And then they were three! While we’re all(?) awaiting the release of my second solo album Lucky Day, by now there are three “instant grat” tracks available for download for those who pre-order the album, no matter if you order a physical copy on CD or vinyl (and T-shirt?) at Lojinx, or if you’ve pre-order the album through iTunes. The first one was “Jealous Sun” (which by the way has been added to Swedish Radio P4’s playlist!!!), the second one “Room To Grow”, and now “Wait Until The Moment”. It will be followed by more surprises along the way!
While awaiting your vinyl or CD you can also enjoy the instant grat tracks on this growing Lucky Day playlist on Spotify:
In the future you will be able to see and hear the full story about how “Wait Until The Moment” came about, but for now all I can say is that I wrote it together with producer Brad Jones who took my stomping uptempo piano based melodic idea and turned it into something that, to me, sounded very beautiful in its laid back, bossa nova-ish vibe. It went from power pop to… well what is it? Is it Yacht Rock? You decide for yourself!
The song features one of my favourite lyric lines on the (coming) album; ”Break my heart a little and I’ll do the same for you” which was a little ”couplet” that Brad had lying around for years that he finally found use for.
Let me also be a bit nostalgic and take you back to my co-writing trip in 2015 when we put the song together. This is a clip from the control room at Alex The Great Recording in Nashville, just after Brad had constructed a percussive loop from his own sample library, trying it out with the Spanish guitar that he later added to the recording:
And, here’s a clip from my late night vocal overdub session. Brad had instructed me so well on how he wanted me to sing it, so I thought I’d have a go at it right away. It turned out 18 months later that Brad was very happy with the result of that night’s vocal takes, so we decided not to re-record it:
Lastly, please feel free to enjoy a live version of the song, from Andreas Dahlbäck’s Durango Recording, where I had the incredible opportunity to put both my dear co-producers in the same room, together with brilliant young Theo Stocks on pedal steel, a former student at The School of Music at Luleå University of Technology, where I work, who happened to be in Nashville with his class-mates only a couple of weeks after the album recording in 2016. I got the idea to ask Brad to have him play some pedal steel on a couple of tracks on the record (“Lucky Day” and “The Only Thing I Really Need Is You”). He did a fantastic job both at the recording and in this live clip. Please enjoy!
Only two days ago I wrote about my co-writing research trip to Los Angeles, Nashville, New York that took place in February last year. The great news is that from these fruitful sessions a bunch of NEW songs for my FUTURE SECOND ALBUM was written!!! And what’s even better – the recordings have begun!!! In Nashville! With the one and only Brad Jones as producer! In one of the eight video blogs I linked to in my last post I talked about what he has meant to me over the years. Below you can enjoy eleven more video blogs that I put on my artist Facebook page from the Nashville sessions. As well as some photos from the studio, with co-writer Bill DeMain, from social activities with old and new friends including Javier Piñol, Wyatt Funderburk, and The Wellingtons.
Here’s a video from the flight between Stockholm and Chicago on Aug 28 with me and famous Swedish reputable drummer Andreas Dahlbäck who I was fortunate enough to have with me on the first part of the trip. (He also played drums on my solo debut album Soundshine).
Once we got the Brad Jones’ studio Alex the Great Recording we started to fool around with the various instruments that were lying around:
Once we had slept off our jet-lag we had the first producer’s meeting with Brad at his home kitchen table:
Time for tuning up the instruments. Here I’m singing ”Nobody’s child” (once recorded by the Traveling Wilburys):
While setting up in the studio we put on a kettle of coffe and I was warming up the voice and getting in the the country vibe of Nasvhille by singing ”Country Dreamer” by Wings:
Later the same day we had laid our first track down. A song co-written with Linus of Hollywood called ”Lovebug”. Producer Brad Jones’ evaluation of the take is ”time for lunch”:
A little later into the recordings I finally got to pick up Brad Jones’ wonderful 1970 Gibson Les Paul Deluxe Gold Top with mini humbuckers. I was in jingle-jangle guitar power pop heaven!!!
Between takes there’s always time for more goofing around. Here with hired gun, and famous Nasvhille session musician, Pat Buchanan. Too much fun!
Here’s from one of many so called ”playbacks” in the studio. Here of a song I’ve co-written with my hero from the area of academic research within songwriting, and my assistant supervisor as well, Professor Joe Bennett. The song is called ”Egyptian Blue”.
During the weekend when Brad had to go on a tour to Colorado. As Brad put it: ”Zookeeper’s away, Monkeys will play…..”. Here’s Andreas trying out an idea on his Theremin on the iPad. With us during the weekend was my good friend Javier Piñol:
After Andreas had gone back to Sweden I was sometimes left all alone in the studio at night-time. So I took the opportuinty to try out some background vocals. Here with my new TG2 pre-amp that I had bought from Vintage King Audio:
I’m really excited with the result from these recordings and I look forward to finishing everything off during the next days, weeks, months, years…? Time will tell! Stay tuned!
Summer is not too far away now and my contribution to the soundtrack for your summer will be the second single from the upcoming album Soundshine. The song is called “Looking for a life” and will be released on June 1st worldwide on iTunes Store and various other digital platforms.
An accompanying video with sceneries from beautiful Stockholm will have its premiere on the same day on my YouTube Channel.
The melody for this song was written in Nashville a few years ago when I hooked up with the American songwriter Ian Eskelin (All Star United). It was one of my first co-writing experiences outside of my previous band the Merrymakers. As an artist and writer Eskelin has had more than thirty Top 10 singles in the United States, including 12 #1 charting songs. He has additionally had international #1 songs in various countries including Japan, Singapore, and Australia.
The song was lacking a lyric for a while until I had the brilliant idea to ask Andreas Mattsson for help. Part of the reason for this was the fact that Ian Eskelin had expressed a big interest in Swedish indie-pop music from the 90’s including Mattsson’s former band Popsicle and my own former band the Merrymakers. So it kind of made sense.
On this song as well as on the rest of the album I’ve had the pleasure to collaborate with co-producer Andreas Dahlbäck (Lundell, Ternheim, Motorhomes, Eskobar) who also plays the drums. The other musicians featured on this single are Anders Pettersson (The Perishers, Deportees) and Rikard Lidhamn (Oh! Laura).
