The song is the brilliant pop masterpiece “The Things We Do For Love” by 10CC. I first fell in love after hearing it on Swedish radio in my twenties. My first reaction was that “this sounds a bit like Jellyfish!”. As many of you know I was a member of The Merrymakers in the 90′s and we were lucky enough to work with Andy Sturmer from Jellyfish on our second album Bubblegun. Obviously it was Jellyfish who had borrowed some inspiration from 10CC rather than the other way ’round just like they tastefully did with influences from The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Queen, Wings, and Supertramp to name a few.
Anyway, a while ago I was approached by Andrew Curry and Elisabeth Racz about whether I would be interested in participating on a Drink A Toast to Innonce: A “tribute to Lite Rock”. Since I didn’t grow up in the US and didn’t listen a lot to the radio there in the late 70′s (when I was just a kid in the north Sweden building tunnels in the snow) I wasn’t really sure what it was all about. But when I saw this particular song on the list I immediately jumped on the bandwagon and picked it before someone else would. I brought the same backing musicians together as on the recording of Soundshine which is Andreas Dahlbäck on drums, Anders Pettersson on guitar, Rikard Lidhamn on bass, and Marcus Olsson on keyboard. I sang all vocals, played guitar myself, as well as glockenspiel and the whole enchilada was mixed by Marcus Black.
Drink A Toast to Innocence: A tribute to Lite Rock just came out a couple of weeks ago and I can strongly recommended it. It’s one of the best tribute albums I’ve ever heard and I’m also very proud to be on it with a number of greatly talented artist colleagues (and in many cases friends as well). Like for instance Mike Viola who I met last summer when he, together with my Danish musical hero Tim Christensen, made a fantastic McCartney tribute concert; Bleu, Linus of Hollywood, and Brandon Schott who I met all of them when I was in L.A. earlier this year; Vegas with Randolph and Eytan Mirsky who I met in conjunction to my recent concert in New York last month, and many other artists that yet have to meet IRL but have been in contact with in cyber space because of a mutual admiration for each other (Sonic Executive Sessions, Cliff Hillis, An American Underdog, Michael Carpenter and more). I could go on about this project more but I recommend you to check it out yourself on the project’s Facebook page or buy a copy at BandCamp. It can also be found on iTunes and Spotify.
In the words of the project leader Andrew Curry himself: “This is the culmination of a long time dream: to hear some of my favorite current musicians tackle the Lite Rock classics of my childhood. Whether you love the original versions and you’re curious about how the new recordings might sound, or you’re a fan of the current artists, and you want to hear their latest tracks, Drink A Toast To Innocence: A Tribute To Lite Rock is for you.”
Through this project I became friends with Todd Stanton and his family in Ohio. Todd is a devoted power pop lover and also happens to be a professional video editor with his own company Todd Productions. He’s been helping the project with a couple of promotional videos like this one and the one below where I also participate myself. He kindly offered his help in making a promotional video for “The Things We Do For Love” and I of course took him up on this incredible offer. What you see today is the result of many long days of devoted work from his end – but also from his daughter Alyson who made all the incredible illustration. I hereby want to express my deepest gratitude towards Todd and Alyson for all their hard work and I hope we’ll all be rich and famous in another life (if not in this). Also, I want to thank Andrew Curry and Elisabeth Racz for putting together this tribute album and to all the other participating artists.
I guess all this hard work from everyone involved serves as perfect examples of the “The Things We Do For Love”!
Newsflash! It seems that Swedish media finally have “discovered” Soundshine! In the new issue of “Studio” (4-2013) which is a music magazine specializing in recording and music production (and that I’m an avid reader of myself) you will find a three hour(!) long “mix video” featuring myself talking about the writing, recording, and production of my song “Never Mine” which as many of you know is the opening track of my solo debut album Soundshine. (Feel free to have a listen on the Spotify player to the right!).
The magazine says (kindly) that Soundshine is a “fantastic solo debut” and that it’s “sprängfyllt med gnistrande poppärlor” which would be something like “filled to the brim with glimmering pop pearls”. Don’t know if that works in English though… Should anyone (except for me) be on the look for nice praise over the album in “real” English you can also check out Hooks and Harmony who named Soundshine the album of the year (followed by interview here).
In the STUDIO interview I talk about how the idea for the verse melody came to me already back in 2006 and how I reworked it over a two year to period until I finally was happy with it and how the song was put on hold while The Merrymakers were still active (or should we say inactive?) as a band but became an obvious choice for me to include on my album once I was a solo artist. By then it was up to no one but me to decide whether my songs were good enough or not – and guess if they were! (Insert laughter here…)
I also discuss at length about the choice of co-producer (and drummer) Andreas Dahlbäck, session musicians Anders Petterson, Rikard Lidhamn and more, and you will see unique video clips from the recording, how the drums were miked etc. Above all the mix video contains a detailed run-through on-screen insight into my Logic (recording software) project. There you will see which instruments are part of the arrangement and how they were recorded and treated from a production perspective.
Also, in the last part of video you get to meet Marcus Black who mixed the whole album where he discusses his approach to mixing in general and to the mix of “Never Mine” in detail (with an on-screen run-through of his Pro Tools project). At the very end we talk a little bit about the mastering at Abbey Road and you will be invited to see the mastering room of senior engineer Steve Rooke who apart from my album has worked with among many, many other artists Paul McCartney and George Harrison. Not to mention the recent re-mastering of The Beatles themselves.
The magazine also features an article about myself and the recording of Soundshine. So if you are in Sweden (or know Swedish) and you are interested in the above I hope you find your way to the magazine store this month. Or if you’re living the modern digital life you can buy it as a pdf here.
UPDATE: As en Easter egg STUDIO magazine is offering the video link for free! Just click the picture below to get access to the three hour video (in eight parts). Remember to click the HD symbol so it becomes grey (not white) in order to get high quality.
A million big humble thanks to chief editor Mats Stålbröst and business manager Andreas Hedberg at STUDIO for showing an interest in my music and sharing it with their readers.
Please let me know what you think about the article in the comment section below or at my Facebook Page.
My brother Niklas Myhr is a Social Media & Global Marketing Professor at Chapman University in Orange, south of Los Angeles. He invited me over for his birthday backyard party that took place the past weekend. That was great fun of course and always great to meet his family and friends! I entertained his guests a little bit with my newly bought Martin HD28 acoustic guitar and managed to trick many of the guests to do some guest vocals.
Before going home I took the opportunity to hang out a little bit in Hollywood and Beverly Hills. I had the great pleasure of meeting a couple of artist and songwriting colleagues from the “power pop universe”. I had a really nice dinner with the amazing artist Bleu yesterday and after that I hooked up with Brian Wilson percussionist and old friend Nelson Bragg and our mutual friend and very talented painter/illustrator Borja Bonafuente Gonzalo at the legendary Rainbow Room. Today I had lunch with I.P.O. founder David Bash and artist Brandon Schott. Lastly I met up with the great Linus of Hollywood at his studio to talk about our many common influences ranging from ABBA to Jellyfish. All very rewarding meetings and I hope I will be back here sooner rather than later and hopefully be able to enter into some musical adventures with these very gifted writers and producers. Thanks a lot Niklas for inviting me and thanks to everyone I got to meet during these four very intense days!
Now I’m really eager to fly home to be back with my lovely wife Paula and our lovely cat Majsi!
What “a day in the life”! Recording at ABBEY ROAD STUDIOS!!!
I have always loved the Beatles. And I will surely do ’til the day I die. One of the biggest highlights in my “Beatles career” was to be able to spend a day in legendary Studio 2 at Abbey Road to record an alternate version of my song “Never Mine” which is the opening track of my debut album Soundshine. Check out the video and continue reading below for full background story.
Since my first visit to London back in 1990 I have never missed the opportunity while in town to visit the famous crossing at Abbey Road. But until 2011 I had never been able to actually enter the building. It was in May when I did it for the first time since I (in a strike of megalomania) had chosen this legendary place for the mastering of Soundshine. Read more about this occasion in this blog post.
Little did I know then that the doors would open for me again only six months later, and this time to RECORD in frickin’ Studio 2!!! Yes, THAT studio…!
How that came about – from out of the blue – is something you are more than welcome to read about in this blog post from Nov 2011.
I wrote then; “today we’re not here to try to change music history but more to study the process of how music history was made from within the actual room were a big part of it was created. I hope to be able to share the result with you sometime in a not too distant future”. That distant future is NOW! Almost fourteen months later…! The reasons for the delay are many. One being that Thomas Juth who took the initiative (which I will be forever grateful for!) is a highly demanded sound engineer in London and therefore hasn’t been able to find the time to work on the mix from this little “hobby project” (although very close to his heart). Thomas is a really sweet (and also cool) guy who has worked with many great names and I mean GREAT(!). Read more about his impressive track record on his own home page.
However, when I was asked to be part of a free download sampler (yes that’s where you’ll find the song I’m talking about here!) released by the music blog Real Gone (who by the way made a really nice review of Soundshine here) I decided it was time to have a proper mix made. The mix is a combination of Thomas Juths ground work and Soundshine engineer Marcus Black’s fine adjustments.
I really wanted to be able to offer a video clip as well but there was no time and no money (as always…). But then Christmas came I and went to Spain with my wife to spend time with her family. And in between tapas, dinners, family life, and a gig at Festival Alta Fidelidad in Madrid, I finally found some time to take my first, stumbling steps as a video editor using Final Cut Pro X. And with the very little rough material I had from my iPhone standing on a tripod (and a couple of other cell phones in the room) I’ve tried to make a little video documenting this very special moment.
It was really a day in paradise for us Beatle geeks and we spent more than half of the precious ten hours staring at Beatles microphones and Beatles compressor and that kind of stuff. The recording became kind of secondary and something we really did “just for fun”. Considering all this I’m really happy with the final result. It’s obvious that we do not hide our love for the Beatles in the way it’s produced and played. And that’s also my reason for not releasing it on Spotify or iTunes or on CD. As much as I love the Beatles, and to play their songs, I don’t want my own stuff to be TOO Beatlesque and end up being categorized next to The Rutles.
To put even more weight into this occasion I decided to write a little piece of lyrics for this world premiere:
It was fourteen months ago today
Thomas Juth invited me to play
To try to recreate the Beatles style
was guaranteed to raise a smile
So may I introduce to you
The song you’ve known for just a year
David Myhr’s “Never Mine” in Abbey Roooooooooooaddd….
Special thanks to Thomas Juth and his brother Fredrik Juth (who played bass and drums) for inviting me to this very special occasion. Thanks also to Michael Bianco, Dyre Gormensen who were part of the recording process. And to Andrew Campbell at Lojinx who co-ordinated the Real Gone release. To Amy Campbell for shooting some nice photos (including the one above) at Abbey Road. And to Henrik Irgens and my wife Paula who also made the day even more pleasant through their sheer presence.
In May 2012 after having released Soundshine I suddenly ran out of new song ideas to try out with my beloved Studio musician’s students at The School of Music in Piteå so instead I had a go at producing an alternate version of the winner of Eurovision Song Contest 2012 – “Euphoria” by Loreen. The idea came late at night on that Saturdaywhen she won the contest and the recording was done the following Monday. Here’s a memory from that occasion in form of a shaky video… (Hey there was no budget neither for a proper mix nor a proper video – sorry for any inconveniece caused…). Enjoy!
It’s time to say goodbye to the year of 2012 and I want to do it by saying thank you to all you wonderful people who have been involved in one way or another in the events surrounding the release of my solo debut album Soundshine.
To do so I have put together a four minute long slide show that will take you through memorable moments from recording sessions in Stockholm and at Abbey Road in London to gigs in Tokyo, Osaka, Madrid, Burgos, London, Stockholm, and Piteå. But more importantly it shows some of all the great meetings I’ve had with music lovers, music colleagues, fans, friends, family, band mates, record label and music publishing people, and a couple of idols as well.
The soundtrack consists of a medley of all the songs on Soundshine in a “don’t bore us – get to the chorus” fashion. The photos were taken by among others Amy Campbell, Paula and Carol Muñoz Macaya, Kiki Fukuzumi, Jonas Förare, but also by many more… thanks!
So, from the bottom of my heart – thank you to each and everyone who has supported the release of Soundshine (and that includes all of you who didn’t end up in the slide show as well)!
Hope to see you all again in a not too distant future!
As a songwriter one of the biggest thrills is when many people get to hear your music. At least so that the music has a small chance of being discovered by more people who may or may not like what they year.
Therefore I am extremely pleased that LOVEFiLM have decided to use the song ”Cut to the chase” from my solo debut Soundshine in an U.K. TV commercial. It’s used as the soundtrack for LOVEFiLM’s Christmas campaign advertising their new instant film service (LOVEFiLM instant) in time for the festive season!
If you like the song please feel free to check out the album Soundshine here or add the song from Spotify to your playlists. Or why not enjoy a video with a live version of the song from a festival called PDOL:
Lastly, I want to take the opportunity here to say a big thank you for spreading my music to Misty Music who administers my publishing entity Strong Melody Publishing ( ) and to their U.K. partner AGSync who made this reality.
But above all I want to thank LOVEFiLM for a great choice of music and I happy to say I was already a happy customer of yours – now even happier!
One extra free bonus copy (gift-wrapped and autographed!) of SOUNDSHINE will be delivered with every order!!!
Valid only Dec 9 – 17!
Welcome to click on Store above and order my album Soundshine both physically (CD with 6-panel digipak and 16 page booklet including full lyrics) and digitally (in various file formats), and also a T-shirt if you wish.
Six months before the Japanese release of Soundshine and nine months before the European release I entered the main stage at PDOL (an abbreviation for “Piteå Dansar och Ler”
which is Swedish for “Piteå dances and smiles”). It’s an annual street festival in my former home town Piteåway up north in Sweden which usually gather at least some 25,000 visitors.
For the occasion I used the same backing band as I did on my premiere show in Piteå earlier the same year. Andreas Dahlbäck on drums who also played drums on the album and acted as my sounding board in the recording process which led to me entitling him “co-producer” of the album. Robert van der Zwan (Poplabbet) and Krille Eriksson played guitars, Erik Jonsson (The Fix) played bass, and Joel Sjödin (Mankind) played keyboards. An amazing backing group if you ask me. Furthermore we were joined on two songs by the horn section Horny Minds from local blues heroes Ramblin’ Minds, and last but not least we were honored to have one of the finest Swedish current female pop artists around… Edith Backlund!
I have played at this festival a few times before over the last twenty years, both with the Merrymakers in the 90′s, not to mention our short “revival” in 2007, and also at reunions of my early bands from my youth (Ant-Mansson and 2nd Hand B band). I’ve also played there with the ABBA tribute band Super Trouper in which I play the part of Benny Andersson. However, this was the first time that I entered the main stage of the festival, and what’s more as a solo artist. In that sense it was kind of a big moment for me so I decided to document it properly which included renting a multi-track recorder and hire a film crew.
Time has proved it difficult to come out to meet audiences in other countries with a full backing band. Instead I’ve made solo acoustic gigs – like for instance in Spain in March. It’s true, there are rare exceptions like when I played in Tokyo with local backing musicians or in London on the Lojinx release party where I had a full band. But as the situation is right now it doesn’t look like a proper world tour with a full backing group is happening…
Therefore, I am now very pleased to be able to share this live experience and fond memory with anyone, anywhere, who might be interested. The 47 minute film documents not only the entire show including all the talk between the songs (subtitled in English – only for you!), but also a little bit of life back stage including the nervous artist only seconds before going on stage and the after show hugs while the credits are running to the soundtrack of the re-mix of Looking for a life.
Put on your best headphones, get your beverage, sit back, and enjoy! A splendid time is guaranteed for all! I really hope you like what you see and hear and if you do, please feel free to comment, and of course to share. For those of you who want to have a high quality, hi res experience, I am open for burning DVD’s of the occasion. Don’t hesitate to contact me in order to discuss the practicalities…
And hopefully one day I’ll be able to bring the band, come to YOUR town and play IRL!
If you’re reading this you probably already know I was in a band called The Merrymakers in the 90′s. Our two albums which you can find on Spotify came out in 1995 and 1997. We had our greatest success in Japan and was fortunate to work with our hero Andy Sturmer of Jellyfish. The second half of the 90′s were our “heydays” when we were at least somewhat productive and succesful. By then we were a trio featuring me, Anders Hellgren, and Peter Arffman. But that story I’ve told many times – like in this interview or in many blog posts like this one.
But today I’m going to celebrate the “mark 1″ line up of The Merrymakers from the formative years. Back in the days when we were still living in Piteå up in northern Sweden. By then we were a five-piece band with no more than four of us figthing about the spot behind the vocal microphone. Almost like a “super group”…
The reason for becoming nostalgic today is that it’s exactly twenty years ago that our first single (with a proper record deal) was released and heard on national radio P3. We were signed by Ola Håkansson (already legendary from bands like Ola & The Janglers and Secret Service) to his new label Stockholm Records. They later fired us partly since we were lacking a clear profile (very true by then!) and that they had found “a younger group”. How old we were..? Twenty-three! The other group…? The Cardigans!
Here’s a picture of the single cover from 1992 alongside the cover of my new solo album Soundshine. As you can see a lot has happened in 20 years!
Anyway, the song is called “Andrew’s Store” and below you can enjoy (or suffer!?) a few nostalgic video clips from that era. You will note I had more hair, more glasses, worse shirts, and a stronger Piteå accent (only notable for those who speak Swedish). I sing lead on this particular song (I won the fight that time probably because I came up with the melody for the chorus and bridge). No matter how painful and embarrasing it may be for ourselves (and our wives) to watch this I thought it was a good moment to share these clips. It might be fun at least for those who were around at the time. And maybe (but no guarantees, hey!) for those who discovered the song much later after our success in Japan where it was re-released again in 1998 o a compilation together with the rest of the singles and B-sides from the early years.
Enjoy and have a nice weekend!
Coverage by SVT (Swedish television) with clips from the studio and outdoors in Piteå (don’t miss the ending picture with the trumpet players behind Andrew’s Store):
Coverage by local TV (Piteå Kanalen) from the release party at local record store Hit It Records.
Playback in Z-TV (first TV performance ever):
Live (but playback) in Z-TV at Stockholm Records release party at Hamburger Börs:
