, I think
it's really cool to hear him and Fergie together on “7 am”!
Chris Demming is my music partner and besides being one of the lead
singers in Sweetwater he is also the best guy I've ever heard when it
comes to doing backing vocals... Absolutely world class! Mikael Erlandsson
I've known and recorded with before but he is the biggest surprise to
me cause he absolutely sings his ass off on this album!!! Geir I've
recorded tons of stuff with already of course and still think he is
one of the best singers in the world. I got Bruce Gaitsch and the other
guys in the same way so when it was finished I had a very cool list
again... Doesn't hurt! :-)” The first RADIOACTIVE album featured many US
musicians while the new record was mainly created with the help of Scandinavian
musicians. Do you think that brought a different feel into the new album?
Is it so to speak the Scandinavian version of RADIOACTIVE? “I think my style of writing and playing is very American and
since I write all the music it makes little difference, I've never been
a typical "Scandi rocker" in style. All the people involved
in my projects are given instructions as to how I want it to sound and
even though they add their flavor to it it usually stays pretty close
to my original ideas.” As you said, the songs on "Yeah" are
much rockier than the songs on the debut. What do you think are the
reasons for this development? “I definently wanted it to be rockier, I think many people had
"Crimes Of Passion" with Bobby Kimball from the first album
as a favorite and I wanted the whole album to more like that. I've also
gotten back a very happy feeling for playing guitar again and I think
this album has my absolutely best playing ever. I didn't want to play
so many keyboards and make it soft, I wanted to have harder guitar riffs
like a mix of Van Halen, Giant and maybe my own style and I'm pleased
with how it came out.” I guess most of the singers recorded their vocal
parts not at your studio but at a studio in their home area. How much
control do you have about the work they do? “It was a 50/50 split on this album with Fergie, Overland and
Kimmo recording their vocals in their countries but I always make clear
demos for them with instructions what I'm looking for. The rest of the
vocals were done at Chris Demmings studio with him producing them, Chris
has one of the best vocal sounds I've heard and has spent some 25 -
30.000 dollar on that equipment alone! Chris and I work together very
closely and he knows exactly what I'm looking for so I completely trust
him plus the singers on this level are so incredible that it's almost
impossible to fail with them.” How did you decide which singer is the right
one for any specific track? “It's rather easy actually cause as soon as I have a new song
I know if I want a high pitched singer like Fergie or a heavier voice
like Geir that is more Coverdale sounding so if I have 5 singers to
chose from I just give the first guy 2 - 3 songs to pick from and usually
in the end there's 2 - 3 songs left and it's just a matter of deciding
who will be perfect for them. Mikael Erlandsson is such a versatile
singer that he can do both high pitched and heavier stuff so he helped
bridge the gaps a lot.” It was originally planned to write and record
some songs with Jorn Lande. Why didn't work it out with his appearance? “That's the only thing is feel frustrated with about this album.
Jorn and I worked on 6 - 7 songs together and he had some absolutely
stunning ideas for them that he sang to me over the phone but just when
it was time to start recording he got the Masterplan job and they told
him he couldn't do any outside projects at all so he had no choice but
say no. We have talked about working together later on which would be
a thrill cause he is definently one of the best singers I've ever heard
and a very nice guy as well.” After your successful cooperation for his solo
album I was surprised that Jim Jidhed didn't sing any song on the RADIOACTIVE
album. Did you ever play with the idea? “Jim has become one of my best friends and we definently talked
about it but I had a vision of more heavy vocals overall for the album
and Jim is more AOR than hard rock plus his album and mine are released
so close to each other that we wanted to keep them apart. We will however
work a lot together in the future and I hope he wants to do another
solo album cause I had the time of my life doing that thanks to him
and Magnus at Atenzia.” Will the Japanese edition of "Yeah"
include any bonus tracks? If yes, what are we missing over here in Europe? “There is a very cool song called "Somewhere, Someday"
with Matti on vocals that will be the bonus track for Japan but the
deal isn't ready yet so we will have to wait. The japanese market is
changing a lot right now and it's getting very hard to secure deals
there, if nothing happens we will release it as a bonus track on some
MTM compilation I think.” Do you have any plans for live shows with RADIOACTIVE?
I think the new songs would really deserve to be played on stage some
day!?! “No I have no plans at all to play live due to bad health that
I have had for many years. But I agree that these songs would work really
well live... Maybe I'll put together a killer band without me that can
tour with them HAHA.” You are not only busy as a guitarist but also
as a producer for other acts. What do you enjoy more - the active part
of a player or the directing part as a producer? “I like them just as much I think but it's so much easier to just
play guitar on stuff than to produce cause there's a million things
to be in charge of like budgets, studios, musicians, singers, artwork,
schedules etc. but I like that part of organizing it so it's cool. Actually
what I love most is writing songs, for me or for others and I think
with everything that happens for me and Chris Demming right now I think
I will produce and play less in the future so I can write almost full
time.” I read the announcement you will produce the
album of the newcomers SWEETWATER. Can you already tell us a little
more about these guys and their album? “This is gonna be my all time favorite album I think! It's actually
me and Chris Demming who are the songwriters and producers for it, we
have signed to Atenzia and the style is like a mix of Mr. Mister, Savage
Garden and Giant, modern sounding pop/rock but with some cool heavy
guitars. Chris will front the group with 2 more lead singers so the
band will be a trio of lead singers with me as main guy behind them
but not as a member. I have involved friends like Michael Thompson and
Bruce Gaitsch on guitars, Marcus Liliequist on drums and many more plus
we have gotten songs from Richard Page, Cliff Magness and Steve Kipner
eventhough we're writing most of it ourselves. The first single will
be out around May/June.” Are there any other projects you are working
on? Is there a chance for another PRISONER or RAINMAKER album someday? “As always I'm involved in a ton of projects so here's a few of
the main ones: Interview by Marco Spaeth ontherocks.de © |
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