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ROCK REPORT (Belgium) 1998
INTERVIEW - TOMMY DENANDER At one point, you were a very promising tennis
player. Why didn't you pursue a possible career as a professional tennis
player instead of a career in the music business? The way I felt back then was that you can be a really good tennis player
until you're thirty while you can be a musician all your life. I wanted
to spend my time with something I could do for the rest of my life.
But yeah, I was really promising back then as I did play as a semi-professional
for about eight years. It was a lot of fun though. Not really, as the band was already formed in 1978. But I met him in
Stockholm just by coincidence. We met Mikael through Per Liljefors, the drummer in ATC. Mikael wasn't
really a manager but more of a smart business man who saw some potential
in the band. Therefore, he paid for the demo and everything else. Just
before that, I wrote my first hard rock song which ended up on the demo
tape. Can you tell us some more about this "Cut
In Ice" album? We had a budget of 4.000 US Dollar and had nine days to record and
mix the whole album. We ended the whole thing in only six days and partied
for the next three days. It was a lot of fun, perhaps due to the fact
that this was my very first album recording. It was a great experience
I'll never forget. Nevertheless, your next goal was to become a
well known studio musician. And you ever worked for free ... I did work for free because I was still so young. I started doing sessions
when I was only fourteen years old. So I had to call people and tell
them I wanted to play. So I decided to work for free instead, otherwise
people would just laugh at me and I never would have had the chance
to play in the first place. I just had nothing to lose. Luckily enough,
my reputation as a guitar player grew day by day and people really started
to take me seriously. That's how the ball got rolling. Later on, I got
paid for my services. In '85, ATC broke up and you went to the States
for the very first time. Back then, ATC had a new manager from Bulgaria who spend a lot of money
in the band. He made a very expensive, but lousy video. I think it was
the worst video ever made by a hard rock band. Then you were in a band called Down Town. Tell
us some more about this. Actually, this band was formed by myself and both the drummer and bass player of ATC. Down Town was fronted by a female singer called Yvonne Nordlund, who also had done some backing vocals on the first Jean Beauvoir album. We did a couple of shows and even recorded a demo. And although Yvonne was a very beautiful and talented artist, we really had to sack her because of several reasons. One of them was that she oftenly didn't show up at rehearsals or even concerts because she was cryin' over a broken relationship. For some reason, it seems to be very hard to work with a female singer, although I felt pretty sad about it as Yvonne was extremely talented. Yvonne eventually got replaced by Magnus Lange,
who also grew up in Åkersberga. Magnus was a real musical genius while having a voice pretty similar to David Coverdale. Unfortunelately, Magnus had diffirent interests and the whole band just drifted apart. In '86, you changed the name of the band to Cheese.
Why this silly name? It was an extremely silly name but at that point, I guess we just wanted
to be a party band as the line up had changed completely. We didn't
want others to take us seriously as we didn't care about anything at
all. That's why the lyrics of the single "Cheese Won't Come Easy"
were totally rubbish as there wasn't one sentence that goes with the
next. This song is absolutely about nothing at all. The B-side of this
single was called "Hold On" and this was kind of a "normal"
song. I'm sure the single could have done a lot better if we had taken
it seriously. Especially because both tracks sounded pretty good. Still in '86, you met Paul Rivera for the very
first time. Who's he? Paul is the founder and owner of Rivera Amps, an American company that
makes guitar amplifiers. Another important person in your career
is Matthias Bohman, right? Actually, I've met most of the important people in my life at music
fairs. I met Matthias at a music fair here in Stockholm. He was working
for an Australian company called Fairlight that makes the most amazing
but very expensive keyboards. Matthias must have been only 17 or 18
at the time when I met him for the first time and we became close friends
ever since. He's also one of the best keyboard players I've ever seen
in my life. At one point, he just moved to America in '87 and he asked
me to join him instead. In the States, you've met with Paul Rivera
again but you also met the guys of Toto. How was it working with these
guys? I met Steve Lukather in January '88 at the NAMM show, a big music fair
in Los Angeles. I've also met Larry Carlton and Abel Laboriel and we
got off right away. I actually had a very good reason to meet Lukather
because Anders Tegner, a Swedish TV-reporter had called me to try and
arrange to set up an interview with Toto for Swedish television. Lukather
found out I was a great guitar player as well and we became good friends.
Luke really helped me out by raving about me to other great artists
like Jeff Beck. As Lukather was constantly raving about
you, why did you decide to return to Sweden, instead of becoming a well
known session player in the States? Well, I did a few sessions back then as I played along side Zakk Wylde
(Ozzy Osbourne) and Matt Sorum (Guns 'n Roses). But it was really hard
to get into the bigger sessions. Besides I wasn't really pushing myself
to get into the scene so fast, because I was only twenty years old at
the time. I felt I still had a lot to learn. So I only tried to be a
good student for about things for three years. But yeah, I've could
have become the next Michael Landau or Dann Huff, but I'm sure I wasn't
really prepared for it mentally. Especially because it really is a tough
job to be a famous session player. And perhaps I could have ruined everything
for myself if I should have decided to really go for the goal. But I
was pretty confident with myself as I didn't feel in a hurry. As when
it comes of returning to Sweden, I just felt that after three years
I fulfilled more dreams than I probably ever could think of. I've met
all these great players and famous movie stars and I guess I just started
to take things for granted. I just got used to stand beside Bette Midler
or Sean Connery at the supermaket, you know. So one night, I just decided
to return to Sweden because I really thought this was the best thing
for me to do. And it Back in Sweden, you also formed a band
called Speedy Gonzalez. Tell us more about that. Speedy Gonzales was a heavy metal band in the style of Judas Priest
which featured vocalist Thomas Vikström and drummer Dalton Dahlberg.
As we grew up together, I knew Thomas very well and he did a lot of
backing vocals on the albums I played on What did you do then exactly? Well, I started to do a lot of session work again and Ialso started
to build my own recording studio here in Stockholm. Then I met the guys
of Toto again when they gave a concert in Luleå. You've also been working with Jess Sutcliffe.
Very much so and I was really pleased with this as he worked as an
engineer for Toto on most parts of their "Kingdom Of Desire"
album. He's also been working with Prince, Jon Anderson, Vangelis and
other famous artists. His wife was actually the album co-ordinator who
helped me to put everything together. So the album was ready to be released,
but ... Well, what happened was that Sony told me that they wouldn't promote
my album at all as they had so many other albums to put money in. As you left Sony, didn't you want to release
your album through another label then? Well yeah, because I've been speaking to a couple of other major labels.
But for some reason, they just didn't seem to care that I had recorded
the album with the guys of Toto. They just didn't bother about it at
all. So I guess there was no point in getting myself another deal then.
Alongside all this, you've also played
in a coverband called Horny Strings. What was that all about? At a friday night, I got a phone call from both Thomas Vikström
and Jake Samuel who were saying that they had to play a gig the next
day at a cool club here in Stockholm. They asked me if I was interested
to join them as it did pay well. I agreed, but wondered what kind of
stuff we were going to play. Didn't you have any plans to get seriously
with this act at all? Not really, although I should say we had serious plans of recording
a live album, but we never discussed the matter of recording any original
material. I guess that it was kind of impossible for us to get seriously
with this act as Jake and Marcel were still very much involved with
Talisman while Thomas and myself had our own ideas and targets to fulfill.
Horny Strings was no more than a relaxation for all of us. That year, in '92 to be precisely, you
also worked together with the succesful rap artist Dr. Alban. That's
more of a surprise to all of us ... They wanted to do a hard rock meets rap song against racism. I agreed
immediately as I've always been against drugs and racism. You've also been working on some sound
tracks for... porn movies. Well, now this is exciting, huh? Later on, you also met Andy Eklund and
this was the start of Radioactive. Both Tommy Nilsson and myself were special guests at a singing contest
in Norrtälje. Andy won this contest without any problem as there
was no competition for him at all. At one point, Tommy mentioned that
Andy was the right man to sing on my album. I agreed with him and I
started talking with Andy to finally ask him if he would be interested
to sing on my record. We've been like brothers ever since. Actually,
it was Magnus at MTM Music who told me it would be better to make this
a band situation instead of a solo album. I couldn't agree more and
I suggested him about six names from which the name Radioactive was
chosen. It was my favorite choice too as it does sound a little Then things almost went completely wrong
for you. What happened? On July 23, 1993, my whole life completely changed within seconds.
From '90 till '93, I had worked about 15 to 17 hours a day, seven days
a week. I was completely stressed out and I just ran out of energy.
From '94 till now, you've been busy on
releasing about ten albums. Until now, I've released only two albums with "Skeleton"
and "Less Is More". I also released "Limited Access"
but this album is more of a collector's item. Why all this diffirent styles of music?
When I wanted to do my solo album, it was impossible for me to decide
what kind of style to play as I do love all kinds of music. I like anything
from westcoast/AOR to country, from heavy metal to the Spice Girls.
So the idea just grew on me to release several diffirent albums with
all kinds of music. You've been very busy for the last couple
of years now. And if everything goes according to plan, you'll be releasing
about 10.000 records in the (near) future. So tell us. Besides my solo albums, my partner Ricky Delin and myself are part
of a blues album "Tight To The Blues", that we've produced
for an artist called David Book. Ricky and myself also produced an album
for Sayit which will feature Thomas Vikström, Andy Eklund, Geir
Rönning and some other great vocalists. To end this interview here, I'm pretty
curious to know who your five favourite guitar players are. In no specific order, this must be Steve Stevens, Jimi Hendrix, Michael
Landau, Eddie Van Halen and Steve Lukather. Although I only like the
old Lukather because the way he played back then in the 80's made a
huge impact on me. |
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