För ett tag sedan tog jag ett snack med Ronnie Atkins, om livet, hans nya skiva och allt mellan himmel och jord. Intervjun nedan är gjord på engelska.
Welcome Ronnie Atkins and thank you for doing this interview with me. How are you?
- I’m good. I feel good and thank you for having me. I’m fine these days, absolutely. I mean, it goes a little bit up and down with basically some of the sequelaes I have from all the treatments and stuff I had. I got a lot of nerve damage and all kinds of shit, really. Too much to mention. If I was a horse, I would have been shot. But I’m not a horse, and now I’m talking to you, haha.
It makes me glad to hear that you’re doing good and also lucky that you’re not a horse then!
Let’s talk a little bit about your brand new solo album that you’re releasing, called ‘Trinity’ and it’s out on October 13th. It’s your third solo album, quite impressive that you’ve been able to put out one solo album each year since 2021.
- Yeah, I had nothing else to do, haha! I mean, these days, I guess it’s very rare, these days you know, because a lot of the bigger bands don’t release anything anymore. If they do, it’s something like an album every eight or ten years. And of course, one of the reasons is likely that there’s not the kind of money in recording anymore unless you’re Lady Gaga or Rolling Stones maybe. Basically the thing is that when I got diagnosed with cancer in 2019, I actually was cleared in January after a lot of radiation, chemo and surgery but then in February/ March, I was told that it had spread to the bone. So I was in the pit, so to speak. It was a knockout for me and my family because I was in shock and grief. So to make a long story short, I’ve been using this, songwriting, singing and stuff like that, as some kind of a self-therapy, you know. I said this in a lot of interviews, that there were two paths I could go by. I could sit down and feel sorry for myself or I could do something, you know, focus on something positive, which is what I did with the first album. And when I listen to the first album today, it’s kind of surreal because when I listen to some of the songs, some of the lyrics, like the title track, ‘One Shot’ and stuff like that, I feel like I clearly remember what kind of state I was in at the time being. I was in some kind of grief, a mix between grief and shock, I guess, and panic. But now here I am. I mean four years after I was diagnosed with cancer and I feel good. Whatever sequels I have, I’m alive. I’m so thankful for that, so grateful for that.
Talking about the first album, when you go back to listen to it, do you feel it’s hard to listen to it because of the state you were in?
- Well there was a song called Carry Me Over that I wrote. I didn’t put it on the first album because I thought it was too sad, you know, but it ended up on the Four More Shots EP. That was actually Five More Shots haha. But anyway if I listen to that song, I mean, I can hardly listen to that song today but that’s exactly how I felt at the time being. But also some of the other songs on ‘One Shot’, it’s not that I get depressed by listening to them, I just sense the state I was in. I recall the state I was in when I did it. Because I mean, even though some of the songs are personal and it’s a little bit much about life. Because I mean, we always take things for granted. We don’t think that we could die tomorrow and we really shouldn’t, seriously, I never did that myself. I did everything I could to come in that situation, you know, but we don’t think about it and when you get like a diagnosis that I have and it still says in my journal that I have incurable lung cancer that spread to the bone marrow, I mean it just gets a little bit closer, you start realizing things, you start being more appreciative for life, for every day you wake up, every day is a gift. I actually sang it all, I think I said it all in the lyrics on those two first albums. And this third one is also, there’s some songs that are personal too, but I try to squeeze in some kind of a little positive twist to it, so it’s not all just sadness, I’m just telling people that, hey, we should be happy that we’re here. And that’s my message. That’s what I’m trying to say… because this is my platform to say that.
It’s really a great message Ronnie! Talking about the third album, what could tell me about the process of making this third album compared to the first two albums?
- Pretty much like we did the two first albums, you know, because when we did the first album, actually it was Chris Laney who was a keyboard & guitar player in Pretty Mates as well, Swedish guy living in Stockholm and he’s my good friend and he’s been a true fucking fire soul in all of this. I took part in this At The Movies thing that he did during the Pandemic where I did this Tina Turner song and that was the first time I actually realized that I could sing again, because I was walking around for like half a year, but every time I wanted to reach the high notes, I started coughing and almost throwing up, you know. I said to Chris, when he asked me to do it, I’ll try to do it, you know, see if I can do it. And I can do it, let’s go ahead, you know, because I said, I’ve got a lot of ideas, but I’m not very good with Pro Tools and everything. And Chris he’s good at Pro Tools and recording stuff. And he can play a little bit of all instruments, you know. So what I did is that I wrote the verses, beat, bridges, choruses, top lines, you know, into my iPhone with a metronome, and I sent it up to him. And we kind of agreed on the arrangement and sent stuff back and forth. The way we recorded the first album and the way we recorded the last couple of albums, too, was that he did a demo and I did the vocals as they should be. And then after I did the vocals, we did all the instrumentation. And the last thing to be recorded was the drums, which is totally the opposite way of what you normally do, right? So we just kept that formula for these three albums. And so we did the same on this, but the first time when we did it was actually to be sure that my voice was there in case I get very sick or die or whatever again, you know? And that’s not a joke, that’s the reason why, you know, it’s the sole reason why. But it worked, it worked and it still works. So we just kept doing it like that. But he’s great to work with because he knows what I like, I know what he likes. We musically are kind of on the same page. We like the 70s, we like a lot of the same bands. Whether it’s pop music, whatever, a good song is a good song. So it’s been easy collaborating with him on this.
Speaking of the new album, first of all it’s a really great album!
- Thank you!
The new album seems a bit heavier instrumental wise than the previous two albums, how come it shifted that way?
- Well because I was more aggressive this time haha. No, but I got a piano in here, in the next room. And I got my little guitar set up with an amp. I wrote quite a lot on electric guitar, you come up with some riffs. I get the riffs in my head but I’m a lousy guitar player, I can’t play the Eddie Van Halen solo stuff for example. But I can sit and put chords together and play a little. Chris and I record the ideas or I’ll record some of it on piano or my ideas into my iPhone. So quite a lot of the songs were written on electric guitar so it just turned out that way. But I think besides that, I think I just kind of stayed to the formula. The most important thing for me is that it’s a good riff.
That’s the important part.
- That’s the important part and what is important for me is whatever song it is, that it’s melodic and kind of catchy. That it is a melody I like, you know? And many times the melody comes first for me. And then I just put some chords underneath it, sometimes like the Trinity, it was written when I was out and I don’t know where it came from. I was at a fifty birthday reception and I was going to see the band 10cc, you know the old seventies band. My wife and some friends were waiting in the parking lot and I just had to deliver these two bottles of wine. And I had a beer out there when I walked out from the concert I had the idea for the chorus and I have no fucking clue where it came from. I just had to record it into my phone.
Well I mean putting out one album a year since 2021, its very impressive. Was it hard writing so much good material in that kind of short time?
- Well, actually, I don’t think the intention was to put out an album this year, you know. But I just had the ideas and when I’m focused on something, if I say okay, we’re going to do a new album next year okay, What’s the deadline? If the deadline is 1st of March for example, then I have the songs ready by 1st of March. I still have a ton of ideas. I just haven’t gone really deep into them yet. But there’s always coming ideas, when I start focusing on something it just comes. Until now, I hope it’s going to stay that way. You never know, but it’s just like that the well doesn’t feel empty yet, not dried out or anything like that yet, I keep getting ideas.
Yeah, that’s good for us that consumes and loves your music.
- I’m just so fortunate that somebody likes it too. It’s basically the reason why I do this again. It’s kind of like therapy, but I think that goes for a lot of musicians because you please yourself, you know it’s kind of a musical masturbation and then you’re just fortunate that a lot of people agree to that, that they like it as well as you. Of course I’m very, very happy that people like it, otherwise I couldn’t do it but it’s the love for music inside of yourself that is the instigator here. I mean what I do and when you record stuff, you try to sing it with heart and soul, you can’t fool people.
Yeah, absolutely. Will there be any shows with this solo consolation?
- Yeah we’re going to do like six gigs in november, with a new guitar player called Marcus from a band called Chyra and then it’s going to be Pontus Enberg on bass, Chris Laney on keys and guitar, Alan, the old Pretty Maids drummer and me. We’re playing in Helsingborg on November 3rd, Linköping November 4th and we do Copenhagen, Hamburg the weekend after and two gigs in my hometown. And then Hopefully we are going to do some Japan stuff next year and we’re going to do some more gigs, some festivals and stuff like that. Hopefully some more gigs up here in Scandinavia and Germany.
It would be really nice to see this great material live. Do you have a favorite track at the moment from this new album?
- You know how it is. It always shifts but I think Trinity, the title track is a really good song. I like Shine and Ode to a Madman as well. It was actually difficult when we had to pick the four singles, you know, because it depends on what audience you’re aiming at, there’s some more heavy stuff and there’s the typical balance like What If?. Soul Divine is another one of my favorite tracks. It’s basically a lullaby to my little grandchild you know. I wrote it straight after she was born, a month or two after. I was a little emotional, because I didn’t see that coming, you know? I mean, a couple of years ago, I never thought I’d be a grandad, so I was overly happy with that. I was overly happy with that and she’s a gift every day.
Thank you for doing this interview with me and I hope to see you down the road!
Hela intervjun finns att lyssna på i ljudformat via min podcast Rockflödet (på Engelska): https://open.spotify.com/episode/4EyoadgqffCnoStNdJO4rg?si=8b73fbfe37bd46c3
