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Beardfish 2009
2001:
When David Zackrisson and I (Rikard Sjöblom) were in our final school year we played together in a grunge band called Wooderson, basically a school band rockin' out. We talked about taking it further since we really liked playing together. Both of us were big fans of King Crimson and Gentle Giant and we wanted to do something of our own that went in that direction musically. We started playing with drummer Petter Diamant (Bootcut) and a bass player named Gabriel Olsson. In the beginning we were mixing these attempts at a crimsonish sound (with lots of diminished chords) with more regular rock songs that I had been writing. We rehearsed for some time but it was hard to get things going because we all had other stuff going on. Another thing was that Petter was not that in to what we were doing and pretty soon we were looking for another drummer. We tried some guys and finally we met up with the then 18 year old Magnus Östgren.
Magnus Östgren behind the drums - 2003
2002:
We had lots of fun with Magnus as our new drummer and I wrote some new songs for us to play, one of the very first - "Today", is still one of my personal Beardfish favourites actually.
We were scheduled to record in a friend's studio in sandviken, this guy Stefan Aronsson was and still is a guitar player and a songwriter, but a very musical guy and he also plays some keys and flute and stuff so he ended up playing flute on the recordings. I told him one day that I thought Beardfish should have a keyboard player (I don't think I was mentally ready for that task myself at the moment!) and he sort of got big-eyed and basically shouted out that he wanted to be in the band. Said and done, he started immediately. I had a Hammond L-100 organ that he borrowed when we played and he used some other keyboards as well, after a while he bought a Micro Moog that really gave his sound attitude, the oscillators man, the OSCILLATORS!!!
Stefan Aronsson - 2003
In the studio
After Stefan started in the band we noticed that having Gabriel on the bass really wasn't working out that well. We talked about it amongst each other and I had to make that dreaded phone call to tell him that we were looking for someone else. He took it well though, Gabriel is a sweet guy.
I already had my eyes on another bass player who Magnus had known forever. Robert Hansen.
Robert Hansen with... a guitar?
2003:
I started writing more songs, among them some with Swedish lyrics which was kind of fun. We started talking about recording an album. We scheduled the recording to take place in Stefan's studio (that he had now moved to Gävle where it still remains) in the late summer of 2003. When the album was in print I had a lunch with Stefan during which he told me he wanted to quit the band. It just didn't feel right for him and he had a lot of other projects going on at the same time. Thinking back on it I thought it was very strange that he wanted to leave, but what were we suppose to do? It was his choice. But on the other hand, the band had rehearsed some of the songs without him since he didn't have that much time to rehearse we would sometimes play without him. Even during the album recording (although this probably had more to do with the amount of tracks we could record at once than anything else) the rest of us recorded our basic tracks live: drums, guitars and bass, then Stefan put down the keyboards later on. He told me that he had been thinking of leaving the band for a while but he had so much fun recording with us that it wasn't until the recordings were finished he took his final decision.
Från en plats du ej kan se - original version cover art
The album was financed out of our own pockets and we had some distribution through Progress Records but it went by quite unnoticed (It has now been re-released together with our second album "The Sane Day" through Progress Records) and the 500 copies we'd made lasted for quite some time!
Beardfish continues as a four piece with me replacing Stefan's role as keyboardist. The end of 2003 is a very productive period for the band and some demos are recorded.
2004:
Beardfish starts the recording of a second album. The first session includes five songs; "A love story", "Sun is the devil", "Ask someone who knows", "Now", "Akakabotu" (unreleased). After this it takes almost a year before the band records again.
David recording some acoustic guitar
2005:
The band secludes in a cottage outside the little town of Gävle, Sweden to record the rest of the material for the upcoming album. Björn Arnell, a friend of the band, lends us recording equipment and an arsenal of keyboards and effect pedals, and helps us to set things up in a big old dining room and then leaves to let us record. This was a truly beautiful process and many songs were recorded, most of them live, so many in fact that we had to release a double album. "The Sane Day" 2CD was released in December 2005.
Arriving to the Scoutcabin
The Sane Day
2006:
Almost immediately we started to rehearse new material and in june/july we recorded what was to become "Sleeping in traffic: part one". The album is practically finished in the end of the summer and Beardfish is also asked to play the ProgDay festival in Chapel Hill N.C. After this trip we recorded one more song called "Roulette" and the album was finished. A few labels contacted us, among them InsideOut Music, who wanted to release the new album. Beardfish signed to InsideOut in the end of the year.
With Gary Green at ProgDay 2006
2007:
New material is being written and recorded and "Sleeping in traffic: Part one" was released to many great reviews. A noteworthy gig is the ProgResisté Convention in Verviers - Belgium. "SIT: part 2" is in the works and the song "Sleeping in traffic" itself is recorded early on (in January if I'm not mistaken) and the rest of the album is recorded in December in the scout cabin "Hästmuren" where "The Sane Day" was recorded.
Sleeping In Traffic: Part One
2008:
A tour is being planned by InsideOut to promote the new albums by The Tangent, Ritual and Beardfish! It's an eight-date tour starting in May in Germany and then going through Switzerland, Italy, Holland, Belgium (back at the Spirit of 66 again in Verviers!), England and then back to Germany and Holland again. It was loads of fun and "SIT2" is getting a whole lot of rave reviews!
Beardfish is also asked to play with Andy Tillison, Guy Manning, Theo Travis and Jakko Jakszyk as The Tangent at the Summers end festival in Gloucester - England in September. A good gig, and we got to play "Yours is no disgrace" by Yes as an encore.
Beardfish then start recording what is to become the next Beardfish album "Destined Solitaire", once again in December and once again the location is "Hästmuren".
Sleeping In Traffic: Part two
2009:
We were asked by Mike Portnoy to join the Progressive Nation 09 tour throughout North America and Canada together with Zappa Plays Zappa, Pain of Salvation and of course Dream Theater!!! Everything was looking up for 2009: the year of Beardfish... Well: In June we found out that our recordlabel InsideOut's distributor (and 50+% owner) had filed for bankrupcy which effectively removed any tour support that had been promised prior to this decision (and it was a lot of money, puh!).
We were so bummed out about this that I can't even begin to tell you. We had all planned the late summer after this tour and even turned down some other gigs (Magnus even quit his daytime job!). We decided pretty soon to look ahead though, new oppurtunities will arise and we also had a new album coming out, a 76 minute monster called "Destined Solitaire"!
Beardfish 2009
That's it for now!
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