August 29, 2005
Interview with Lars Abrahamsson of Broke [N] Blue
Today’s interview is with Lars Abrahamsson of Broke [N] Blue whose new release is called “The Waiting”. This interview give a good perspective of what makes the band what it is – Great! Lars and his band mates are positive, creative and willing to stretch beyond the norm to achieve a sound all their own and it shows in the songs on “The Waiting” and in his answers. I believe this album and this band have a great future and will help bring back the focus of Melodic music and my only hope is that we won’t be “Waiting” too long for their next release! Please take a moment to stop by http://www.broke-n-blue.com/BNBFrames.htm to show your support!
1. We have been hearing a lot about Broke N Blue since the release of "The Waiting?" but before we get to the band let’s start with a personal introduction of you, Lars Abrahamsson, the man behind the music?
I was born in a musical family and I started out playing the drums in local cover-bands in the late 70’s and joined several constellations in the 80’s. I jumped between drums, bass, keys and the guitar. Song writing has always been important to me and from the age of 17 I’ve been writing on a regularly basis. I compose and write songs not only in AOR/Melodic-genre, also blues, blues-rock and pop both with Swedish and English lyrics. Main instruments nowadays are guitar and keys, but I often play the bass too. Today I work part-time with music beside my regular job as a surveying-engineer.
2. Ok, now if you would please introduce the band, Broke N Blue, please let us know what you would tell someone about it as if you were meeting someone for the first time?
Yes, on female lead vocals we have Eva Eggesjö-Abrahamsson… love of my life and my wife since 15 years. She's got a voice of an angel and she really can sing in a lot of different styles. Eva also joined her first bands in the late 70´s. We first played together in some bands back in 86´ when she handled the keyboards too and we shared the vocals. The last years she’s not been regularly in a band but she sits in when there’s time for it. During the years we’ve been recording a lot of material in our home studio, and she’s really a great help when it comes to arrange the vocal parts for the BnB songs.
Peter Gustavsson is the other leading voice, and he has been playing since the mid 80’s when he joined melodic-band ANGELIZE among others. The last 15 years he’s been lead-singer and guitarist of cover/party-band SIXPACK.
Peter and I played together for the first time at a party in 1996, and after that we've been playing a lot together with his band. He's a great singer and guitarist, and he's the entertainer when we’re getting on stage.
Finally, Ulf Vestlund is the main-man when it comes to sound and production. He’s been working with music since early 80’s and he played in many bands and worked with many Swedish artists. Today he plays the bass in top cover-band De Sotos. They are playing with well-known pop-artists like Tityo, Jessica Folcker, Jennifer Brown and Andreas Johnsson. He owns Balans Studio where we've done the recordings both for “Northern Light” and “The Waiting”, 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!
3. The new album "The Waiting" has been out just about a month now and the reviews have been great. What other feedback have you gotten from the fans and other artists?
Yes we’ve had a lot of reviews and most of them are positive and just like with the debut, they mention the use of two vocalists as a great part of the album. We have also got credits for the better production this time.
I have regular contacts with other bands in the genre, for example the guys of Alyson Avenue and Tor Talle’s Northern Light. They like the new songs too as far as I’ve heard, and I get mail and visitors on my web page all the time, that tells me we made a great album! It really feels good, because when your in the middle of a project like this, you can’t be objective anymore and it’s hard to be sure if you’re doing the right things all the time.
It also seems like the music is easy listening and appeal to a lot of people and in many different ages, so I hope that my songs will make them feel good.
4. Each album is a window into that time and each song an expression of an emotion or experience. Is there one song on "The Waiting" that has special meaning to you that you could share some of the significance with us?
Yes, in that case I can choose the title track “The Waiting”. As usual in this genre, it’s a lot of heart, pain and strong love-feelings in the lyrics, but the title-track is a bit more serious in some ways. It’s about all the people, working day and night, year after year but never stops dreaming about something better to come. Then, of course some of the other tracks have lyrics that mean a lot to me too, but the stories behind them I’m usually keeping to myself, letting the listener do their own version and perception of them.
5. With two lead singers it makes the album have a much richer and deeper sound. How has it been having two singers and how does it affect the song writing process and the recording?
Yeah, from the start of this project the labels found it confusing… this was not the usual thing! I had some offers that suggested that I should split the project, but when doing the debut-album, we had already recorded a lot of work, and I somehow felt that this was something that could be unique 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 our two albums. It gives a new dimension and a variation to the sound.
The mix of the voices make the great variety, but our three voices are close enough to each other 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 that's doing the lead. I have a great resource here, since they both can do superb vocals on both soft stuff and harder pieces. If I should say what’s most common, it’s that Eva is singing the softer and more heartfelt pieces, while Peter will add the grit for the rockier songs.
6. I found "The Waiting" to be a great album and a lot of fun to listen to. Was it a good time recording and how was the process of getting this album out?
Thanks, I hope you enjoy it! The process of the recordings is pretty advanced and takes time, since we‘re not that much in the studio all four of us at the same time. The album is recorded on a Neotek Elite mixing console with great sound and analogue filters but we had to remix it all in the last phase, because only the second half of the album was mixed on this gear. Ulf bought that mixer around Christmas when we already had 6-7 songs ready, but to keep the same sound we remixed those songs later. Most of the songs are pre-produced in my home-studio, where I make a first demo-version and most of the keyboards and then transfer it to Balans Studio. After we've made the basic drum and bass-takes, I go on with the guitar-recordings. When we have the whole rhythm-section ready, Eva and Peter join us and do their lead vocal parts. Then we add the background vocals and I lay down solos, fills and effects.
It was as always fun working in the studio, but sometimes the times are tough…This time we worked with mostly analogue gear before tape to get the right sound, and then used the digital media only when recording to hard-disk. We all know the risks with the modern digital equipment, and we had one hard-disk failure, where some takes were lost out in cyberspace. We had to do it all again, and hopefully we did it better the 2nd time... :-)
7. The music world of today is much different than years past, with more competition and less budget it seems. How do you look at the music world of today? What are the pros and cons?
I think the main advantage today is that it’s possible for so many bands to do what we've done: record and produce their own music at a low cost, release it as indie or on small labels and promote it on the web! Thanks to the Internet, the market has exploded with great bands, and some of them also will find their way to the bigger labels. I also feel we have a melodic-rock revival here and in other countries. Of course, the biggest labels are still only interested in "one hit wonders" and I think it's still easier to find a label in Germany or England for this kind of music.
One bad thing about it all is of course that the market gets so filled with music so it’s even more difficult to get exposure and attract the right group of listeners. And as a reaction of that, the labels are more careful with what they release and don’t want to sign any acts they can’t make big money in, so there is not a progression in that camp…
8. The Internet is one of the biggest changes over recent times, with much benefit to the artists but also with the dangerous and costly possibility of file sharing. How do you view this double-sided sword?
Yeah, we talked about the fantastic possibilities of marketing on the net earlier, and you’re right, there’s not only good things that comes with that territory.
I do think that musicians in general accept the file sharing more than the rest of the industry, labels, distributors etc. For unknown acts it’s just positive that their music is spread all over, it creates an interest and promotion that maybe generates cd-sales later on. Of course, it’s illegal in the first place and as the labels looses a lot of many because of that; they’re bound to take actions against it. I think they’ve been acting far to slowly, and should have been more active on the field earlier, creating legal alternatives to the file sharing.
From my point of view, I see it like this; most of the downloads are done by kids, who never would have bought the record anyway, so maybe it’s better to see it positive that the band-name and the music gets spread to more people than just through the ordinary channels.
It’s traditional that AOR and metal-fans are faithful to their bands and buy a lot of records so maybe B[N]B won’t loose a lot because of the sharing, although I could find “The Waiting” online on a hub just a week after the release… ☺
9. There are a lot of us who look at Broke N Blue as one of the bands we would like to see more and more from. What are you looking at next as a band, or even individuals?
I hope to be able to write more songs in this genre later on and release more albums, if we keep on together as an act, and if “The Waiting” is successful. MTM have option on another two albums, so we’ll see when we know the result on their sales figures.
Right now I’m having a break from playing live, but the song writing goes on like always. When there’s time for it, Eva and I will record some new songs in different styles, not only AOR. Ulf is playing a lot live with his band De Sotos and Peter has a lot of gigs with Sixpack too.
We could always hope that we'll be able to make a new great album in the coming years, and that we could take some more time off from the regular occupation to use more time for creating the album over a shorter period of time. It is very hard to manage jobs, family, studio-work, song-writing and playing at the same time. If the interest grew, we could spend more time doing what we love, making great music!
10. And finally is there a message you would like to send out to your fans?
Broke[N]Blue would like to thank everyone who has supported us since the beginning, and we hope that you’ll find the new album as good as the debut!
We’ll keep fighting for the AOR/melodic rock and bring it back on the main charts around the world…
Thanks to you Kathy for taking your time and interest in B[N]B!
Cheers/Lars
Posted by Kathy at August 29, 2005 09:07 AM