Biography

A december day in 1999 me and my friend Erik Öhman was walking down towards the centre of Säffle discussing the composition of songs. I had recognized that a great majority of all songs written are made up by a tonic, a subdominant and a dominant; which together form primary triad. Pop culture music is especially interesting to me, so I started to hum on a descending primary triad and sang: “Well I was walking off the street on a foggy Sunday, thought I’d runaway from home but returned on Monday”. It came right away. Improvised melody and I felt inspired. “That sounded good”, Erik said, “I’m gonna write an upbeat pop tune” I said. When I got home I sat down at the piano. At first the primary triad during the verse. Then a bridge, in minor chords of course, I thought. Then a powerful chorus and Voilà! A nameless upbeat pop tune had been made.

At the beginning of the new year of 2000, the song had grown so good as to crave a performance. This state of art had to be exposed! Perhaps one should start a band and play the song on the youth culture festival in February...

A singer, a guitarist, a bass player and a drummer. I was the singer. My friend Filip was asked to do the guitar. Joel (bass) and Pär (drums) was also enlisted for a debut rehearsal in my basement on the 13th of January. Joel didn’t want to play the bass, he wanted to be guitarist. We had no bass player. Filip came up with a two year older lad, Daniel, who handled the guitar in another group. That was our constellation.

Youth culture festival
We rehearsed for some weeks. Filled with confidence we took on the festival at the 19th of February. We swept away the house with the song. “Awake”. The Lyrics of that tune enlight my heart. The victory in the festival did qualify us for the region festival in April, and the rumour that a new band had been formed was spread around town. Another three songs were written. Among them, the punk rock eruption of “Every Day”, springin out of missing a train ride home on Friday afternoon. It was during the performance at the festival in April that the dream started for me. An ardent audience of 400 people cheered when we were presented. The spectators were manic when “Scandal Beauty” went onstage. It felt unreal. What followed was a 3½ minute show. After that success no doubt remained. We were going to be rockstars.

Pine wood green on the radio
In August 2000 we had twelve songs and were more experienced due to several additional gigs. We looked around for a studio where we could record our first demo. The chosen one was Anders Ljudbild, and the heavy debut, 4-song-record “Pine wood green”, was ready in December, after three weekends of intensive work. Come the beginning of the following year, our labour was rewarded.

On the 20th of January 2001, Scandal Beauty could be heard on national radio. At the show P3 Demo, where we had sent a copy of “Pine wood green”, they had stuck on the record’s first track; “Dare to Dance”. When the guitar intro of the pop anthem streamed out of the loudspeakers my stomach feeling was triumph. “We are on the radio!”, I screamed and jumped around in the living room where we had gathered to celebrate this achievement. What a merit. The reviewer of the show was almost as carried away after listening to the song; “really good”, “awesome” and “without seating belts” were the opinion of the troubadour Ulf Stureson.

During the Spring we did acclaimed gigs in both Sunne and Åmål, that Summer I wrote “Send some greetings”, probably the song with the best lyrics of all our songs, which repeated the merit of “Awake” two years earlier; qualification for the region final of the Youth Culture Festival in 2002.

Innocent and Untouched – a fascinating journey!
“ Send some greetings” opens up demo number 2, the mature and distinguished “Innocent and Untouched”. On “Innocent and Untouched”, which also comprises four tracks, we dedicated more time to the recording process as compared to “Pine wood green”. The songs are better conceived of, we brought piano and strings along with one more year of experience, for better and for worse. With a recording period stretching from after Christmas to January 2002, “Innocent and Untouched” is a fascinating journey from sunshine (“Send some greetings”), ballad (“We live our lives”), bittersweetness (“I should know”) and wrath (“Rainman”); the homogeneity of “Pine wood green” is gone, but the energy and feeling remains.

This the second charge on Swedens record companies rendered a good response, but the receding economy of the record business retarded our inevitable ascension to the stars, since the artificial and mean companies wanted more “good songs” before a deal could be struck.
Hence we rocked on with gigs, songwriting and rehearsals until the 19th of May 2002 when a breathtaking event inspired us to our greatest gig hitherto this glorious and passionate night...

Town Full of Passion
This special day (Whitsunday), a rock festival was going to take place at Medborgarhuset in our hometown, where the head act was the Gothenburg group “The Soundtrack Of Our lives”. There three other bands, and we played just before them. Hundreds of people roamed the place when our gig commenced with “Sweet Hugs”. I said some initial words and then sat down by the piano to start the show. What happened then was 40 minutes of spiritual and emotional orgasm that united the band and audience through the divine invention of music. Our music. We played seven songs and lit up the joint. Explosion. All five of us agreed that this was our best concert to date.

After that night, when some people – amongst them my brother – were of the opinion that we had outshone the “main attraction” of the event, the dream got even more real, manic in the yearning to bring us up where we belonged. Things got stressful, since Filip had been accepted by a New Zealand university, with studies beginning in July. He wanted to go there, thus leaving the band for half a year. We felt that we had to record another demo before he left, since no one knew how long time it would take before everyone was together again.

Efforts in this direction were taken in June, when we for the third time assembled with Anders Bergström at Anders Ljudbild, to record two new epos: “Just rock’n’roll my love” and “Sweet Hugs”. These are summer songs that stink professionalism and soul, recorded in the wake of the studentexamen of four band member, an end to twelve years of homework and duties, which can be heard; the demo sparkles of freedom and joy. The name of the demo: “Town full of passion”, refers to our hometown, Säffle. “Just rock’n’roll my love” was written only two weeks before the recording started, came like I’d made an order, and Pär heard it for the first time when he was in the studio. The lush cruising song conveys in a monumental way everything that Scandal Beauty stands for: the love, the music and the death-disdain. This happy tale of summer, though, was followed by silence and trouble, come Autumn.

Autumnal adventures
“ Town Full of Passion” did not, surprisingly enough, evocate a roar of praise from the record companies as it was sent to them in August. And in spite of unforgettable and hot gigs at the Grand Square in Säffle, the Late Summer Rock in Torsby and the Sun City Festival in Karlstad, autumn arrived. At that time not only Filip was gone from where things went down, but also Joel disappeared early in September to seek fortune at a butchery in Norway.

In the middle of all this misery, Pär had been called to serve his duty at the Army’s drum corps in August, coming home only every second weekend, meaning that solely two fifths of the band were at home. September became a month of low band activity. But plans on a great homecoming gig in November existed, which was when Joel would return.

And in connection to the official release of “Town Full of Passion” (14th of October) we managed to get an interview with the regional radio programme P4, broadcast from Karlstad.
This was to be our radio interview debut and it took place on the 25th of October. Me and Daniel were the ones to show up. “Sweet Hugs” was played from the record, then we talked for a while and finished by performing a naked version of “Send some greetings” there in the studio.

The homecoming gig in November then grew to three gigs in three days, on the 7th, 8th and 9th of November 2002, of which the first was a live show in national radio programme P3. Joel came home the night before this unique gig. Just after the national news at 19.00 it was time to once more prove our proffessionalism to the masses. We gave a transcendental acoustic interpretation of “Just rock’n’roll my love” there and then at the stage of night club Arena from where the programme was aired. Lead vocals and backing vocals, two acoustic guitars and Pär’s pumping percussion. What more can I say? Oh yeah; at the end of the song, the atmosphere of the room was so euforic that the audience sang along with our Ba-ba-choir, so that it reverberated in our hearts for the rest of the evening.

The two following days we played two gigs in Säffle. And at the end of this cataclysmic November month, Filip returned from the other side of the earth.

Don’t you worry
Filip mentioned already in September that he had had enough of unispiring cultural classes and roaming around with studying subsidies. The school wasn’t the way he had expected it to be. Hence all five members of the group could gather on the 1st of December in the rehearsal room downtown! The day before I finished a song called “Don’t you worry”. A bouncing old dance rhythm in tender harmony with a melancholic melody and encouraging lyrics. We were manic.

In the middle of December Scandal Beauty performed their first Swedish song in the Church of Säffle. The fragile as well as dynamic masterpiece “Tid att ge” (Time to give) was played in cooperation with Säffle’s Chamber orchestra. The fantastic string arrangement and our emotional realisation of the song catered for a dreamlike show that afternoon on the Christmas concert. Scandal Beauty gave proof of yet another aspect of its ever-growing pretentions and register.

2003 arrived and we celebrated three years with one more song coming up; the thundering rock eruption of “I’m Still Hanging ‘Round My Name”. With two new songs and a restless Joel about to travel to Australia in February, we once more prepared to gift our potential benefactors in the music business with our glorious material. Time to record the fourth demo. Our old friend Anders Bergström was once more employed to bring us where we belonged.

Welcome to my sister!
This February resulted in a new demo and three sweaty gigs – a hectic period compared to our lazy January. The recording activities commenced on Friday the 7th, the following day we recorded in the studio and had a gig on Galna Tuppen (The crazy cock) in Säffle together with the band People. A representative from the record company “Dead Frog Records” with a smaller office in Åmål was there to se us and was impressed by our energy on stage. The recordings continued during the Sunday. The coming Friday we played on the Karlstad night club Vizit with two other bands, but without our precious bass player since he had suffered from tinnitus recently. Filip played the bass instead. A journalist from the internet entertainment organ Outlife wrote “playing at the right place at the right time could take Scandal Beauty very far” in his review of the evening.

The rest of the weekend we recorded and mixed the demo, with a break during the Saturday for the Youth Culture Festival of 2003. This time we rocked Medborgarhuset to its foundations with the song of songs: “Don’t you worry” which caused the response “your best performance hitherto” by Jonas Mattsson, musician. The following Thursday, the 20th, after three late nights spent mixing, our fourth recording “Welcome to my sister” was finished. The two songs included were “Don’t you worry” and “I’m still hanging ‘round my name”. A cover photo session took place in my home one day later, and this charge of glory and passion was later sent away to the business. To heat things up. Plans to release a full-length album with offical release in April 2003 were also made.

Skandalmusik and “Childhood”
These plans resulted in a new project in Anders Bergströms studio during March and April: the composition of the debut album “Childhood”, to be released in May. The songs were picked from our four demo productions “Pine wood green”, “Innocent and untouched”, “Town full of passion” and “Welcome to my sister” and thus included 12 songs. Some of the tunes were remixed to create their new picture that had evolved in our minds during the years with the band. Due to our lost faith in the established record companies enhancing effects we created our own record company in April: Skandalmusik. This was done to get away from our thoughts’ addiction to the music business giants who until then had been a primary example of lethargy in their relation to us.

After an intense promotion of our record releases in Säffle, Karlstad and Gothenburg which included a market place during the spring market in Säffle, an interview in Swedish television news programme “Värmlandsnytt”, radio ads at the channel Radio City and interview in Säffletidningen, the world was ready for the release which was due Wednesday the 14th of May 2003 in Säffle, and Monday the 26th of May in the rest of the world (Karlstad and Gothenburg). The reviews didn’t wait, music magazine Groove spoke about: “This is something I really like. The tunes are energetic and I get happy when I listen to them”. The record went directly to number two in the Säffle charts, only beaten by Eddie Meduza, and occupied the charts for many weeks. The interest in the album was so big that the song “Everything might go wrong” was played in Radio City Värmland in conjunction with the release in Karlstad.

New bass player and summer song
At this time though, the band had suffered a serious blow. Daniel’s problems with tinnitus made his membership of the band impossible, he thought. The search for an heir had to commence, which lead to fewer gigs during this period. At last, after an intense culling between possible candidates, one person had stepped forward as the successor of Daniel’s mighty legacy: Jon Lindgren. Joel’s enthusiasm as guitarist faltered more and more and the concert in Karlstad at Landsbylarm on the 29th of May 2003 became his last. The new constellation that took on that summer’s adventures was Jon Lindgren on bass, Filip Arvidsson on guitar, Pär Jonason on drums and Tomas Karlsson on vocals. The summer of -03 meant rehearsals to tighten up the constellation and a new marvellous song: At sunrise to eternity. This cataclysmic growing-up story as well as contemporary document from the experiences of that summer associated with adolescense dreams of a grand future also in the western parts of Säffle had its first performance at the gig at Stenmagasinet in Säffle that August. It was the last song of the gig and the chorus flew towards the blue summer sky. One week later we did Hamncompagniet in Åmål before the summer ended and a division appeared.

Gothenburg during the dark season
Come Autumn I began my studies at Gothenburg University and thus moved from my hometown, this source of inspiration, on the 31th of August 2003. During the first months I oriented myself in Gothenburg’s pop life, seeking clubs, record companies and other stuff interesting for a band. The selling of Childhood records went along as did the drive for gigs. This drive went slowly, though. It was not until the end of January that a breakthrough came. And then three gigs popped in, all of them in March 2004: on the 3rd, 12th and 18th. The first went down at Jord in Gothenburg and was our debut gig in this town. A massive publicity campaign was implemented; an article in the morning paper Göteborgsposten, posters put up and phone calls to record companies, media and gig-arrangers to come and check us out. Lots of people were there as Scandal Beauty lowered its wings on the pop scene. A personal and electric concert followed, and Gothenburg had opened up before our eyes. Already nine days later we played Chalmers Lindholmen, our second Gothenburg gig, and on the 18th we visited a youth entrepreneurial event at Nöjesfabriken in Karlstad. The gig drought had ended.

At sunrise to eternity
When inspiration then finally returned in my mind and three songs arrived in April, May and June, we realised that the recording of a new record was not far away. The new band line-up was tight and the 11th to the 15th of July we recorded the four song demo “At sunrise to eternity” at Anders Ljudbild. This felt as a new start for our music, as the repercussions of the mighty album release the year before had made us work a long time for its success. Now, the hunger for new achievements had finally broke through. Three gigs in Säffle concluded the summer, with energy, sweat and musicality. On the third show at Säffles new festival in Pine wood green (Furuskogsparken), called Frispel, the audience reached 100 people under the star sky when we from an lit-up stage “offered such a sparkling stage presence and pumping soul-filled rock, that nothing like it had ever been experienced in Furuskogsparken” as the review of the local newspaper read. Our confidence was thus on top as a new Autumn in Gothenburg approached.

Inspiration and more gigs
This Autumn proved to be an opposite experience as compared to the preceding one. Between September and December I wrote six new songs and the band had three gigs; two in Gothenburg and one in Karlstad. We returned to Jord for a second gig on the 17th of November 2004, now with even more prowess than our first visit. The placed was full with people and we had several new songs to offer. A chant ambience arose two times during the show and the audience was screaming for more for minutes after our last song that night. The pop scene of Gothenburg had really got acquainted with this new band. The rock dream couldn’t falter after such a reception. Come Christmas, time was ripe for another studio session at Anders’ due to the new songs written during the Autumn. Lack of time and some trips among the band members made such a session impossible, though. The new year started with a gig at Mejeriet in Säffle already on New Year’s Day 2005. Good to be back home and play again after the Autumn season.

Spring options and new demo
The plans for a 6th demo was realised the two first weekends in March 2005. Thanks to the arrival of monster hit “Dreamchild” on Wednesday the 16th of February to the basement piano of my Student home in the second city of the nation, we also had a clear first-track candidate to this piece of art. The demo “Dreamchild” comprises four songs just like the preceding “At sunrise to eternity”, why the production of these two records meant our most frequent release period, since only eight months lay between the recordings. The song “Dreamchild” begins with a Wurlitzer that hints at an innocent 1972 before the guitar cry throws you helplessly into the contemporary 2005.

In the month of April the band were contacted by a gig arranger at Stockholm University. The arranger had big plans to set up a music contest on the web, where interested people could vote for a number of different bands, judging from music clips of the band’s songs. The band that got most votes would play in Stockholm at good old Stampen in Gamla Stan as well as receiving 3000 kronor. After some weeks of voting by visitors on the web page vodes.net, Scandal Beauty was announced as winners of the contest!

The capital and the hometown
Our first gig in the capital was decided to go down at Stampen on the 19th of May 2005. The week before, the 11th of May we rocked Jord in Gothenburg for the third time. With stage dive as usual. A representative of the gig arranger company Motor saw the band there and then among the enthusiastic crowd and concluded that Scandal Beauty was “good but diffuse”. Eight days later we headed eastwards for the capital of the kingdom. We played the longest and last gig of all bands due to our victory in the contest. The audience was wild and dancing and were addressed in English since a big part of the crowd originated from abroad. Love over the borders thus, and a fertile relation between Stockholm and Scandal had begun.
Yes, love really was obliged to keep over borders in a discernable way during the first part of Summer 2005. This is one of the themes of swinging “I don’t know what we had” written at the piano in Säffle on the 22th of June, in remembrance of past and present times. The energetic tune was called “the natural hit” in a review later the same year. The lyrics of the last verse could be a reason for this. The song had its gig premiere during the band’s sweaty show at Mejeriet on the 15th of July. Roughly two weeks later, on the 30th of July, Scandal Beauty returned to Stortorgsfesten (Big marketplace festival) after some years of absence from this event.

The weather was bad but rock’n’roll did of course not show mercy to the state of things, so heat and mania was spread from the stage as Scandal played the hits of its grand music treasure for the audience on the marketplace. A mightier gig lurked in the shadows only 12 days later, though, somtehing we were unaware of as we left the stage that night.

Gothenburg surrenders
A concert on the massive rock club Sticky Fingers was booked on the 2nd of August, namely. Sticky Fingers is Gothenburgs best and most well-known rock club and Scandal Beauty had been engaged for a gig on the Thursday event Klubb Stereo on the 11th of August. Happiness and cheering in the band, this was definitely a good development for Scandal and a clear career step forward. Nervousness begun in a sound way during the week that followed.

The show was cataclysmic. Beating all earlier gigs, according to the band itself. The ambience in the club was manic during the concert, people chanted “Scandal, Scandal, Scandal” and people we’ve never seen before approached us afterwards and congratulated us on a great gig. The core of the band showed itself this night; the love, the mania and the unbeatable optimism. The audience got the meaning. They realised what it was about. The show was a proof of the quality the band had achieved over the years and became a powerful motive for additional conquests in the world of music.

Two days later we played the next venue, hometown festival Frispel at Pine wood green, and we swept in, still high on the Sticky Fingers-cataclysm, getting the summer evening alright. Summer went away and another autumn in Gothenburg awaited. In September I wrote the energy bolt “Days go by you”, a ruthless pop hit, 2 minutes and 43 seconds, that demanded recording. And the Autumn proved to be productive in this aspect; two singles were recorded at Anders Bergströms studio during three weekends in October and November. The first singel, “Alone in the light” includes “Days go by you” and “I don’t know what we had” and the other single the christmas ballad “Tid att ge” (“Time to give”). This is the band’s first Swedish single.

Gothenburg once more tempted us with music and joy on the 17th of November, when the Grand theatre opened up for Scandal Beauty. We played the club Comeoutandplay, a stage for unsigned band and had a guy from the business there. The review from him was “Good energy” and “Days go by you” did on its first official play leave none disappointed.

New records
The two records were released two weeks later in Säffle, Gothenburg and Karlstad and sold relatively good in the Christmas shopping, “Tid att ge” did furthermore gain airplay on regional radio. NWT wrote about the talent of the band in an article on the 9th of December. During the Christmas holiday, when all members of the band had gathered in the hometown for vacational pleasures, Elias Rehnman recorded a music video with Scandal Beauty. “My limitation” was the chosen song and scenes were set in front of trains, on streets and shut schools in Säffle and Åmål. “Alone in the light” was reviewed in the net paper Musiklandet.se and got 4/5 with comments such as “Alarmingly good, send the debut album”. This strengthened the confidence of the band even more. A new song, called “Bombs may conquer” was written and is to date the most political song of the band.

Qualification and interviews
At the beginning of February we played Henriksberg, a nice joint in Gothenburg. Scandal Beauty stood up in the eliminatory round of Emergenza – an international music contest – and did qualify by the showoff for the city semi-final in May. The band did a 20-minute set and enchanted the place; “They were fookin’ best, you don’t need to count the votes” an Englishman in the audience unknown to us stated loudly afterwards. He, like many others, had that night realised what it was about.

New gigs were booked and two new songs saw the light of day. At the end of March, the band paid a visit in Karlstad once more. This gig was held at UNO, and lots of teenagers were in the audience, eager to experience the live action with Scandal. The concert and the release of “Alone in the light” had been the subject of two radio interviews in two different stations that were broadcast the day before the show. Regional media had discovered the quality of the music and the positive vibe of the band. The concert was a five-tune-eruption, concluding with the hit “Days go by you”. A little less than 100 people danced to the jive of Scandal and gave the band a loving reception. A great gig, the band members concluded afterwards. A “magical live experience” was the judgment of a young artist in the audience.

In April Scandal played Gothenburg once more and Uppsala for the first time. The Uppsala gig was a long one, where new song of hope, “Twilight” had its first performance. The gig after that was the Emergenza semi-final in Gothenburg. In spite of a massive live show, the band failed to qualify for the next round. Instead, the batteries were loaded for the approaching summer, which had some really exciting gigs in store for us.

Moving away – stay close
With three new tunes, a new demo recording coming up, and two big gigs in July and August, the summer looked great for us. The big gigs were at Sweden’s second largest festival Arvikafestivalen and at the grand city festival “EM-festen” in Gothenburg. Another pair of concerts would be held in Säffle. During June the band rehearsed the new songs and enjoyed the sun. But in early July, a change struck the band, hard and heavy. Filip, guitarist of the band since the start, announced that he was leaving the band. He had been enlisted for studies as outdoor guide in the north of Sweden, starting in August 2006, and he wanted to move there. This was a rough blow. Filip had been an original member of the band, and now we had to search for someone to replace him. The melancholic ballad “Stay close” came out of this event. “I went out, seeking believers, to try to replace what could be replaced” an excerpt from the lyrics.

Filip’s last gig would be the city festival in Gothenburg in August. Before that we did a gig at Harrys in Säffle, and played Arvikafestivalen on the 14th of July. It was really good to stand on the stage in the evening sun, looking out on the festival visitors and play the music. Two people from the business enjoyed the stage show put up and the tightness of the band. The man who booked us thought that we were just getting better and better. We agreed.

In August we recorded the two-track demo “Bombs may conquer” at Speedball Studios in Arvika. The songs included were “Bombs may conquer” and “The Escape”. Filip played his two last gigs. On 5th of August, the band rocked the festival Frispel for the third time, and the show became a celebration. During our show, more and more people went from their position down in the park to the stage, swinging to the music, and we as a band enjoyed playing outdoors in our hometown, spreading the joy and the jive. Two stage dives into the happy crowd made the evening. In spite of Filip’s exit, we showed that the love and the music was what it was about.

To be continued
The following weekend we played Gothenburg and had our first rehearsal with a new guitarist. The city festival gig were held down at the docks in a big tent during rainy weather, in spite of which we attracted some 60 spectators. It was a honourable farewell to our guitarist, intense atmosphere, enthusiastic crowd, climbing excursions up the light rafters, and transcendental solos from Filip’s hands. The audience screamed for more as we left the stage, content with the order of things. The next day, a new era begun. We rehearsed with Alexander Goldmann, a friend I got to know through my student choir, in a rehearsal room in Gothenburg. Alex apparently did have what we were looking for, and so a few days later, he made his first show with the band. This gig was a short one, outdoors in Kristinehamn, a contest that Scandal won. The prize was a place in the final of the contest, to be held in Arvika on the 30th of September. Alex had proven his ability, and was from then on the train.

In August we were also booked for our second concert in Stockholm. The arranger called me personally and asked if we were interested in playing at the venue Alcazar, in the basement of famous Nalen, on the 18th of October. Well, we agreed. A second visit to Sticky Fingers on 4th of October made the early autumn complete on the gig front. During September we rehearsed in Säffle to get Alex feel comfortable with his playing of the songs. The Arvika show was good, many people in the audience there held us as the favourites in the final, but the jury didn’t. In spite of getting fine reviews on “Days go by you” in a demo listening session earlier during the day; “the first direct song here today”, “the singer is a star” and “I’m going to follow this band in the future”, the band left Arvika without victory. Good then, that Sticky Fingers once more unleashed the sweat, energy and mania of Scandal on the 4th of October. We had the biggest audience of the four bands that played that night and the feeling in the band and in the crowd was that the gig rocked massively and joyfully.

Then we started to rehearse in our new reharsal joint in Gothenburg, that we got through Alex. Alcazar and Stockholm was the next stop. There’s something special about the capital, we discovered. Our 25 minute gig left the crowd screaming for more for such a long time that we played an encore for the first time in months. “Days go by you” was the choice, and new fans joined the growing Scandal fan base.

With love,
Tomas, Scandal Beauty.