HOUSE OF SHAKIRA
By Nicky Baldrian

Out now on MTM Music is the brand new album called simply 'III' from Sweden's House Of Shakira, and oh boy what a stunning album, the reactions have been very positive which is taking the band another step higher up the rock n' roll ladder, particularly in Japan where 'III' has just been released through Marquee/Avalon I caught up with guitarist/keyboardist Anders Lundstrom for a little chat about the bands career. House Of Shakira were formed way back in 1989, back then they were called 'The Station' and gained themselves a record deal. 'We got our first record deal in 1992' explains Anders,'But then also all our f***k-ups started. The record company went
bankrupt and we were forced to change the name, because it was a record company already called "The Station"'

They became House Of Shakira, a name that the band took from a Arabian whorehouse in London, (got the address Anders? ha ha) The band continued to tour for a number of years, Anders continues, 'We wrote songs and changed members in the band. We also had some deals going on with different record and publishing companies, but everybody tried to f***k us in different ways so we almost called it a day. Finally in 19997 we got our first CD called 'Lint'released, and then in 1998 we released 'On the Verge'.'

These two albums both sold well and 'Lint' is considered something of a modern day AOR classic, but yet more disaster was about to hit the band when their label 'Bluestone' went Bankrupt. ' Just after we had released our second CD, the record company went bankrupt!Can you believe it!!' says Anders with fustration, 'Luckily though In 1999 MTM contacted us and wondered if we were interested in a record deal with them. We had offers from three other labels, but we choose MTM because we think that they are the best company in our music style. They also gave us the best deal financially and as we have known Magnus Söderqvist for years, we finally thought it was time to work together, so here we are with our new CD 'III', additionally out first two CDs can´t be found in the shops any longer because of Bluestones bankrupcy.

We didn´t own the artwork on the previous booklets, so MTM came up with this idea that they wanted to release our previous songs with a new booklet. It´s the best songs off the 'Lint' and 'On The Verge'CDs (according to MTM) and a chance for newer fans to here the best of the previous albums.

' I think that 'III' is your best album to date, the songs are very deverse and interesting, please tell me about the album Anders? 'Thank you very much, this time we had a little more time to sit down and write songs but very little time in the studio (three weeks). So I think the sound production of the songs got very honest. This CD almost have a live-feeling over it. The songs got very "scizophrenic", you have a lot of different styles like really hard rock, AOR, country, powerballads, pop etc.. The diversity challenges the listener and I think that it has become a sort of trademark for us.'Yes I can see that, the honesty perhaps comes from your spititual side? ' I think that the songs are inspired spiritually in which mood you are, in just that particular period of life. And as we are five individuals, the CD gets very "up and down".'

Exactly which makes the songs interesting and enjoyable, which brings me to my next questions, I first heard House Of Shakira on one of the Frontiers Magazine cover cd's, the song was 'No:8' the vocals were recorded in an African language, which I thought totally ruled, did the band record anything else in your native language?
''You have that demo song on CD? Great! I haven´t heard it for years.It is sung in an African language called kikongo (or lingala). As our former singer, now co-writer, Mikael Eriksson was a missionary son in former Zaire (he lived there for 14 years!), we have taken a lot of influences from African and Oriental music and singing. So we have done a lot of 'strange' things during the years.

Everybody in the band is very open to 'strange' music. Our motto is: Try every idea with an open mind, but we still listen to all those great bands like Led Zeppelin, Journey and The Eagles.' When you played THE GODS in 1997 the audience really went for your music, how did you find that gig and why haven't we seen the band back in the UK since?'THE GODS was a blast. We just had toured Germany and was really exhausted before the gig. We was the first band out, it was 12.00 noon, we hadn´t have a soundcheck, we had terrible hangovers, everything was caos. But we really could feel a great response from the audience. Afterwards we almost
collapsed. I think it went well after all.We really would love to come and play in UK this winter. The fact that we
haven´t played in UK, is that we don´t have anybody that can book us in UK. We don´t have a management either, so we are working on that now. Do you have any suggestions on people in UK who could be interested in us? Please contact me if so. We are now only concentrating on touring. That´s the only reason why we record CDs..Lastly I would just like to say cheers for supporting us through the years, and hope we can meet on tour Winter 2000-2001!'

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