ROCKHEADS (Denmark) 2000

TOMMY DENANDER

1. Hi Tommy

Hello again... Nice to hear from you. Love your site

2. Everybody at Rockheads love your Prisoner projekt, and we would love to help promote your new project.

That's so nice of you... thanks guys.

3. We will love to have a interview with you. What’s the story of this new project?

Well... Radioactive is my once in a life time project and it has taken me 10 years to complete!!! It started back in early 1991 when TOTO came to Sweden to play a festival. I'll never forget that moment cause there i was, 21 years old and TOTO just agreed to do an album...with ME!!! I got a record deal in less than a week with Sony here in Sweden and in october that year i flew to LA and recorded 10 tracks with Jeff Porcaro, Mike Porcaro, Steve Porcaro and David Paich. Back home i got VERY upset with the guys at Sony and long story short...i took a loan and bought the tapes back. And over the years i've just added more and more big stars to the line up and this was first meant to be a solo album and then changed in to a duo with me and a singer so we changed it to RADIOACTIVE... but now it's my project again but still under the Radioactive name.

4. When will the new CD be out?

Early March through MTM in Europe.

5. Will it be out other places beside Europe?

There's already a deal made for Asia and I have interest from a label in USA so that should work out pretty fast as well.

6. Which of your project will be ongoing?

Radioactive is a one time only project so it won't interfear with any other projects i'm involved in or vice versa. We're working on the new Prisoner CD right now and it's gonna be a killer...BTW...BIG thanks for the 100% review from you guys... stunning!

7.What about a Tour?

Not for Radioactive since it's built around session players and special guests but both Prisoner and Rainmaker will do gigs in the near future.

8. How do you see the music scene today (for melodic rock)?

Good and bad... it's very much alive but most labels release too much crap. There's like one really good album for every 10 shitty or half bad albums and it makes it very hard for the fans that are into this to really find them. I think the labels should make fewer albums and spend more money on the better acts they have left. The quality of 90% of the albums is plain awful (including some of my early one's as well!) but it's very hard for a band to make a good sounding album when they can't afford a good sounding studio and a good producer/engineer.

9. Do you think rock will come back?

Hopefully a band like Journey or Toto will have another huge hit and help "our" music back again but i think that's gonna be hard... if not impossible because of the way the record companies work these days. One cool thing that not everybody is noticing is that most songs by Brittney Spears, Backstreet Boys and N'Sync are really Westcoast/AOR songs but with a poppy production. Take Brittney's "Crazy"...just add some heavy guitars and a strong male singer and it's pure AOR, BSB's "I Wan't It That Way" is really westcoast not to mention UK's Westlife, that's pure westcoast in many tracks. Writer and producer behind these songs is Max Martin and his crew and i know them, they're huge fans of WC, AOR and melodic hard rock. And it's the best selling music in the world right now... if only a young good looking "real" band could come along and make it as big as say BSB our music would be "in" again.

10. Do you think that CD’s will disappear? And everything will downloading ?

No not for a long time anyway, cause people like to collect stuff... and there's no personal value in CDR's. You want the printed covers and all. I think we shouldn't be so afraid of the "Napster" syndrome cause sales have gone up in most places simply because people download music and like it so they go out and buy the real albums!

11. On your new project, it´s a list of big stars you have there. How are they involved ?

Many of them are friends I've gotten over the years and they were kind enough to play or sing on the album. Some of them hired me for their albums and "paid" me back by being on my album and some i just contacted and hired cause it's been a dream of recording with them. The big problem for anyone that wants to make an album like this is simple - it took me 10 years to gather all these people and it cost a lot of money as well. And since no labels would pay the amount an album like this costs and sadly people like Jeff Porcaro isn't here with us any more it's gonna be hard to make another album like this. That makes this (no mater if you like it or not) at least a very special album these days.

12. have you been recording over ten years or is it the writing there has been over ten years?

Mostly recording because the core of the tracks were done in LA in 1991 but there's a few new tracks as well. I've changed melodies and lyrics many times over the years and i just wish i could've recorded this whole album today with the same people because I'm a much better writer these days.

13.Do still have contract with all these guys ?

Most of them. Those i knew from before have become better friends and those i got to know through the process have for the most part become friends after. I look at the list of people involved and eventhough i've worked on this for 10 years it's still hard to understand how a little guy from Sweden did this...I'm thanking my higher powers every day.

14.You have been working with Z-Records on your last project, so why MTM on your new?

I'm still very much working with Z Records but Magnus at MTM and i go way back and he's been interested in this project for many years, it just felt right to have MTM do this album. I'm very bleesed cause i do album for Z Records, MTM, AOR Heaven, Angelynn in USA and even some in Japan and they're all very kind to me about it. I do my best with every album I work on but people shouldn't see me as a member of one or two bands alone... I'm a studio owner, producer, engineer, song writer and session player and have been for almost 19 years now, this is my living and that's why i'm on lots of albums all the time.

15. Are you still a fan of this genre ? If you are who do you like? Or are you listning to any of the new stuff ?

I grew up as a die hard fan of westcoast, AOR and hard rock so that's where my roots are for sure but there's so very few new albums in these genre's that I like so I'm more a fan of pop bands like The Corrs and Savatage Garden or contemporary country artists like Shania Twain and Faith Hill. But more than anything I like a good song...no matter if it happens to be Nirvana, Toto or Backstreet Boys. My old heroes (that i still love) were Steely Dan, David Foster, Toto, Bill Champlin, David Roberts, Fee Waybill solo and The Tubes, Chicago, Van Halen, Kiss and as a guitar player Michael Landau, Larry Carlton, Eddie Van Halen, Steve Stevens and Steve Lukather of course.

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