Any plans this weekend? If not, it might be the perfect moment to read the brand new David Myhr interview for J-Pop World!!! Just click on the screen dump below… enjoy!!!
I remember Paul McCartney once said “I love being in a band. It’s a luxury. I’d rather have a band than a Rolls Royce.” And it’s true that being in a band is a true luxury. Especially a “real” band. It’s hard to beat the feeling of being in a tight group working creatively together towards the same goal with an “us against the world” mentality. I have very fond memories of the periods when the Merrymakers were a tight songwriting team and we inspired and bounced ideas off each other.
But it’s also true that being a solo artist now gives me a freedom that’s hard to beat. Now I am free to ask whoever I feel like at any given moment for a collaboration. I may not get a positive response all the time but sometimes I might get lucky. For instance on my coming album I’ve been fortunate enough to write with pop heroes like Andreas Mattsson (Popsicle) and Peter Morén (Peter Bjorn & John) and on one of the Japanese bonus tracks which was originally written for Puffy I’ve worked together with another Swedish master of pop; Peter Kvint.
When performing live I am now also able to experiment on a case-to-case basis. Many times I will have to accept that there’s only budget for one guy in the band – myself! Just like in Madrid in December and at Club Wonder in Osaka on this promotional tour of Japan. Other times I can try the “Chuck Berry method” – touring on your own and have local bands backing up in order to save travel costs.
I tried this in London last year and now on this promotional tour of Japan it was time again to try a “local” band put together specially for me for the gig at or the Powerpop Academy Party in Tokyo on Jan 10. They are Ryuji Gotoh from ONEPERCENTRES on drums, Osam Watanabe on bass, and Yasu Hashiguchi from hello! on guitar. It was only a week before the rehersal that I got their e-mail address and was able to start to share some sound files on Dropbox containing their respective parts for each song – so of course I was a little worried… Suddenly last weekend I was standing in a rehearsal room in Tokyo and there they were – nailing every drumfill, every lick, and they play with power, confidence, and they… rocked! Have a glimpse yourself into the rehearsals if you want by watching this video (sorry for the distorted sound):
What a relief and what a great feeling! I’m truly impressed with the dedication and professionalism with which these guys have approached my songs. I was (and still am) very humble and grateful. After all I’m not Chuck Berry who invented Rock’n’Roll. I’m just David Myhr with a bunch of new songs. So thanks Ryuji, Osam, and Yasu for a great job with the rehearsals!
I am very pleased to be able to announce that my “upcoming” album Soundshine ACTUALLY is “coming”, finally!!! The first country that will have the album in stores is Japan and the release date is Dec 7, 2011. The album will be released by the fine label Thistime Records.
As some of you may know my former band The Merrymakers had some success in Japan in the late 90’s when we sold more than 100,000 copies of our albums and our song “Monument of me” was a huge radio hit. I had the fortune of going there five times with the band during that period until things calmed down. We made promotional tours doing radio interviews, and in-store performances, signed CD’s, played a showcase gig (with ex-Jellyfish Andy Sturmer on drums!), and so on… I developed a long term love affair with the country and Japan has a very special place in my heart. Through the years I have found so many wonderful people there and things don’t get worse by the fact that I have had the luxury of having a few of my songs released by Japanese artists like Puffy, Miku Kakoi, Sarasa IFU, Yuko Yamaguchi, and Tokio.
As everybody know 2011 has been a year of terrible catastrophes for Japan and my thoughts and deepest concerns have since then been with its people and my heart goes out for all of those who have lost their loved ones.
After such an enormous tragedy the event of releasing my album suddenly can feel even smaller and more unimportant than before when looking at things in a big perspective, but nonetheless it’s a long-awaited (at least for me personally) “comeback” on the Japanese scene as an artist. Way too many years have passed since the release of the Merrymakers last album Bubblegun. I’m looking very much forward to trying to spread some “soundshine” and joy in Japan and I will also be going there for a promotional tour to support the album in the very beginning of January 2012.
The Japanese version of the album will have of two bonus tracks. Both are songs that I originally wrote for the phenomenal and famous Japanese artist duo called Puffy (a.k.a. PuffyAmiYumi). The first one is an exclusive “for Japan only” song called “Boom Boom Beat”.
Feel free to check out Puffy’s version as well (that was produced by former co-Merrymaker Anders Hellgren and me) in this live performance:
The second bonus track is called “Record Collection” and it’s a song I’ve written together with the extremely talented and succesful Swedish songwriter Peter Kvint who I had the pleasure to get to know during a songwriting camp in Tokyo a couple of years ago. Puffy released it earlier this year as their 15th anniversary song which was kind of logical since in their version it was called “Happy Birthday”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYEhpqY_65g
So in some funny way my new versions will by “covers” of my own songs. Confusing indeed! I had a lot of fun returning to the songs again, and recording them in my own way and the best thing is that Ami and Yumi from Puffy were kind enough to lend their vocal services adding some background vocals to these versions so the two bonus tracks will be “David Myhr feat. Puffy”.
For those in the rest of the world who are very eager to hear the album, or are in desperate need for the ultimate Christimas gift – please feel free to investigate the possibilities of international orders either from Thistime Records Onlinestore or here at CD Japan. But rest assured that there will be a European release in the spring of 2012. To stay tuned for updates, just subscribe to this blog and “like” my Facebook page.
