I guess i was wondering a little about what was mine.
I knew i was good at writing songs.
I wondered-how good?
I was getting tired of the way music sounded like on the radio.
I thought that it sounded fake, to plastic, and custom made to sound like
"the song that was on radio 2 weeks ago"
Some people have through the years told me that i have a good , personal voice.
I had thought to myself sometimes, quietly, "i`m gonna save this song for myself,
i`ll record it sometime.Later".
Just because i really could`nt think of anyone else that it would fit.
I thought about what style would i make it?
-What genre, what kind of production,arrangements?
I have always liked 70`s music best.
It seems like all the geniouses reached their peak during the 70`s.
The Beatles, Beach Boys, ABBA, Stevie Wonder, ELO, Elton John and
countless others.
I wanted to use acoustic instruments, as far as possible.
At the time i had only been using samplers and synths, trying to fake
acoustic instruments, with the result, that everything sounded plastic,
and stupid.
It did`nt really make a difference if the melody and chords were great,
it still sounded plastic.
So i decided i wanted to use guitars, and other acoustic instruments.
I wanted it to have a timeless, classic vibe.
Clean, classic pop songs.
I had already had songs realeased with "typically" commercial music,
and had pretty good success with it, and kept writing
random songs here and there in different genres,
but i thought;
- i want to write songs for an album,
with songs in different moods,-sad, happy,pushy, slow..
and still try to fit them together.
Jeff Lynne had since the beginning of the 90s, with his soloalbum, "Armchair Theatre",
been a housegod of me and my friend,
Andreas Aspeli.
I had already recorded some songs, but wasnt really happy with the result.
The production had a bit of vintage-70`s feel to them already,
but both me and Andreas thought they needed a bit of push, punch.
The whole process of writing the songs i think took me a couple of months,
recording voice and acoustic guitar onto a dictaphone,
Producing and arranging, making the songs fit together, took
( probably mostly,`cause i had a steady daytime job, working full time),
-5 years.
When it came to the recording and production process, i had`nt been recording
much at all with acoustic instruments, so it became a trial & error-process,
some songs seemed to take forever before i became satisfied.
I wanted to make it sound both personal and that people would remember the songs after they heard them,and be able to sing or hum along.
And that,my friends, is the story behind "Dino -Fool`s Gold"
/Dino.
