Status S - The season of warmth and light has finally landed

Sure has been a long fkin winter but finally feel summer very, very close around the corner (well it's basically here), I can feel it through my bones, it's not that I don't like winter, I love it, but I can tell you all who doesn't live here in Sweden - the arrival of the long awaited warmth and light really feels up here.

We've finally finished and put out some new recorded Inagone material and that in form of the song "Dried", which I'd say is definitely one of the strongest tune I've ever written and produced, I absolutely love it and the way it turned out (if I can say so myself, which I off course can!). It's written, produced, recorded and mixed by me and I believe it's the perfect first song out representing the rest of the album. As told earlier the Inagone full-length album "Your Brand New Root" will, for various reasons (how the music industry and the scene looks and works (or rather doesn't) today being the major one), be released one song at the time, about one every change of months is the plan. I have to admit that not all the songs aren't even finished recorded and mixed yet, simply because they don't have to, and Per Linzander (vocals) and I have just started, or rather continued after some years off, working with the vocals for the last couple of tunes. It's actually quite interesting recording over this long of a period and see how the material matures by itself when you don't touch it for some years or so, it grows and changes there lying by itself untouched and many times I'd say. The downside would be that one looses the thread between the rounds a bit and also the unendurable stress having the heavy weight of unfinished work hanging over your shoulders for a long time. But to be honest I prefer recording quickly over as short time as possible, getting the feelings and vibes of there and then, but sometimes (usually?) that just isn't doable. Well however, this is how we roll now.

So as I really can see the end of the very long tunnel that is the finalizing "Your Brand New Root" I will be getting back on finishing my solo album. There's really not that much recording left, almost only vocals, and I actually am considering pushing the mixing-duties over on someone else and not doing it myself, have some interesting names buzzing around in my head, but we'll see about that - I really need to get that record out of my system, I mean it's the album that has (had) to be done! (and to tell you the truth, the ideas and planning for my second solo album has started to take form already, so it might be good idea finishing the first one first.)

When it comes to rehearsal and playing live with Inagone and the solo-band we'll wait at least 'til after summer to see where things are heading. With Torch however we've just kicked off rehearsal round II after some shows, throwing in even more classic Torch material, putting together a longer kick ass classic Torch live-set taking us to the next level. We have some festival dates booked and our first live date on home ground in Stockholm is finally confirmed, Torch will perform live at the band Eterno's release party at Copperfields in Stockholm.

Lasse and I have been continuing writing, 'collecting', arranging and demoing new Lizard Eye material and when we checked we realized we've ended with the bones of some 15 really strong new Lizard Eye songs by now, some more finished that others when it comes to writing and arranging, and we will now continue to get it all into demo-shape so that we can start planning where to start, what to do and where to go with it all.

Hoping now only that the approaching summer won't distract me too much now, there's shitloads of things to be done and not that much time to do it, so there's no whatsoever time for distractions here - so begone all you summer-temptations. But we'll see about that...

"I can resist everything except temptation." - Orcar Wilde

Peace

/ PM

Falling into place - strangely enough

Even though I have my chaotic ass over-full with family and work with my business at the moment the music stuff seems to start falling into place - Really weird actually, I mean I just became a father a couple of weeks ago, I'm considering building my own house (even though in a very early stage of consideration) and a new studio/rehearsal place and also an expansion of my business, on top of all the everyday madness - ending up in total craziness 24-7 and hardly no sleep at all (even less that before!). Still I feel I'm starting to get all my bands and music projects together, more structured and organized, things are starting to roll - yeah, all falling into place - strangely enough.

As we speak I'm putting the last touch on the mixing and mastering on half of the Inagone songs for the upcoming album "Your brand new root". It won't however be put out as an album but one song at a time, one song around every turn of month is the plan, starting now in the end of april. When all the songs are out there might be an album out in some form, but that remains to be seen when we get there. Check out the Inagone official website and the Inagone Facebook in the next future.

Lasse (vocals, rhythm guitars) and I are currently writing new Lizard Eye material and we've already got quite a few really strong songs but we want to have some totally brand smoking new material to bring up the level of excitement and freshness a bit - and with fresh I don't mean that we will change what we're about and turn modern and fashionable - Lizard Eye will never turn the sails by the wind, Lizard Eye is classic heavy metal in the veins of 1970-80s - in standard tuning, with real vocals and guitar solos etc! We're not sure about how the new material will be released but at least one or two new songs will be released later in 2013 in one way or another.

Hopefully I'll get the chance to continue and finish all my different solo tunes that was put on hold due to me having a cold more or less since november and therefore unable to record my vocals. Now I feel it's starting to let go of me so hopefully shortly I'll be able to continue to record my vocals again.

A week ago I, also Fred (bass - Straight Eight Diablo, Lizard Eye) and Pata (drums - Straight Eight Diablo), performed with frontman Dan Dark as a rebirth of the classic early 1980s Swedish heavy metal band Torch live on stage down in Europe. It was an awesome trip, so much fun and we all had the greatest of times. We did some real cool things with the classic Torch material, put our touch on it which kind of blew new life into the material and the response when bringing it live on stage was amazing. I'm having discussions now to continue the collaboration in form of some more live shows and also writing and recording some brand new Torch material with Dr Dark, but we'll have to wait and see how that'll turn out.

Me and Dan Dark live on stage in Holland delivering the goods in the name of Torch.









(Photo by Henk Bosma)

See ya!
/ PM

Experiencing new grounds - A reflection

Summer 2012, or rather throughout 2012, I went to some concerts featuring music that I hadn't really been listening to at all prior 2012. The thing is that by this point I had actually got pretty fed up with going and seeing the music I listen to and work with, hard rock/metal that is, live because I always ended up a bit disappointed - Many of the old classic bands are great today, but still they were all better when I saw them back in the days and when it comes to all the new great bands, many of them awesome, there are always things missing, that just aren't there. When writing, playing and working with hard rock/metal music more or less 24-7, I'm really not that keen on seeing anything live that I can't feel 100%. Then also after going exclusively into hard rock/metal concerts for many, many years it might be time to explore some new territories, I mean before this I hadn't hardly ever been to anything but hard rock/metal concerts.

So I ended up experiencing a lot of, for me, different stuff that made a quite an impression on me:

- Became a huge fan after seeing Ryan Adams live. He performed all by himself with no other musicians or backing tracks or anything and it was so totally overwhelming. I hadn't heard anything by him prior seeing him perform and now I listen to his quite a few albums frequently - Great stuff, awesome musician and songwriter. Learned later that he's a metal dude, doing some great acoustic interpretations of some great metal tunes every now and then and when I saw him he ended the set with an awesome interpretation of an Alice In Chains tune. - so cool.

- Then I checked out First Aid Kit live and they really blew me away. Just the two sisters and a drummer. Again no backing tracks or sht like that - it was live and sounded so great. Strong material, great performance, so naturally yet with such confidence and strong attitude. Awesome.

- Another strong experience was Bruce Springsteen, who I have to admit I haven't spoken too well about through the years - but hey, if one stands live on stage and delivers 110% for four hours plus without a break, you simply can't slag him down. There was some serious super-tight jamming going on. Never seen a venue so packed and over sold out. It was really cool, an overwhelming and amazing experience and it made me realize that he really knows what he's doing - and it even got me to listen to and dig his debut album! Have to admit this turned me into a fan.

- Then I saw Lars Winnerbäck, who I didn't know anything about, except that he's pretty huge here in Sweden, at a totally packed Gröna Lund. It was awesome and the coolest thing was that he had one of my favorite musician/songwriter Nicke Andersson (Hellacopters, Imperial State Electric, The Solution, Entombed etc) on guitars in his band and also the keyboard player and the drummer from late Hellacopters - Cool surprise to say the least.

- I also saw Madonna which was so great. Too bad it wasn't completely sold out, which it should've been, this due to bad reviews of previous gigs, which leads me to a thing I need to bring up: As I understand she got bad reviews because she didn't play her hits and due to inadequate vocals - But I mean hey, she obviously sings herself, for real, without autotuners and sht like that, when I saw her the vocals sounded great, I mean she moves quite a bit on stage and has to breathe, right? - It was fkin live! When it comes to the other thing, it was the greatest thing not to need to hear all those worn out dinosaur songs and so great to see the political side of Madonna in the show, questioning society. I believe that's where the problem is, it's uncomfortable, media (and the audience who seems slaves under the media?) wants meaningless brain-dead bubblegum pop and this was fkin punk! 

  Another thing was that visually it was probably the coolest and best looking show I've ever seen, and I've seen quite a few.

- Around x-mas I was at Stor Kyrkan home in Stockholm and enjoyed Händels "Messiah" and that was a total blast. So awesome and mighty. No microphones, no PA, no speakers - but what power and what a sound! Totally loved it. I really enjoy all the levels, the depth, the dynamics and the tonal colors in this kind of music and I've listened quite a lot to it lately, plowing through all the greats in classical music.

Though this little excursion of last year I want to make clear that I'll never stop writing and playing, nor listening to, hard rock/metal music but off course this experiencing of new grounds has affected me and thereby also my writing and it'll be exiting to see (or hear) how it shows in my music the future.

Peace

/ PM Saari

(I'll be back here with some cool Saari News, METAL News, in a couple of weeks, so stay tuned.) 

Merging with the machines

I've been updating both my studio and my live/rehearsal gear the last month or so and it always feels pretty dam good when another one of those rounds is done and you're that one step closer to perfection, (hopefully) ending up with even more reliable up-to-date equipment that feels comfortable and runs the way you want, that integrates with you after hours and hours of sweating and swearing. So I thought I'll throw in a couple of lines about my machinery.

Since most of my guitars and my other equipment aren't the ordinary stock stuff that you can find down at your local music store (here in Stockholm, Sweden, at least) but stuff I'll have to hunt down, it's usually pretty tricky for me to get it. Most of my gear aren't available in Europe at all and it all gets pretty complicated due to the export-, custom- and tax-laws and rules between continents and different markets and by now I've gotten pretty used to very long delivery times, often like half a year or so - A price I have to pay for being so picky and only satisfied with the very gear I'm going for (and at least it improves my patience, not exactly one of my strengths).

When it comes to my world of recording and mixing I go software-based, both Logic and Pro Tools, and also some Waves and Oxygen plugins. When it comes to the hardware I nowadays go exclusively Apogee's awesome interfaces and consoles, Röde microphones, Lacie hard drives and, off course, Apple computers since many, many years now. Not much to add here.

I've finally finished updating all my main guitars, my workhorses (I use the same guitars live and in the studio) - Saari customized them, which basically means: Loading them all with two humbuckers of my choice, either various Seymour Duncan or DiMarzio (in the ones going for dirtier sound): Norton Air or PAF in neck position and Norton at the bridge - So amazed by the Norton, what a great sounding pickup! Put that in the bridge position in a Gibson, especially a V, and you'll guaranteed be blown away. I always pull all the electronics out when I get a new guitar, get it rewired and replace all the ports and switches with more durable ones so that they'll endure my really rough treatment. I always have a 3-way toggle switch and two volume ports, one for each pickup, the closest one (the easiest to reach) always for the bridge pickup, and no tone-control at all (the tone is always set to max hi). A very important thing for me is the hanging of the guitar, which I also customize as soon as I get a new guitar - It's very important for me to have the guitar in the exact correct position. I wear my guitar pretty far down so it's important that it's in the right spot sideways.

I'm in the mid of experimenting with running my guitar through a Line 6 POD into a Rocktron Velocity 300 power amp and that into a 4x12" 1960 Marshall speaker cabinet, real exited about this rig. I've been testing it a bit by now at rehearsals and I believe that this might be something I'll be going for in the future, we'll see. Often live I run a POD straight into the PA with great results or, my absolute favorite so far, running a POD into the return of the effect loop of an Marshall JCM 800, preferably from the early/mid 1980s, only using its power amp - or pretty often even: one channel of the POD into the PA and the other into the return of a guitar tube amp. The holy secret with the POD lays in tuning in the sound manually whilst listening thoroughly, letting it take it's time, and keeping it all simple and clean, as little effects as possible, as clean as you dare. For me the essence of tuning in a great guitar sound is mainly about two things: as much mid as possible (pretty low hi:s and lo:s that is) and as clean, undirty, sound as possible - the last one very scary when you're a metal/hard rock guitarist, but according to me the meanness and attitude should come out of your hands and not from overdrive or distortion.

...while I'm at it, I use GHS and Dean Markley strings on my electric guitars: .010 .013 .017 .026 .036 .046 regardless the tuning, DiMarzio guitar cables, K&M stands and my PM Saari custom picks which are very hard but not that thick and has the classic shape I believe is called "Fender: 351".

When reading this back now I see what gear-head, tech-nerdy post this turned out to be, but the thing is that lately I've more and more started to realize the importance of my equipment for me, that I even get somewhat inspired by the tools themselves - realizing the significance of my tools that I need to create my music and art. I mean at the end of the day it's the tools that take the art out of our flesh and into the outside world to be shared. 

Peace

/ PM

A bit of a break

We'll be taking some months (the plan is half a year) off from rehearsals and playing live with 13 Chaos St, Inagone and my solo band now. We will however continue the studio-work in january, with the Inagone and my solo stuff that is. In january and february I'll also be doing some live dates with Lizard Eye, check out the Lizard Eye website for confirmed dates.

We did some live rehearsing and gigging with 13 Chaos St and it was, as always (and even worse this round), some days and nights of total twisted decadence madness. I quote Jari (vocals 13 Chaos St) on this to sum it up: "If someone, despite all the facts, is still wondering why we don't play live more frequently, one can easily refer to this weekend (when we played Dalarna in the beginning of November) and say: That is why." So we'll be laying a bit low now with 13 for half a year or so, but we'll be continuing writing some killer material for a new album, for which we already have a producer and a studio nailed - Jari and I have a bunch of songs written already and it's all really, really strong and cool material indeed.

Straight Eight Diablo is working in the studio (working with the drums as we speak) on a full-length debut album, even though in pretty slow pace, but it's looking (or sounding) pretty promising.

A while ago I was invited by my friend Michael Bohlin to put on some lead guitar tracks on his new 8th Sin album, which I off course did. So I'm playing a guitar solo, or two, on the smoking new 8th Sin album "Cosmogenesis" which is out now.

I've also put out my "PM Saari Collected 3" CD featuring 18 tracks I've written, performed, produced and recorded with my various bands and project the last years. It has very varying stuff on it trying to show my whole music spectrum at this point in time and it's only available in CD format.

Talk to you soon again.

/ PM