BROKE[N]BLUE has been talked about a lot the past few years, since I made several reviews of their demos. Now this Swedish AOR band has released their official debut CD 'Northern light', a fantastic pure AOR album that will please all fans of typical 80s Scandi AOR, Female Fronted AOR and also people who are into BAD ENGLISH, FOREIGNER, JOURNEY, SIGNAL... The fact that their songs appeal to many people, is the fact that they have both a male and a female vocalist and all of their songs are very catchy. I urgerly ask you to buy BROKE[N]BLUE's debut CD. But first read the interview I had with leader Lars Abrahamsson...
Please introduce us
your band, when did you form BROKE[N]BLUE and did any of you play
in bands before
BROKE[N]BLUE?
Broke[N]Blue is:
Eva
Eggesjö-Abrahamsson-Lead and backing vocals
Peter Gustavsson- Lead and backing vocals
Lars Abrahamsson- Guitars, keys and backing vocals
Ulf Vestlund- Bass and drums
I've been writing songs in different styles for a long time, but
never really made any effort to spread the material until late
1999.In december that year, I asked Peter Gustavsson, member of
the band SIXPACK, which I’m playing with now and then, if he
could do the vocals on a new song, a powerballad Bryan Adams
style. The result was "Heaven in my hands". When I
published that new song on mp3.com in early spring 2000, I wanted
to see if there was any interest at all for this kind of music
nowadays. Almost immediately, some Webzines (Strutters! a.o.)
showed interest, and wanted to hear more. I also made a lot of
e-mail postings to different contacts on the net. The interest
grew, and I wrote some more songs, and made new versions of some
older songs in the same style. My wife Eva, has been singing lead
in a couple of bands I've joined, and of course she's been making
the vocals on a lot of demos in our homestudio. I asked her to
appear on some songs to put more width to the
material. I was very pleased by the result of using the two
voices, and kept on writing new material. A 7-track demo was made
and sent around to a lot of magazines, webzines and labels. The
interest was so strong that we now decided to make a
full-length-album. Ulf Vestlund joined on bass and drums and we
began the recording sessions in his studio in nov 2000. Some
labels were interested in the project and we finally signed a
distribution deal with Maple Leaf Records.
About the past of
the members, we all have been playing in a lot of cover- and
original-bands from late 70's up to today. Ulf is the only one
who's fulltime-musician, and plays the bass in top coverband De
Sotos. They are playing with wellknown pop-artists like Tityo,
Jessica Folcker and Andreas Johnsson. He owns Balans Studio where
we've done the recordings, and he's a great musician with a lot
of knowledge to build our work on. He also played this kind of
music in the glorious 80's, so I guess he enjoyed it, playing
this stuff again! Eva and I played in different bands together in
the 80's and 90´s and Peter is leadsinger and guitarist of
cover/partyband SIXPACK where I play keyboards, bass and guitar
as stand-in whenever it's needed. SIXPACK also have their roots
in melodic band "ANGELIZE" which recorded some singles
back in the 80's.
Can you tell us all
about your fantastic debut CD?
Yes, I'm really happy that we could make this album, and that it
has been so well recieved, both from fans and magazines. When we
started the work in nov 2000, it seemed like it would be an fully
independent release, but as the time went by, labels and
distributors contacted us and finally we decided to work with
Maple Leaf and HangLoose Records. The recordings were made
between Nov 2000 and May 2001 at Balans Studio, owned by Ulf.
Ulf is the main-man when it comes to sound and production, and he
did a great job creating the sound for the album. The whole
project turned out to follow that "blue colour"
concept, and so the cover, the bandname and the titletrack made
it to an unit for the whole album. We also had some more
bluesrock-influenced tracks on the demos, but after a lot of
reviews, and as a result of the style of my new songs, we decided
to go more for an pure AOR/Melodic album.
I've spent a lot of time to make the album an unit, and to find
the right order of the tracks. Some says that after a couple of
plays, they have to play the whole album through, with no track
skipping. People say it's really hard to find a favourite song,
and that is something that really makes me feel like we made a
good job.
How did you get in
touch with MAPLE LEAF RECORDS, your recordlabel and will the
album be officially released in more countries outside Germany?
At first, the contact was made from Target Records and HangLoose
Records. They really liked our 7-trackdemo and encouraged us to
go on working in the same direction. Robert Pancur at Target
Records was the one who set up the contact with Maple Leaf,
thanks to him! HangLoose really liked the new promos as well and
they wanted to be part of the main order for Germany. These guys
got the exclusive right to distribute in Germany, Austria and
Switzerland, but they can sell it worldwide, non-exclusive, too.
I'm dealing with Vinny Records for the Spain/ Portugal area and I
also have a distributor in South Africa. There has been a lot of
interest from Japan, and I know at least one shop/mailorder which
stocks the cd. Since the cd was released in Europe, it's not so
easy to get a good deal there, but we sell from here as well and
I know HangLoose/Maple Leaf do too. In Sweden the big mailorder www.ginza.se recently added "Northern
Light" to their catalog. We'll see if there will be any more
deals coming up in the near future, the exposure of the album is
pretty high right now.
Your music is pure
AOR, which bands influenced you?
Since we all have been playing in the 80's, it's obvious that it
has made a lot to the sound and songwriting. In my case, I guess
it was from the beginning more the softer style like TOTO,
Eagles, Asia and in the mid 80's bands like Europe and Foreigner,
Bon Jovi and Journey.I also like the blues-influenced bands like
Whitesnake, Coverdale is still one of my favourite vocalists.
Later I really liked the albums of Giant and Bad English. All
bands that I listened to from late 70's until the 90's influenced
my songwriting, and some tracks on the album were actually
written in 88-90, so they are really pure 80’s AOR! When it
comes to describing Broke[N]Blue, some say a mix of Heart and
Roxette, and I think that's a fair description. In other words
AOR/melodic mixed with some Westcoast-influences but with a
harder edge.
On the album we can
hear 2 different singers, a female and a male vocalist, did you
choose to do this and can you tell us more about these 2 great
singers?
Hmm…well, it almost turned out to be two separate projects!
The first songs were recorded with Peter, and since Eva has done
a lot of vocals on my earlier songs, I wanted her to sing some of
the new ones too. The mix was very well recieved by the
listeners, but I guess the labels found it confusing… this
was not the usual thing! I had some offers that suggested that I
should split the project, but we had already recorded a lot of
work, and I somehow felt that this was something that could be
uniqe for Broke[N]Blue, so we kept on…and as you can read in
all the reviews, that’s one of the things that people think
is great with this album. It gives a new dimension and a great
variety to the whole cd. I’m glad we didn’t break it in
two!
The mix of the voices make the great variety, but our three
voices are close enough to eachother to make the album "keep
together". Regarding Eva and Peter, some ask me how I decide
which voice to appear on which song. Well, that's not so obvious
sometimes... If I'm building the tune on a riff that is to be
played in a certain key, I could use either vocalist, Peter is
able to sing as high as Eva! Sometimes it has to do with the
lyrics and the mood of the song who's doing the lead . I have a
great resource here, since they both can do superb vocals on both
soft stuff and harder pieces.
The past few years
it seems like Scandinavia and Sweden in particular are the places
to look for new AOR talent, how it that possible, of course the
80s with EUROPE and MALMSTEEN had a big influence and back then a
lot of bands came from Sweden, but in the 90s the scene seemed
dead, but now it is like AOR/Melodic Rock and Progressive Metal
are really 'hot' in Sweden, can you as a Swedish musician explain
how that is possible...
Well, one thing is maybe that Sweden always has been carrying a
strong music-tradition, and wherever you go in this country,
there's always bands playing and rehearsing at schools, pubs etc.
It really is the main interest to many teenagers to play some
kind of music, and as you assumed, the big names like Yngwie and
Europe, Treat etc are still making influences to younger
musicians.
Here in Sweden AOR/Melodic-rock has been struggling to survive
during the 90’s. The live scene is minimal, although some of
the best bands and releases comes from Sweden. I think the times
are changing and we will hear more of this music everyday soon.
Many radiochannels are playing pure 80’s music, and
Broke[N]Blue managed to get airplay now 3 weeks in a row on a
commercial channel in Sweden, RIX FM.
Worldwide this music is getting more and more exposure and I
think there’s a wind of change blowing for this genre here
too. The internet is a superb media to spread information, for
both new and wellknown artists to get promotion at a lot of
places and reach millions of people at one time. And it’s
free most of the time to use this promotion, which makes it even
more fantastic! Without the internet, "Northern Light"
would have never been made.
Are there any
touring plans to promote the CD
No, sorry, but right now BnB is a pure studioproject. The main
thing right now is to promote the cd and to get it exposed in
countries, also outside Europe. The live thing will of course
have to wait, and I don’t think we make any efforts there,
unless there’s a major breakthrough or something like that.
BnB has never played live together, but Ulf is playing live all
the time with De Sotos, and the rest of the time he produces
other artists in his studio. Me and Peter are playing a lot live
with SIXPACK, so we’re really busy. Eva, Peter and I also
have ordinary "non-music" jobs as well.
Are you already
working on new material (if so, tell us about the songs and it's
style, still AOR?)
Yes, there is new material for a possible second album, and I
also have a lot of earlier written songs which could be used in
the future. Some are at the demostage and some are not recorded
at all. Now this will of course have to wait, since we're really
busy promoting the debutalbum. When things slowdown a bit, we'll
take a grip on that new material. We also don't want to hurry
with a second album until "Northern Light" has gained
exposure enough.
The songs are all in the same good ol' AOR/melodic style. I also
hope I will be able to work more together with Peter regarding
the songwriting too, he also writes a lot of songs, so I really
hope we'll have time to develop that cooperation. We've been
talking about co-writing songs for about 3 years now, but it's
always lack of time…
What are the plans
for the next coming months?
Right now we're busy with all correspondance with fans and
distributors, and I hope we can settle some deals with some
distributors in UK, USA and maybe Japan. Otherwise, we'll keep on
selling the album through the mailorders around the globe. Later
this year I will start with some new songs in the homestudio, and
maybe we'll put down some tracks in Balans Studio too. It would
be great to be more prepared for the 2nd album, I'd like to plan
the whole thing from an earlier stage, and maybe be able to take
some time off from the regular occupation.
Finally, do you
have anything to add to our readers?
Yes, we'd like to thank everyone involved in making this album
possible, and thanks to all people out there downloading and
spreading our music. Without all of you- no cd! To those who
haven't checked us out yet: take a listen at www.listen.to/l.a.music or www.mp3.com/broke-n-blue and maybe you'd like to get your hands
on "Northern Light" too!! Thanks to you Gabor, for
taking your time with Broke[N]Blue, it's been a pleasure!