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ROCK REPORT (Belgium) 2001 TOMMY DENANDER (Radioactive) Few guys in the music world have such a versatile background as
the Swede Tommy Denander. A self-taught guitarist and keyboard player
since the age of five, he has played almost every style you can think
of, both live and on albums. At the age of 14 he made his first album
with the Swedish hard rock band ATC, but I'm sure he's better known
for his recent work with acts like Prisoner, Rainmaker and Talk Of The
Town. His masterpiece however is the Radioactive album "Ceremony
Of Innocence", which has been 10 years in the making. Here you
can read all about it... Tommy, although insiders have always known you
as a kind of workaholic, the outer world seems to know you from the
albums that were released in 2000 and 2001. For those who still don't
know you, can you introduce yourself in a short way? Absolutely, I'm 33 years old and I've been a recording musician since
I was 14. So I'm almost 20 years in the business now. I started to play
guitar when I was 5 and keyboards when I was about 8 or 9. I grew up
in a small beautiful little town called Akersberga, just north of Stockholm.
I was a very promising young tennis player like many other kids in Sweden
(thanks to Bjorn Borg), but music was my biggest passion, so I'm happy
that I've been able to make a living of it. Some of your last albums have been released by
Z Records (Prisoner, Rainmaker), others by AOR Heaven (Talk Of The Town)
and MTM Music (Radioactive). Do you experience some kind of hostility
among those labels? All these labels have been absolutely great about this, but again there's
change from me going on right now! I will make this public later on!
Not only the quantity of the releases is high,
luckily enough the quality is also more than OK. How do you manage to
come up with all that quality? Thanks a lot! I hate to put fillers on albums, songs that don't mean
too much. This happened with "Prisoner II", cause we couldn't
do the album really the way we wanted to and had to use that awful drum
machine! Writing songs is what I love most. I've written some 3500 songs
in my life and in almost all styles of music. It's now time to make
the production match as well, cause I don't wanna be stuck with albums
that sound like good demos, I want real musicians and a great production.
The best part is that we've been getting mostly top reviews so far for
all bands and I can't wait to get some of the new stuff out there! Over to the Radioactive album, which is your
current release now. First of all, why did you call the project Radioactive? It was meant to be my solo album first, but when I met Andy Eklund
(now in House Of Shakira) I felt that it would be great to make it a
band with him. Magnus Söderkvist told me that it's easier to sell
a band concept than a solo thing and I agreed. I gave him 5 or 6 names
on a paper to pick from and we both liked Radioactive. I first saw the
name on Gene Simmons' solo album, cause the opening track is called
like that and then I thought of David Foster's old group Airplay where
the idea was to make an album so good it would get a lot of airplay.
To be played on the radio a lot would mean to be active on the radio!
Even though I know very well that my music is far from radio friendly
these days :-) And while speaking of titles or names, what do
you mean by "Ceremony Of Innocence", the title of the album? Right before I started this project I had the worst situation in my
life with people that I thought were my best friends. They treated me
and my girlfriend at the time in a way that can't be described, it made
her even try killing herself! But in the last seconds I saved her life.
We were totally innocent in this horrible mess, so this album is my
ceremony of innocence and if you listen to the lyrics of that track,
you'll hear it! Forgive me for saying so, but when I first saw
the cover of the album, I couldn't make anything out of it and as a
matter of fact I still can't figure out what it's all about. Can you
explain it to me and all our loyal readers? Absolutely! I didn't want a cover like all the rest, even though there's
a lot of good looking ones. Over the years I've had hundreds of different
ideas about the cover, but not one felt totally OK, so I was just brainstorming
with Fredrik Widman who did the computer art and we came up with this
idea about the eyes. The cover is like a powerplant that has a radioactive
meltdown because of that guy on the computer and these mutated sci-fi
eyes come to life! Work on this album started a decade ago. I guess
you must feel happy that it's finally released? Happy isn't the right word, a total shock it is! So many times I didn't
think this album would ever come out at all. It's been such a wonderful,
awful, easy, hard, enjoyable and painful journey that it's taken me
quite some time to understand that it's finally done and out! And it's
wonderful, cause I've done something that very few have accomplished
and no one can repeat this today! Listening to the Radioactive album, it's obvious
that you have been heavily influenced by Toto. But not just by them.
Tell us about your other influences? Toto was a main influence when I was young, together with so many other
bands, artists and musicians like Steely Dan, David Foster, Santana,
Kiss, Van Halen, Judas Priest, Whitesnake, Thin Lizzy, Chicago, The
Tubes, Larry Carlton, Michael Landau, Michael Thompson, Michael Jackson,
Madonna and Prince. Good music is everywhere and I don't limit myself
to just AOR, pop, rock or jazz. You got to have an open mind in life!
You met a lot of musicians after you had moved
to L.A. in 1987. Was this the reason why you exchanged Sweden for the
U.S. of A.? It's one of the reasons, but I was also very tired of the music scene
in Sweden and when this chance came about to move, I just took it. I
went to L.A. with no expectations at all and for 3 years just enjoyed
every second to the fullest. I had some of the best times I'll ever
have in life there and after 3 years I just felt that it was time to
go back home to Sweden. I had met so many cool people and seen so much
great stuff that I was becoming a bit blase and it scared me, so I knew
I had to leave. When in L.A. you made lots of friends among the
musicians and you became especially close with the guys of Toto. What
is it that you admire in them? I got to know Toto about 2 weeks after I moved there, cause we had
mutual friends in the business. I was 10 when the first Toto album came
out and it just played itself straight into my heart and soul. There's
a good reason why those guys are the most hired sessions band in history:
they're simply that good! It's one of the few bands ever where each
member has been considered a top musician or singer in the world at
one time or another. Unfortunately I don't like them as much anymore
and when Jeff sadly passed away, they lost that special groove forever!
I'm very happy to see my buddy Bobby back though, cause he's singing
as great as he ever did and before he came back, Toto played some lame
shows for half filled small halls and it was painful for most fans.
As soon as Bobby was back, they sold out the big arenas again and after
the shit Bobby had to take over the years there's few things that make
me happier than to see him back on top where he belongs! In 1991 - back in Sweden - you went to see Toto
playing at a festival and that's when you asked them if they would play
on your album. Were you surprised when they all agreed within a couple
of seconds? I don't know where I got the nerve to just ask them! The words came
out at the same time that I got the idea, so I never had a chance to
be nervous :-) And when they all said yes, I just sat there with a stupid
grin on my face :-) One of those moments in life that feels like you
dreamt it, but you'll never forget it, cause it was really true! Within a week you were signed to Sony and within
a year (October 1991) ten songs were recorded with Toto backing you
up. In the booklet I read that you had mixed feelings about the (heavy)
songs. Please explain. I met Toto in July and recorded in October, so it was that quick really.
I had just spent about 18 months in a heavy metal band and 90% of all
songs I wrote in that period were really hard. So when the time came
to pick songs for this album, I was very confused and scared, cause
of course I wanted it to be really good. I made a long list of my favourite
songs in all styles and from that I picked out about 20, I then realized
that almost all the best songs were hard rock sounding. I didn't have
time to really write pop songs, so I quickly picked out the ten I liked
most and that was it. Once you were back in Sweden you and Sony (or
Sony and you) quarreled about financial issues. Without giving away
too many details, can you tell us what exactly went wrong? They promised me some money that I was gonna get the day I came back
from L.A., cause I was away for 3 weeks and at this time in life I had
huge bills every month on home, studios, car etc. and I told them that
they had to keep this promise or that I was screwed. To put it short,
they fucked me up really bad and cost me so much money and pain. I took
revenge in a very stupid way and after that we both wanted to go separate
ways and we did. But unlike them I learned from my mistake. You and Sony went seperate ways and after having
bought the tapes back a second chapter could start. Why didn't you release
those ready to hand tapes through another label straight away? I asked around with some friends at other labels, but it was a mix
of a couple of things that stopped me. I really did a stupid thing against
Sony and they spread that around town to hurt my name while I didn't
say a word about their fuck ups, so it wasn't a good time for me with
any label and the music trends in early 1992 were changing. So who really
cared about Toto? And when Jeff passed away, I knew how special this
album was and I decided to make it into the album it became, no matter
how long it would take! What went through you when Jeff Porcaro died
in 1992? I remeber that day like yesterday. I had just been in L.A. and met
Jeff a few days before he died. My manager at the time called me early
in the morning and said: "Have you seen the newspaper, your friend
in Toto is dead!" We had sick humour between us, so I just said
"yeah right" and hung up! He called me back and told me that
it was no joke and read me the article. I stood in the hallway and tears
just started pouring out and I hung up again. My girlfriend saw my reaction
and knew something very bad had happened and she started to cry too.
We stood there for minutes crying in each others arms before I told
her and then it got way worse for both of us. She had been with me to
L.A. 4 times and was there during the recording and all, so she knew
Jeff as well. I ran out to buy the paper with swollen eyes and just
as I saw the article I met Johan, the drummer from Lion's Share who
I was playin' with at the time and him being a big fan of Jeff was in
total shock and just walked away. Two days later I played a show in
Stockholm with my solo band and even though I hate to speak in front
of people, I held a speech about Jeff and we just started to play "Hold
The Line". I still think of him and my dad who passed away 2 years
ago every day. What effect did Jeff's death have on the Radioactive
album? A lot! It became a rare treasure over one night and I gave myself a
promise to make it as good as I could for me and for Jeff, cause I know
he loved doing it. I'm very happy that you bring these questions up,
cause they're very much the reason this album happened at all. Jeff
was the first guy to say yes when I asked them, he collected the phone
numbers from the other guys for me, he helped me book studios and everything
and together with Mike made my stay in L.A. the most amazing time in
my life. If there ever was a guy that deserved to stay healthy for 150
years, it was Jeff! How many of the original written and recorded
songs are now still to be found on the finished album? If you look at the Japanese version, there's 9 of the 10 we did. The
10th is called "5492" in honour of Jeff (1954-1992) and it's
a song I wrote with Jeff and Mike in the studio. It can be found on
my solo albums "Less Is More" and "Limited Access".
Besides the Toto guys, lots of other artists
got involved throughout the years. On what terms were they recruited? Anytime I got in touch with someone that I wanted, I just asked and
if I remember right, they all said yes. It wasn't very hard to get people
involved, cause they were all such great fans of Jeff and the chance
to do one last album with him made the choice easy. Some of the guys
I just hired like you hire any session player, book them and pay them
:-) What I love most, is that they didn't just play or sing on it, but
they put a lot of time and soul into it. You can really tell that almost
all involved felt that this is a special album unlike most others these
days. I can't thank them enough. A lot of labels offered you deals in the last
five years or so, but because of your friendship with Magnus Söderkvist
MTMMusic had to be the one and only. Isn't it strange that the album
is now released, only months after Magnus' resigning from the label? I know and it's a good thing Magnus is not a musician with such bad
timing :-) He really pushed me to finish the album and I needed that
and also he wanted this to be his last album he worked on. I'm happy
for him that he left, cause he wasn't happy and this way he will be.
With all those artists and with recordings in
all those different studios I suppose the album must have cost you a
fortune. Who paid it all and are you hoping to earn it back through
hopefully great sales figures? I paid for the whole album myself over the years and with the help
from MTM once I signed with them. An album like this costs about 10
times more than what AOR labels usually spend on albums, but that's
only cause it's a small market these days. So I don't blame them. The
album is doing great and I'm sure I'll make the money back. But even
if I wouldn't, it's totally OK, cause this album is about love and not
money for me! As you had a hand in the writing of the songs,
please comment on all of the tracks on offer. Anything you'd like to
say about a particular track is welcome. The Story Of Love Crimes Of Passion On My Own Grace Waiting For A Miracle LA Movies Ceremony Of Innocence Liquid Haunt Me Tonight A Case Of Right Or Wrong Silent Cries AOR/Westcoast fans in general and Toto fans in
particular will be very happy with this release. What kind of reviews
do you expect? I hope the critics will look upon this album as a rare effort and not
just another album, cause it took me 10 years to finish it. I never
expect anything from either fans or magazines, cause I only do what
I do from my heart and if people dig it, I smile and if they don't I
smile bigger to make it go away :-) But I've seen about 25 reviews and
it's 9 out of 10 or 10 out of 10 in almost all plus I've received 100's
of e-mails and not one bad word has come to me yet! Now that this life-work of yours is finally out,
what can we expect from you in the future? Nothing! (just kidding) To me this is the start of a totally new chapter
in my life and very soon I will let people know about some major changes
that I'm doing right now. It's all for the better, so there's not gonna
be many albums, but a lot better! Anything you'd like to add? Just to thank you, Rock Report and all the people around the world that have been so greatful about this album. Your support means a lot. Don't miss the DVD later this year, cause it's gonna be filled with very cool stuff! © Rock Report |
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