Early start
My musical path started early and I also knew quite early on that it would be drums. Already as a child, I got my first drum, although here I had a little difficulty in turning the puk stick correctly.
Dad wanted something else…
My father, who was a part-time musician with an interest in jazz, had started playing the violin and accordion early in life. He had then changed his mind in his teens and had played both double bass, drums and above all guitar in the 50s and 60s in various bands and thought that his son should also play an instrument. So in the mid 60’s my dad decided to build me a guitar. It became an “electric guitar” with light blue/grey Perstorp disc as “covering” of the guitar body. The guitar had a mic that was actually intended for acoustic guitar. Dad showed me some simple chords but the strings were hard, the neck was way too thick, it was almost unplayable for my little hands, so that guitar was mostly lying around. Dad also built me a red electric bass, which he himself could also have for his own “Sound on Sound” recordings that he made on his Tandberg tape recorder. I tinkered with that bass a bit but it was the same problem. The bars were thick and too hard to play on, so I left it alone.
In 1965, my father bought me a Hohner Melodica piano 27. A wind instrument with 27 piano keys that I played a bit but then learned to play it quite quickly.
The first records
I listened to a lot of music. The Beatles influenced me a lot and I sang the song “She loves You” already as a 5-year-old without knowing English, so it became something like Schlavsjoo. My first single was The Crystals with the song “Da Doo Ron Ron” which I got in 1964. The Animals was my number two single with the Sam Cooke song “Bring it on home to me” which I got in 1965.
How it became drums
I remember Dad had a drum head, a calf skin that he played with beaters on when he made his recordings. It wasn’t strung over a drum frame but he had it loose and he once showed me the basics of how to play with beaters on the crooked calf skin.
Then it happens that dad helps a guy with money and buys some of his drum parts so that dad can put together a minimal drum kit that he will have for his trick recordings. It’s a small tarnished bass drum, a Speedking Bass DrumPedal, a lousy snare drum, a hi-hat with hi-hat cymbals and a small 14″ ride cymbal.
But lo and behold, then Nelson Jr. wakes up. up!
The drums become the first instrument that I get attached to. He sets up the drum set in the storage room and I can sneak in there and play when dad is not at home.
First source of inspiration
The first source of inspiration is The Spotnics with the songs “Husky” and “Drum Diddley” which I already played together on my record player. Sometimes I change the speed so that it is played at 78 turns instead of 45 because then the voice is more fun and the drums go faster. Jimmie Nicol in Spotnicks, the drummer who also played with The Beatles becomes my idol. Dad finds out I play the drums after school and shows me how to hold the drumsticks with the traditional “pen-grip” grip in my left hand. I play drums more and more and teach myself to play to songs like Cadillac and Farmer John by Hep Stars because I had the singles. I then see that other drummers play with “matched grip” and also switch to holding the drumsticks that way when it feels better.
Dad’s attempt to change my direction
My father once again tried to change my set path with drums and he buys a Piano and sends me to piano school with his playing friend Rune Wikström. Rune is of the old school and is going to teach me to play by sheet music and since I can’t read sheet music, he starts with Carl-Bertil Agnestig’s book “We play Piano 1”. It’s songs like “Sara from Skara” and “Min elefant” and I absolutely vomit about how boring it is with sheet music and learning nursery rhymes on the piano, so after 8-9 lessons I stop going there, to my dad’s great disappointment.
My first own drum kit
Dad finally realizes that it’s the drums that matter and that a real drum kit is needed, so we go to Kalix Musik & Papper, run by a smoke-coughing Rune Holmberg. First of all, Rune has an Aria drum kit in the basement that dad bought for me and I can now put together a full-fledged drum kit with Bass drum pedal, Hihat and Cymbal from the other kit. Finally I have a real drum kit.
Mom and Dad and even the neighbors in the house next door start to feel sorry for the “hacking” as Mom called it. The drums were in the storeroom and I practiced every day but I had no one to play with, but Dad heard that Henning Forsberg’s son Anders played piano and he thought we could start playing together. I don’t remember how we ended up getting a band together.
More about Karl XII on the group page
Gunnar Andersson shows the way
One of my first memories from the time before we were called Karl XII is when Gunnar Andersson (GA) and some others come to the Music Hall at Manhem School and sit down on the benches to listen. I had great respect for GA and was actually a little scared of the big Bus guys. I had heard GA play drums with Roland Strålberg and Bernt Ek at a school dance in CYK’s canteen. I had started in the 7th grade and hardly dared to play because GA was a god on drums, but then, in the middle of it, GA comes down to us (the music hall sloped down after all) and walks up to me and says “-I can show you a little” and then he starts showing me the drum fills and how he did it and from that day he became a friend with whom I unfortunately never played in any band. Don’t miss GA!
Music influences
When I started playing in Kalle Dussin I listened to groups like Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, Mountain, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, but quickly drifted into more advanced music in jazz rock, symphonic rock and fusion. YES, Genesis, Zappa, ELP, PFM, Gentle Giant were some groups I listened to, others in Jazz rock were Chicago, Tempest, Return To Forever, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Billy Cobham, Soft Machine, Weather Report, Samla Mammas Manna, EGBA, Kornet and many of the musicians who moved in and around these groups. Actually, I had listened to quite a lot of jazz at home over the years. Dad had switched to playing the organ and got himself a Hammond with a home-built Leslie and at our house we listened to Jack McDuff, Jimmy Smith and Kjell Öhman of course.
Shared joy
One evening we sat and watched TV when the band Focus played. It was from a live broadcast that was shown. Focus – Live at the Rainbow 1973 I think it was. Dad and I sat on the sofa in the living room and listened but in the end we were on the floor laughing so hard our stomachs hurt. They played Hokus Pokus with a “crazy” Thijs van Leer who whistled and yodeled. To this day, I can’t help but laugh at that song.
Replaced Sven Wallgren
I also play with many other than the Kalle Dussin gang. I rehearsed a few times with Roland Strålberg and Bernt Ek, who formed the group Rain, and we rehearse both in Töre and in Kalix. Among other things, we played Mountain songs. Once when there was a School Dance in CYK’s canteen and I had a “spot” on a girl, I am interrupted when the band from the stage calls out for “Nelson”. Sven, who was playing with Rain at the time, had hurt his arm from all the shaking behind the drums and I was exhausted from the corner I had crawled and hid in, to take over, which I later did with some reluctance. Sven’s drums were then a “mess” and the drumsticks weren’t much to cheer about either. The bass drum pedal slipped and the drumsticks were gone, the bass drum slipped but I played as well as I could under those conditions. I saw from the stage that Sven could instead be the one who hung out with the girls and was the right newspaper for him
Other constellations
Jag spelade också med Kaj Strang, Gerhard Malmberg och Björn Axelsson. Vi hade låtar som skickades in till radioprogrammet Bandet går och jag minns att en kom med. I den låten var det ett gitarrsolo men det dränktes totalt av den stråkmaskin som Björn Axelsson hade. Stråkmaskin var ju nått nytt och skulle användas och höras.
Events as a entrant in Dad’s dance band
Sometimes I had to jump in and play with Dad in one of all the dance bands he was in. I remember the names of some of his early bands. It was the Hartmanns, Tore Fahléns, Quint Tones, Rudi Berns, Tore Wikströms, Kurt Öbergs, and more. I also remember some special occasions as a member of one of the dance bands.
Do hangers work?
Once when I went with one of the dance bands up to Kiruna to play at Ferrum, I forgot the log bag in Kalix. All the drumsticks were in it. Saturday night and Panic! Everything was unpacked and set up when I discovered the fad. We tried to get hold of someone who had drum sticks. No one answered when we called the owner of the music store. I started thinking about whether you can play with the stick on the hanger you hang your trousers on and glanced at the wooden hangers hanging in the wardrobe at Ferrum. The clock ticked and it was 20:15 and we were going to start playing at 21.00 when suddenly someone gets hold of the owner and he comes to Ferrum with a few pairs of drum sticks and I have a couple of working sticks a quarter of an hour before we start playing. What a shudder! Is this what is called gallows humor?
Means of payment
Another time was when both me and Peter Strömbäck (Bass) jumped in and played with Pappa, Bengt Wiik and Kurt Öberg. We played at a company party for Överkalix Lastbilscentral. It was a “wet” party and there was quite a lot of dancing, cheering and drinking. Me and Peter were minors and probably thought it was quite a macabre event. It got even more macabre when it was 1 a.m. and we were supposed to stop playing for the evening. Well, it didn’t work out. The guys would have more dancing and the payment for an extra half hour was in Helrör VODKA. A whole pipe for us was! But Peter and I quickly got rid of the full tube. Dad and Kurt took care of that. The father! You owe me a whole pipe! But when it comes down to it, I actually owe a big thank you from the bottom of my heart for everything you fixed and put up for me.
Also old dance
Sometimes I played old-timers with Henning Forsberg and Melker (Anderson?). It was often out in some small village that we would play. I especially remember Niemisel where we were supposed to play but we were so late that I had to unpack the drums while Henning and Melker had already started playing,
New drums
Via an ad I buy a Premier drum set from a drummer from England who played in Stockholm and my grandfather who happens to be in Stockholm manages to drag them to the train and tokens them on the train so that I get the drums to Haparanda. Grandpa said it was the worst big drum you ever bought. It turns out to be a 26” bass drum! I, who only had a 20″ before, think it’s huge and have a hard time liking the new drums, but bought is bought.
New roads
After Karl XII was disbanded, I, Anders Forsberg, Gerhard Malmberg, Ann-Charlotte Wallin, Olle Rönnbäck and Rune Tapper from the Mahatma Åhlström Band played down at Pizzeria Cartago. There is a live recording from that gig. Everyone in the band moved and so did I. I moved to Härnösand to study at the Music Department after studying 1 year with Alvar Burman at the Folkhögskolan in Kalix. In Härnösand I studied percussion and I played the drums, mallet (Marimba Xlophone and Vibraphone) and orchestral timbrels. Here I played with Svante Henrysson (later bassist with Yngvie Malmsteen) and Pelle “Pop” Hökengren (guitarist with Trance Dance) and I also started playing a little guitar and piano because you had to have more instruments.
New drums
During this time when I was studying in Härnösand, I bought a monster drum set from Proper Drums who had the agency for Gretsch. It was a Gretsch set in mahogany with Double 22″ bass drums and eight hanging snare drums 6″-16″ and an 18″ floor snare, as well as a Tama KingBeat Swirl and stand from Tama. I called the set “Greta with the eight hangers”.
Cabazz
During my first year in Härnösand, Anders Forsberg had started the band Cabazz at Framnäs in Piteå and when their drummer Robert Thörne quit, I jumped in and played drums and some mallets in Cabazz. We also did a mini-tour that ended in Härnösand.
Kalix Big Band
After studying in Härnösand, I moved back to Kalix and I started playing with the Kalix Storband where, among others, Hubert Andersson, Tomas Bergeskans, Stig Wallin, ArnUlf (lost the surname), father Lennart and KA Emmoth played. The big band did not have enough wind players, so it was supplemented with wind players from the municipal music school, including PA Burman and others.
Cygnus
I wanted to play other music and talked to Björn Axelsson and Kaj and formed the band “Cygnus” which played instrumental music. The band was joined by Ander Lundberg from Piteå on guitar and Bengt Grahn from Luleå on keyboard. Me, Bengt and Ander wrote songs and we recorded in Kalix and recorded in Luleå. Unfortunately, those songs were never finished because I received “an offer I couldn’t refuse”, i.e. the request to start in an already established band, namely WildliW. But before I started WildliW I went to Northern Norway and played with Generation, a band that played popular dance music with Tomas Bergeskans, Anders Drugge, KA Emmoth and Camilla Bergeskans.
Wildliw
Jag brought me 2 cassette tapes with songs when I went to Norway that I listened to. When I was about to start with WildliW, Tomas Jakobsson, Peter Karlsson, Curt-Erik Fors and Anders Nyström played in the band, but Anders dropped out for a singing career before the first rope and Seppo Härkönen was brought in. After about six months, Curt-Erik also dropped out and Bernt Ek came in on bass and vocals. We scratched in a house in Kamlunge and went around Norrbotten and played. I was in WildliW during the “glorious period” when we recorded a demo in Abbas Polar Studio and when “Ladies in Black” and “We drift through the night” were recorded in Decibel Studio and the two times we played on Gröna Lund’s big stage. In Wildliw I played drums and did backing vocals.
After Wildliw
After WildliW, I tried playing with a couple of gangs in Luleå. The first was the group that later became the band Vanessa with Lotten Andersson on vocals. It was Micke Thurfjell on guitar and vocals, Anders Forsberg on guitar, Olle Rönnbäck on bass and me on drums. I also played keyboards with Mats Hallstensson, Henrik Andereasson and Seppo Härkönen and we also recorded some songs in Luleå.
Jacuzzi
In 1985 I moved to Stockholm and formed a band with Björn Axelsson. We brought in a guitarist called Ronny a bassist called Stene and a singer called Jacquline. We practiced a lot and wrote a lot of songs and recorded them on 4-channel Portastudio on cassette tape. The band finally got a record deal but I dropped out before the recording but managed to write lyrics for the chorus of one song.
Razamanaz
I also played a tour with Tomas Jakobsson’s cover band Razamanaz together with, among others, Olle Rönnbäck and Tommy Denander and we were also the backing band at the club KoolCat for a bunch of more or less famous singers. After this I put the drumsticks on the shelf. Sold the Gretsch drums for a pittance and bought myself a synth and a sampler and made my own songs for a few years until professional career and family life took over. In 2012 I played keyboards and drums with WildliW on the beach meadows.
Today
Today I play for house needs both a little guitar and a little Keyboard and in order not to lose all technology I have a vintage Tama Superstar set and for my own recordings I have a Roland Digital drum set to play on.