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SWEDEN ROCK FESTIVAL – MEMORIES #2
Like I said in the last Sweden Rock Memories-post, there is a LOT more where that came from.
I found a whole bunch of photos and videos that I thought I’d share with you.
This one, for instance, is a classic…! It’s from Sweden Rock Festival 2006.
Venom had just finished their set and they had actually left the stage maybe 10-15 minutes before this was filmed. THIS Venom-fan apparently never even noticed that. He was TOTALLY into his headbanging, whether or not it was accompanied by the soothing sounds of…Venom:
Or this – Skid Row were doing a spontaneous photo-shoot outside the press-tent. They were actually posing for the photographer when I walked by and Scotti just walked out of the group-shot cause he was so happy to see me…! :-)
These guys are really like old friends, we “grew up together”. I met them for the first time in 1989, we were all in our early 20’s and our careers had just begun. I love them, the most wonderful guys one could imagine:
Rachel Bolan on stage before the show:
So what else have we got here…. On stage during Lita Ford’s set. Jon Oliva’s Pain played that year, I think it was 2009, and their dressing rooms were right next to Lita’s.
Since JOP’s bassplayer Kevin is a good friend, he knows that I am a HUGE Lita-fan (well, check out the URL for this blog “lita77777” – guess where the “lita” part comes from ;-)). So, he just grabbed me by the hand and pretty much dragged me up on stage during her show. There I was, as close as I’ll ever be during a Lita Ford-concert. :) Thank you Kevin, one of those things that will definitely stay in my memory for a long time! :)
Kevin behind the stage, about to go up there and rock people’s asses off:
Jon Oliva’s tour manager Anett on the stage during early sound check:
And why not a few clips from some of the press conferences…. there is just so much more, I need to find all that stuff – press conferences with Ronnie Dio, Sebastian Bach, Heart…. Every band that’s ever had a press conference at Sweden Rock Festival… Well, pretty much. It’s all here somewhere.
Judas Priest-short clip from 2008:
Blackie Lawless (W.A.S.P):
And just some random photos of artists, fans, stage area, backstage area and just other…stuff!
Guest pass (for Alice Cooper), typical Sweden Rock fans, Spike (Quireboys), Suzi Quatro, backstage-bar, stage (Heaven and Hell), Meatloaf, Nightwish, Wilson-sisters of Heart, Judas Priest, Dio, Sebastian Bach, Rudy Sarzo…
And a few snapshots from the camping-, food-, and merch areas taken by my friend Beatrice in 2005 (I think, might have been 2004):
The mysterious Blackie Lawless tape
For most of my interviews and press conferences, I at least have a clue where and when it is from.
But I found THIS Blackie Lawless press conference on an unmarked cassette and quite honestly, I don’t recognize any of the things Blackie Lawless is talking about there. I don’t know WHERE it is, WHEN it was recorded or anything. A total mystery. I’m sure I will find more interviews like that. I used to just record interviews, use them for a transcript and then forget about them. I didn’t always write the necessary info on the tapes…. :(
Here’s a 30-minute treat for all you W.A.S.P-fans out there, maybe you guys can figure out where/when this is from. :)
Sexy guitargasms
I was watching a video on Youtube of Marty Friedman in Thessaloniki, Greece – being joined on stage by Greece’s #1 guitar hero Gus G. When those two great players started playing, I spontaneously thought to myself: “Man… What a GUITARGASM…!”
I laughed and wondered where the hell I got THAT word from. It just seemed like the only appropriate word for it. Was it even a real word?? I had to check, so I googled it.Turns out that it was very much a word used to describe the sexual symbolism in guitarplaying. Definition of guitargasm #1:
“The look of sheer ecstacy on one’s face while playing a guitar solo – usually triggered by a long, sustained note or bend. Looks very similar to the person’s “o”- face”
Definition #2:
“The expression of often orgasmical ecstacy shown whilst playing guitar. Most commonly used during shredding”
I often thought of that actually, how sometimes when I see guitarists getting into a solo, or just playing for an enthusiastic crowd, they get that facial expression that most of us women have seen many times.. :-) Well, you know…. That expression. ;-P
There’s a lot to be said about the erotic symbolism of the guitar. Speaking of Gus G, this was something I actually thought of a few months ago while watching the Firewind live DVD.
At times he played so passionately that… not only could you see it in his face that he was totally into what he was doing, but he actually played as if he was making love to his guitar.
“Embrace the gun”??
Yngwie had that quality too. His hands were flying up and down the neck and over the body of his guitar. He could really make it look sexy, eventhough he wasn’t exactly a pretty boy.
My sister once mentioned something about that when we were talking about music. She said that there was actually scientific proof that women could get aroused by watching a man play guitar, simply because of the shape of the instrument and the musicians hands skillfully handling it.It was a subconscious thing apparently.
Quite honestly, I never heard of that before, but it sounded like it made some sense. So I started looking for more info on the subject.
The first thing that came up when I was searching for more info on this delicate but interesting subject, was ART. More specifically, Picasso and a painting called Reclining Nude with a Man Playing the Guitar.
I’m not an art expert by any means, but the common interpretation of the painting was very interesting. I’m taking the liberty of copying it as is:
“Is xxx suggesting that the guitar — the male artist’s instrument in more ways than one — is more important than the nude, who is an incidental accompaniment to the strident music of the colors and bizarre interplay of the shapes?
Is the covert point of Millei’s transformation of Picasso’s painting to suggest the dominance and consequence of the man and the submission and inconsequence of the woman?
But let’s not forget that Picasso’s guitar is shaped like a female body, suggesting that when the man plays it he is copulating with the nude in unconscious fantasy. He is after all playing the guitar to seduce her.
Also, the guitar’s opening has become a surreal hole-nipple, suggesting that it is a dream condensation of the female body, and also an abstract condensation of concave and convex forms.
The guitar’s long, fretted neck is clearly suggestive of the penis, suggesting that the guitar is also a dream condensation of heterosexual intercourse. But playing the guitar may mean that making art is masturbating and is thus fundamentally narcissistic, whatever the accompanying fantasy of a stimulating woman.
As Hanna Segal suggests, to make good art is to make beautiful music with oneself, while to have good sex is to make beautiful music with someone else.
This again affirms the primary importance of the actively playing male artist and the secondary importance of the passively reclining female nude, even if she physically occupies more of Picasso’s painting than he does.”
Who knew that there was so much to be said about the guitar and the symbolism of it?!
I was never that much into guitars when I first got into metal (which to me is the ultimate guitar-music), but after hearing Yngwie, how could I resist?!
I always loved good music, passionate music and most of all, passionate musicians – regardless of the instrument they’ve chosen.
I’m crazy about drums, and a good drummer can make me feel musically high. There is definitely something very sexy about drums too – it’s very primal, very masculine, aggressive and powerful.
Hell, you can make anything to be about sex if you want to. :-)
You live and learn. And all this just because I watched a video with two cool guitarplayers sharing a small club-stage in Greece. :-)
Seriously, how cool is this – I totally dig it:
WHITESNAKE-TIME!!
Only 2 weeks till Sweden Rock Festival and all those bands that I love…! One of those bands being Whitesnake – a band that’s always been close to my heart.
It’s funny when I think back and remember how I even started listening to WS, it was after hearing “Guilty of Love” on the radio back in 1984. The reason why I loved the song wasn’t the song itself at first, it was that very simple but effectful drumroll that Cozy did right at the end of the song, before the last chorus. I loved that detail, could listen to it over and over again.
The rest is history. :-)
Sometimes when I find interviews or videos of my meetings with David Coverdale, I still can’t believe that this man went from being a poster on the wall in my teenage room, to somebody who knows and remembers my name in an instant, regardless where he sees me, if it’s in a crowd or a press conference or whatever.
If I stop and think about that, it’s pretty amazing, because of all the people this man meets on an everyday basis, in all different corners of the world – to think that I said or did something that makes him remember me every time, is pretty damn unbelievable. :)
These are some of those memorable moments…. The “classic” interview that I did in 1999 I’ve already published in this blog, audio files and all. Check for “Lost and found- David Coverdale” (link in left hand column).
David and Doug doing an acoustic performance at the Sweden Rock Festival kickoff party at Nalen in Stockholm, 2006:
LINK: http://www.myspace.com/video/lita77/david-coverdale-doug-aldrich-acoustic-live/4251198
One of those special moments was the press conference at the Sweden Rock festival-kickoff at Nalen in Stockholm December 2, 2006.
I recorded this press conference on an MD-recorder but the recorder/MD-player is shot so when I try to play the MD’s it sounds like crap. If anyone still wants to hear the entire press conference, drop me a line at intherearviewmirror@ymail.com or add a comment.
As you can hear from this short clip, the sound quality leaves a lot to be desired. But this is one of those small moments that I was talking about, in a room of journalists where David treats everyone politely but professionally, he never once mentioned anyone by name. Until I decided to ask something…
He kept doing that, talking as if we were old friends, when in fact, I had “only” met him maybe 3 or 4 times prior to that, very short hello’s apart from the long and relaxed interview that I had the pleasure of doing in 1999. One of the rare occasions where you don’t have to feel stressed. Usually you get 20 minutes, tops.
He had all the time in the world, cause I think I was the last journalist to talk to him that day.
A funny thing about the Sweden Rock kickoff press conference, was that I was going to take a photo of David and Doug before they left, but accidentally hit the record-movie button.
Thank god for that, cause I got these 8 seconds on tape (where he gets up to leave and doesn’t ask anyone else if they’ve got any more questions – he turns to me to check if I’ve got all the material I need..!).
LINK: http://www.myspace.com/video/lita77/david-coverdale-doug-aldrich-press-conference-stockholm/4224844
Then there was my birthday. Whitesnake playing in Copenhagen, Denmark that day and once again, David made it such a memorable birthday, I couldn’t have asked for a better b-day. :)
My friend Mari had a surprise in store, cause I didn’t know that she had prepared a sign to let David know it was my birthday.
Much to my surprise he took that sign and walked around with it on stage and sang for me.
Well, he has a way of making people feel like he’s singing just for them, one of those qualities that made him a superstar.
When he told the crowd that it was my birthday and that I was “giving out birthday kisses to guys” I thought it was funny and a very “Coverdalish” thing to do. :-)
Inbetween two songs, he went behind the stage and came back with a beer in a cup that he offered me as a birthday-gift and bowed. No wonder I love this man! :))
Small, but such nice gestures.
And he’s always done that. I can’t think of one single Whitesnake-show where he hasn’t talked to me from the stage or smiled and winked or whatever.
There was only ONE time that I was pissed off at him, and I was mad for at least a year…
It was Sweden Rock Festival, I think in 2003. I was standing in the front row as usual (being my size, you don’t see shit if you’re way in the back) and as you all know, when you are in the mosh pit, you’re stuck. You can’t move – at ALL.
Suddenly I feel how some guy had his hands all over me – where they shouldn’t be. I was so mad and frustrated because I couldn’t see who it was and I couldn’t do anything to get the idiot to stop what he was doing.
In the middle of all this, I see David looking at me and whoever the asshole was, with a big smile, and he says: “I don’t blame you man, she’s got great tits!”
WTF?! He could have said something to make the asshole stop, instead he encouraged it.
Oh boy, my respect for David Coverdale went down the toilet after that. I was pissed off, VERY pissed off.
When my “little brother” Chris Laney opened for Whitesnake in Linkoping some time after that, he put me and my then boyfriend on the guest list and I guess I had the opportunity to talk to David that year. But I didn’t want to.
I remember him spotting me from the stage, like so many times before, bringing the mikestand over to my corner, where he happily started talking, asking how I was doing blah blah, I don’t remember what he said exactly. For the first time ever I wasn’t interested in what he had to say. And I didn’t go backstage to hang with Chris and his band either. I just left.
But then, time heals everything I guess and I figured that maybe David had misunderstood the situation I had been in at Sweden Rock 2003, and I just decided to drop the grudge.
I’m back to being the same enthusiastic Whitesnake-fan that I’ve always been.
And I can’t wait to see them rock again. The new album Forevermore is the best they’ve done in a long time – go get it! :)
BRIAN VOLLMER (HELIX): “It’s hard to think you’re a rock star when you’re making 150 bucks a week”
We all know the name HELIX. And if you don’t, you do know the big rock anthem from the 80’s “Rock You“.
If you don’t know that either, welcome back from your cave.
I have to admit that I fit into in the same category as many rockers out there, we know Helix from their heyday, but when they disappeared from the spotlight, I kind of lost track of what they were up to.
Until recently when a Canadian online friend asked me if I would be interested in talking to Brian Vollmer, the frontman of Helix. Of course, I was curious to find out what the band had been up to since…well…”the good ol’ days”.I spent a few days reading up on Helix and realized that they are still very much a hard working band, and definitely still loving what they do.
As always, I find that very, very inspiring.
So, I picked up the phone and called Brian. 6 p.m in Malmoe Sweden, noon in London, Canada – Friday 13th, 2011. It couldn’t be a more appropriate, rock’n’roll-date for an interview. :)
Hi Brian, it’s Daniela. Am I calling at a bad time?
No, no, it’s a good time. I’m ready to go Daniela!
Yes, that’s right. Was that really the first acoustic show you ever did?
Yes, and it was a crazy day because my uncle also died this week and he was the oldest living person in Canada with Down’s syndrome. I had to drive about two hours from here first thing in the morning, cause I had to sing at the funeral. And then, as soon as the funeral was done, jump in my car and zip back to London, Ontario and straight down to the Aeolian Hall.
I was five minutes late and everybody was already there, and it was just crazy.
But we got a standing ovation at the end of the night and it was a very good night for the band. We’re gonna tape this, as in film it, and it’s gonna go out to the agents, and we might even sell it as a video so….we’ll see what happens.
How did the acoustic thing come about…?
Well, whenever you have a new album out you go out and promote that album and in this case… You know, we’re an electric band up to this point, so it’s pretty hard to showcase the songs of Smash Hits Unplugged without doing an acoustic show and we also felt that this was a good time to try to take the show to the theaters because it’s much more suited for a small theater than it is for a bar.
We have video interview footage between the songs, that we spent a lot of time doing, and I think that in a club, that would be lost. You know – people are talking and it’s hard to get the screens up above everybody’s heads – usually clubs are low…
But in the theater we had everyone’s attention and it was pretty cool. It’s not as easy to do as you would think. It’s pretty complicated, but next time around I think it’s gonna get much better, as in presentation.
It was a huge success – we got a standing ovation at the end of the night and people just loved it. I’ve getting loads of e-mails since the show and it’s all very positive. We had a record company, I won’t say who it was, but they thinking now of distributing the Smash Hits album in the United States which will be a good thing for us. It’s all gonna help to build the band. “We’re hoping that promoters and agents over there will take a look at the band and see that “the old guys” are proficient at their instruments and performance – they look good and sound good!”
I heard that you will be coming over to this part of the world soon?
Yeah, we’re thinking of doing that in October. I can’t tell you exactly where or what yet, I’m not allowed to say, but one is gonna be a boat cruise, and we’re also gonna be playing in Finland. But we’re looking very forward to coming back and we’re hoping that once promotors and agents over there take a look at the band and see that “the old guys” are back and proficient at their instruments and performance, and they look good and sound good… We’re hoping that it will lead to more festivals – primarily Sweden Rock. I’d like to get back on that bill.
(Helix played Sweden Rock Festival 2005).
Well, Sweden has been pretty good to you guys – you got your first #1 record in Sweden, right?
That’s correct, we had a #1 album in Sweden back in 1985 with A Long Way To Heaven.
Yeah, god that was ages ago..! :)
That was only YESTERDAY, come on Daniela! he laughs.
“We were classified a heavy metal band, but I always thought of us as a heavy pop band”
All those Helix songs… We were classified a heavy metal band, but I always thought of us as a heavy pop band. To have songs on the radio but yet still not be viewed as selling out or whatever you call it, I think is a lot more difficult to do actually, than be a heavy band. We always tried to concentrate on writing good songs and you know…
We grew out of the Canadian bar curcuit. When we first started out in the seventies, to survive you were essentially a travelling jukebox. We did all sorts of cover songs, everything from Bob Seger to Aerosmith, to Ted Nugent…the Bay City Rollers for god’s sakes…! And, you know… We really earned our spurs as musicians and performers by playing that circuit every night, 3-4 sets a night, 6-7 nights a week.
And just constantly, constantly, constantly playing. And we spread out to the United States, and eventually in 1983 to Europe with the Kiss tour.
For people over here, you’re still the band that got the hit with “Rock You”….
Yes.
But you have a long history with the band, and some of the stuff you’ve been through reminds me a bit of your fellow Canadian colleagues Anvil, have you seen their documentary…?
Yeah, I’ve seen it (he says with a laugh)
Do you see any similarities there between you guys and them? Cause your careers have been like a rollercoasters?
Yeah, for sure. But I think it’s been a lot more dramatic for those guys cause they didn’t really have the radio-hits. Anvil is a great band in the sense that they pursevered all these years, and they’ve done it because they love the music. And I really believe in my heart that no matter which band you’re in, if you believe in just writing good music and doing it for the right reasons and you stick with it – eventually you’ll be successful. In some shape or form.
In regards of Helix, I think the lowest part in my career came around the mid-nineties when days really dried out, but you know… You constantly gotta be out there working and just try to get your foot in the door with every little thing you can.
Right now – we’re in a comic book for instance (laughs) it was just released. We’re also trying to do a reality show/documentary. We’ve got some interest in that and… We have “Rock You” coming out on a Tellus commercial. Tellus is a big phone company over here in Canada. That starts in July. It’s just things like that, you know. We just keep pushing forward.No matter how old you are as a band, you can’t sit back, unless you’re doing the “Milk run”, going out there doing, what you were originally talking about. People know us primarily for one song. That’s okay as long as they’re there. And then once they’re there, we can educate them on the rest of the Helix catalog. I really think Helix did have a lot of great songs.
We’ve always been a kind of underground band with the fans, but being in a band and continuing is like baseball – you get three strikes. “We were educated by our manager how to run a good business” With the Anvil guys for instance, they were slugging away in anonymity for….ever!
I remember they were going down to play in South America, a place Helix have never played, but going down there and doing tours…. I think the biggest difference between Anvil and us quite truthfully, is the fact that we had a great manager Bill Seip and he taught us a lot of good basic business things that helped the band survive.
” I really believe in my heart that no matter which band you’re in, if you believe in just writing good music and doing it for the right reasons and you stick with it – eventually you’ll be successful.
In some shape or form”
“We were sleep deprived, drinking too much, doing drugs…”
When you got the hit with “Rock You” did you ever stop and think “Yeah, I’m a rock star now, this is the big time”?
No, because none of us had any money! It’s hard to think you’re a rock star when you’re only making like 150 bucks a week. You can’t pay your bills.
So you never got big headed, even during that time?
Nah, if there was ever a case of that with anyone in the band, it was more a case of that we were sleep deprived, drinking too much, doing drugs… you know what I mean? Crazy schedules, it was just… Especially sleep depravation which is never really talked about anywhere.
But I know lots of bands that keep really weird hours and if it screws up factory workers, why wouldn’t it screw up a rock musician just as much?
But we did it. For years.
I hear Judas Priest are quitting now for that same reason, apparently…
Actually, I think that nowadays we’re holding up better than ever because we were so used to the lowest of low conditions…Like, our “tour bus” consisted of a renovated school bus with a Porta Potti in the back and no air conditioning. At least those guys travel in nice buses and flew to gigs and stuff. That didn’t happen too often with us.
Eventhough we are doing crazy dates.
“Every time I went to quit the band, something would come up, and it would keep me in”
You went through a lot of tough times …. got disillusioned, felt like you didn’t want to do this anymore?
That’s right.
What made you go back to a business that you knew wouldn’t change?
I actually intended to quit at the end of the Ian Gillan tour in 1989. We got to the end of the tour and I was staying at my wife’s place in London, England…or, well, we weren’t married at that time, we were “living in sin” Anyway, my manager phoned me from Canada and said that “Good To The Last Drop” was becoming a great radio hit in Canada, and “the record company wants you to come back, shoot a video and tour on that song”.
I went… “Naaah… I’ve had enough”.
So I came back and said “okay“. We did the video and sure enough, it became a big hit.
In the back of my mind I thought to myself… Every time I went to quit the band, something would come up, and it would keep me in, right? I thought, maybe it’s an omen that I should stay in this, there’s something, somewhere down the line for me – or maybe it’s just living this great life.
That’s what kept me in. And I’ve never thought of quitting since then.
Someone once said that a musician can’t ever really retire…. Would you say that’s true?
(laughs) Id’ say yeah. You’re driven to it. That’s why you’re either suited for this life or you’re not. But people that aren’t suited for it, they don’t last too long. You really have to enjoy the life…
A lot of those inbetween days are Mondays – crap like answering the phone, paying your bills, arguing with freaking agents, the dull shit that nobody wants to do. So you’ve got to keep it even keel,so to speak,
“We’re toying with the idea right now of actually doing an album with a brass band…!”
You’ve done so much over the years… what’s left to do? Do you have any more goals and dreams…? Things you haven’t achieved?
I’ve lots of goals. I’d like to go to Japan. I’d like to go to South America, Asia… Anywhere we haven’t been before. We’re toying with the idea right now of actually doing an album with a brass band…! Which is interesting….And the reality show. That’s our focus right now. Helix actually sold more albums in the US than we did in Canada, although we had gold and platinum albums over here, it was a different standard quantity-wise, for what range you’d get a gold or platinum album. In the States it was about ten times of what it was in Canada!
We did a lot of touring in the US…. uh.. I forgot what the question was!
I was asking you about where the reality show would be shown?
It will probably go to VH1, but it’s not as simple as “okay, it’s gonna be on VH1“…
Usually there are brokers and agents that are involved in it because you gotta raise money for each of the episodes. What we do is we’re spending our own money for a pilot show. If things don’t work out, it’s bye bye money, but…. You gotta believe in yourself. At the very least, we’ll release our own DVD and we already have interest in that. It’s a good time for us right now.
We feel confident that it’s gonna happen. We’re ready for it. This is an incredibly hard job. You have to be focused.
“I’m probably one of the last people in the world to teach Bel Canto”
I hear that you’re giving vocal lessons as well?
Well, I got into in the early 90s, when things really slacked down for us. Now I have about 40 students. I’m probably one of the last people in the world to teach Bel Canto. I feel very privileged that I learned how to do it, But it took me a good 20-25 years to learn how to teach it.
How would you explain what that actually is?
Haha, got two hours? :)
Howcome so few people teach this vocal technique if it’s the only “right” way to sing?
What makes it so unique is the fact that when you learn it, it takes so long to learn how to master the actual technique that most people that learn it, they don’t teach it. They do it.
The difference is right there, the inhalation. To master it takes at least a couple of years. It’s a secret, the whole technique…
“… there’s this big roadie pissing in one of the plant pots in the lobby. He destroyed that place!”
So – as far as you know youll be over to this part of the world in the fall?
Well, I’m not allowed to announce any details yet, but yeah we’ll be over there.
It’s gonna be fun though, and all the guys are looking forward to it. Especially my youngest member of the band, Kaleb Duck he’s only 23 and fits right in with us! He’s got a great attitude, he’s always smiling and it brings a smile to my face working with somebody like that. Everybody’s pumped to come over.
That’s correct, 2005. That was something else, the hotel there…I got up in the morning to leave on the bus and I was on the bus with Sebastian Bach all the way.
But anyway, I got downstairs in the morning, and there’s this big roadie pissing in one of the plant pots in the lobby. With an old lady behind the desk…! There was piss everywhere on the floor, he destroyed that place. See, I don’t understand that kind of behavior. We were never into wrecking things. How intelligent is that, really?! I think it’s stupid. I just think that nothing good comes ouf destroying a hotel room where you’re staying.
Nobody does that except people in the music business!
I think Sweden Rock was very well run. We would like nothing better than to come back!
IN THE REARVIEW MIRROR 