[ DISCOGRAPHY ]

[ I DON’T WANT TO DWELL ON MY PAST - HISTORY IS HISTORY ]

Moving on, finding new grounds and sounds was my only priority after Europe. But, as you know, we´re nothing without our history, and my past kind of came back to haunt me. I realized I missed those songs and now I can proudly say: this album came to life out of an aking need to reclaim and rediscover my past.

My manager originally had the idea of making re-recordings, and as soon as I started to groove it out in the studio, it was like the arrangements wrote themselves. The new production and the rough attitude in the performances have given these songs a brand new life.

The title track, Redux: Europe, is a hymn to the continent of Europe. It was originally written for the celebration of the creation of the European Union, EU, after the Maastricht treaty. I got an offer to write a piece for electric guitarand symphony orchestra, and my thought was to have one of the big tenors, like Luciano Pavarotti, to sing the chorus. For various reasons this never happenedand I totally forgot about the song. Then, one day during a break in the recordingsI was going through documents in a bunch of old binders in the storage room ofmy studio, I found this piece of paper. It was the music and lyrics for the song. I rewrote parts of the song with Ken to make it work for the band and then every-thing fell into place. Since this album is about redux, this song couldn’t havecome back from the dead in a more convenient time.

It´s been a long time coming. Twenty odd years in the making, but here it is; Redux: Europe - My modern take on my history.
[ THIS ALBUM MARKS MY RETURN TO METAL! ]

I kept hearing these guitar riff ideas in my head for years, and finally decided it was time to get them out of there, turn them into songs and record them. But I had no clue as to what kind of album I wanted to make; there was no stategy or masterplan. I just decided to go for it to see where it would take me. And it really took me to some strange new places. I ended up here, and I´m proud to say: this album marks my definitive return to melodic metal.

Bouncing around ideas, toying with riffs and melodies I soon realized that I had to take a step back to be able to move forward. I decided from the beginning to use a lot of the producing techniques and tricks of the trade that I’d learned from working as a producer for other artists over the years. I wanted the production to feel relevant in time although melodic metal wasn’t the hip thing right then.

This album also shows how I came up with my own take on ”toasting”; I lived in the Caribbean for years and picked that special kind of singing style up hanging in clubs and listening to the locals playing their music. I simply used whatever tool I could find in my big tool box, experimented with styles and sounds any way I saw fit. I just let the music do the thinking and tagged along. I wrote, recorded, produced and mixed this album in my own studio, so for the first time ever I really didn’t have to listen to anyone elses advices.

Sometimes you have to surrender to something that´s bigger than you. That inner voice kept bugging me and finally I started to pay attention. This album is what happened when I gave myself up for something I only can describe as... - yeah, divine musical intervention.
[ IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE GOLDEN ERA OF MELODIC METAL ]

When grunge was the hip thing, I became sick of where the music business was going. I had little, or to be honest, no interest from record companies. I had fallen from grace as well as off their radar. All the major companies were so obsessed with the pursuit of the next grunge super band that they turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to anything else. A lot of people in the business adviced me to make a grunge album, but I didn’t want to, cause it simply wasn’t me. Neither did I want to flog the dead horse by putting out yet another melodic metal album doomed to oblivion because of the times a’changing. During this period I saw many friends and colleagues albums grimly bite the dust that way.

It all started when I sat down in my living room with an acoustic guitar and began to sing a couple of song ideas that I previously wrote for the keyboard. It struck me how cool they sounded in a singer/songwriter fashion, and from there it just took a life of its own.

This is around the time when I met Pia, the love of my life (we got married in 2000). As the song writing process progressed, it became more and more appearant to me that this album was all about my love for her. This is by far the most unforeseen project I’ve accomplished, and I don’t think anyone expected to hear something like this from me. Although the production and arrangements are very laid back, I think even die hard rockers enjoy the creativity and musicality of this album. As a matter of fact my fans consider ”Together Alone” to be one of the most profound songs I’ve ever written.

To all my fans and friends - Shine on!
[ INTERMISSION ]

After the Prisoners in Paradise Tour I went back to LA for a while, but even- tually I realized that I needed to go back to Sweden. I guess I was feeling homesick. Back in Stockholm I got to use studio B in Soundtrade Studios as a courtesy of my old friend from the KGR Studios, Lasse Gustafsson. I was fo- oling around with different song ideas and styles, without really knowing what I wanted to do. All I knew was that I really wanted to record my first solo album. I kept getting these offers from Swedish bands, but I had absolutely no intentions to start from the beginning again in some unknown, unsigned band. I was a bigger selling point on my own - it was time for me to go solo. Fate had other plans for me...

One night I was having drinks at the Café Opera with some friends when I bumped into Freddie Von Gerber, my old buddy and drummer of Easy Action. He was working on some new project that he seemed very enthusiastic about, and everytime I met him he kept asking me if I wanted to put down a solo on one of the tracks for old time’s sake. I finally caved. The very next evening I came to the studio with my Gibson SG90 and Fender Strat and just plugged into some amp. The one song I was supposed to play on turned into two, and then three, and before I knew it I was way more involved than I originally planned to be. Freddie, who is an equally charming and cunning bastard was counting on this all along: He knew that I would love the songs and the guys in the band if he only could get my ass down to the studio. Out of this Red Fun was created.

They’d already recorded some really good stuff, so I started writing the songs that I felt were missing on the album. The fun thing with this recording is that we’d use whatever equipment was standing in the studio. As long as it worked, we used it. One night I was playing some old combo, another night we couldn’t find a Marshall cabinet, so we plugged in a bass speaker. I’ve been getting a lot of credit for the guitar sounds on this album over the years, which just proves one thing: Attitude is everything.
[ THE LAST SUPPER ]

During a meeting with the management in Stockholm we were discussing the new winds that were blowing in the metal scene. We decided it was time for the tough to get going.

We all moved to LA since we felt that it was there new interesting stuff was happening, and also where the music industry lived. We rented flats on Fuller Avenue and rehearsed at the S.I.R Studios on Santa Monica Boulevard. We went up to Vancouver to have a meeting with Bob Rock, who was going to record the album, and it all seemed fantastic.

We had a brief break before the start of the recordings in Little Mountain Studios and I was hanging out at the house on Turks and Caicos Islands, Brit- ish West Indies where I know was residing, when I got a phone call from Herbie Herbert, our manager. He told me that Bob Rock had bailed. This was of course terrible news, since the recordings where scheduled to start in a few weeks. Luckily, a week before this I was at the Concrete Convention and ran in to the brilliant producer Beau Hill, who’s work with Ratt i loved. A couple of phone calls later I became the saviour of the band when I got him on board, and we ended up recording the album with him at Enterprise Studios in Burbank, California. Herbie called me ”Keesus” for weeks after that.

The album it self also had a resurrection. We started out recording the album we had in us from spending time in LA. It was full of riffs and chants, and both credible and rocking, if you ask me. However, we got a complete thumbs down from the label, who perceived Europe as a ballad band, they simply thought it was to heavy. Unfortunately we listened to them, and after some co-writing with outside writers and scrapping half of the recorded material we got back into the studio to finish the recordings. It took me years to get over the crucifiction of the album, but eventually I learned to appreciate it again. There’s both loads of beautiful melodies and a bunch of good riffs on this album.
[ LET THE GOOD TIMES ROCK ]

After the incomprehensable success of The Final Countdown World Tour we had only a brief time to wind down before we needed to get working again. I was trying to combine the two.

Now residing in Nassau of the Bahamas, I was relentlessly working the home studio of my town house at the Guanahani Village on West Bay street. I oc- cationally went outdoors and jumped into the sea or the pool, but mostly it was blinds down, AC on, writing songs. When the recordings of the album started in London everyone asked me why I wasn’t tanned since I lived in the Bahamas.

The producer, Ron Nevison, came with an indisputable success record, and it was the first time I recorded my own record without producing it myself. We had our indifferences, but in the end it all worked for the best. I think this album has a magic touch to it.
[ SLIDING DOORS ]

Easy Action was experiencing a major, but temporary draw back when we got dropped from SIRE Records. For a full year of being described by the media as the great white hope of the Swedish music industry, I got that sinking feeling when I got the bad news. We all felt quite lost, since we really felt that we were on to something great. Unfortunately, when things go bad, it’s hard to keep a group together. I was having some doubts about our musical direction and was hearing the band doing music in a different vain. I couldn’t picture us going on like nothing happened. Me and lead vocalist Zinny Zan had a talk about this in the studio one day, and he decided to leave the band.

Meanwhile, our bass player, Peo Thyrén had heard rumours about Tommy Nilsson being back in Stockholm. After a mindblowing audition he joined the band, and we almost immediately started working on new stuff in the studio. I produced all the Easy Action stuff, and I had now a second career as a pro- ducer going on. And this album really became my ”baby”. It was supposed to be the album where I got everything right, and in a sense, I did. Of all the albums I’ve ever made, this is by far the one that got the best reviews. The media loved it, the music business loved it. Geffen wanted to sign it, Epic wanted to sign it. Unfortunately it never got a fair chance, since weeks before the release I got the offer to join Europe and decided (after much agony) that it was the right thing to do.

Sometimes I can’t help but thinking what would have happened if I’d stayed … like in the movie ”Sliding Doors”. Guess I’ll never know. One thing’s for sure though; the best was yet to come.
[ ATLANTIC CROSSING ]

Sanji Tandan, who quit his job and signed us to to his own label to release the mini album and the full length, truly felt that Easy Action had potential for world wide rock stardom.

He went to Midem, the biggest music industry fair that runs every February in Nice on the French riviera. This is where a lot of deals are made and career opportunities for future rock stars are being initiated. He managed to get an appointment with Seymour Stein, co-founder of SIRE Records and presently the vice president of Warner Bros Records. Being the man who discovered The Ramones, Madonna and Depeche Mode, Sanji felt pleased even to have made the meeting happen.

He came back to Sweden with a historical recording contract. Easy Action became the first Swedish act ever to sign a world wide US major label deal. This made the headline news in the Swedish media, and EMA Telstar (Live Nation) became the bands new agent. With this break the sizes of tour pro- duction and venues increased dramatically, and it truly felt like we were living our rock’n’roll dream.
[ STAIRWAY TO THE STARS ]

After the success of Easy Action’s mini album we did some serious touring and thoroughly tweaked the mechanisms of the ultimate glam rock machine. We went rocking. The Swedish music magazine ”Okej” were publishing ar- ticles with colorful spreads of the band, purposefully exploiting our flam- boyant image. This attracted female fans, and as it has – where the girls go, the guys follow.

So now we were pulling increasingly bigger crowds to our shows. Sitting back- stage after gigs drinking Jack Daniel’s we felt like real rock stars, but little did we know that an almost unimaginable break was lurking around the corner.
[ BUILDING THE PERFECT BEAST ]

Outside a venue somewhere in Sweden during the scandalous ”Treblinka Tour” with the band Noice the idea was born. Me and bass player Peo Thyrén bonded over a bottle of pre-gig scotch as all our rock’n’roll ambitions were dragged into the light and seemed to merge into one grandious idea on how to build the ultimate glam rock machine - Easy Action.

We knew exactly what we wanted and started commuting to London as soon as we got some days off from the tour. We wrote songs during daytime and did the club scene at night, and when we eventually got back to Stockholm we were rocket-fueled with inspiration.

We got the lineup for the new band together within a week. Sanji Tandan, who was the head of A&R of SOS Records, the label Noice were signed to, got so excited by our demos that he quit his job and signed us to his own label; Tandan Records. This is the mini album (or EP as some called them) that came to break the band. Back then this was considered a great format for a new band to present themselves. More than a single, less than an LP, it was an effective hint of what the band could accomplish in the future. These four songs came to establish the sound of Easy Action, containing all the components of our witches brew; 70’s glam rock/hard rock/metal performed with a fuck all punk attitude.

A whole generation of American glam rock acts were inspired by Easy Action’s powerful music and hard core image, and some of them took the ”inspiration” part to a whole new level – but I’m not pointing any fingers.

Enjoy now; the very first recording of what probably is the original glam metal band.

[ DISCOGRAPHY ]

[ Administrative links ]

[ Other links ]

[ DISCOGRAPHY ]

Kee Marcello newsletter

[ Administrative links ]

[ Other links ]