Andreas Johnson

Full name

Jon Erik Andreas Johnson

Born

March 22nd, 1970 in Lund, Sweden

Starsign

Aries

Family

Mother Marie, father Gigge, brother Olof, girlfriend Lisa and daughter Ella.

Lives

Stockholm, Sweden

Pets

None

Status

Girlfriend Lisa Knapp

Height

1.75m

Haircolor

Brown

Andreas Johnson – Mr Johnson, Your Room Is On Fire

In his fourth solo album, “Mr Johnson, Your Room Is On Fire”, Andreas Johnson has assembled a life worth of experiences, knowledge, inspiration and musicality and bundled it all together – this is a record as personal as they get. An album rich in emotions, melodies, thoughts and not least inventiveness. An album that vibrates of lust for life.

Arriving here however, has been no mean feat. The road has been long and lined with burn outs, deaths among close relatives and complete geographical and metal disorientation. Andreas is the first to admit that songwriting in periods was hardly more than a lifeline – a way to process his own feelings faced with a dark reality. Many of the songs written during this period won’t be found on this record – but writing them was a necessity to reach this point.

Andreas was born in a musical family. Both his parents were jazz musicians, traveling constantly to perform. From a very young age, Andreas came along on these stints – seeing life from the road with long journeys and late nights. This is probably the root my restlessness nature Andreas notes today.
Friends, parents and an older brother led young Andreas in musical terms. Before he joined his peers in investigating what was then a dominating hard rock scene, he was captured by the likes of Dylan, The Beatles, Bowie, Lou Reed and Crosby Still, Nash & Young. These acquaintances saw seeds that would years later shine through in whatever the elder Johnson did.

Determined to go his own way Andreas picked up guitar and later piano for endless hours of playing in solitude. It took ten years and a recording contract with his first band Planet Waves until he felt he wanted to play his own music to his parents. The group who played the prestigious Hultsfred festival and were the talk of the town for a brief period made only one album.

Parallel with Planet Waves Andreas had also written material in a more traditional low key singer/songwriter style and less than two years later he released his solo-debut “Cottonfish Tales” produced by Johan Lindström. The low key affair was praised by the critics but failed to achieve commercial success. Andreas was dropped by the label, but in typical unrelenting style he was determined to make a “come back”. He brought his guitar to a meeting with President of Warner Music Sweden and within the hour he held a new contract. The first single “Glorious” was an epic piece which saw the sounds of Mr Johnson became household on radios in Sweden and eventually across the world. The single and video conquered the charts all around the world – reaching an impressive no 3 position on the UK Top 40 for several weeks.

- Making it in what I consider to be the “home” of pop music, needless to say that was a special boost, Andreas admits with a laugh. “Glorious” and the “Liebling” album charted across Europe, South America, Asia and Australia. Perhaps the most unexpected feat was to see the track in the top regions of Billboards American Dance charts.

“Liebling” sold in excess of half a million albums and even more singles – making sure that Andreas and his band very kept firmly on the roads touring for several years. Time rushed by and plan was to write and partly record whilst on the road. The resulting album “Deadly Happy” a conceptual but somewhat stifled effort was once again produced by Peter Kvint. Reviews were upbeat, but the album lacked the door opening hit single which had paved the way for “Liebling”.

Eventually Andreas was just fed up, feeling a desperate need to get away from the business, media and the identity he had acquired in Stockholm. Though music had always been a driving force in his life, where he ended up his life was music. The joy simply disappeared. On stage he was still feeling – “this works”, but the second he was off stage there was nothing but sheer emptiness.
- When you’re at it this intensively for several years, doing something that you basically feel “this is what I really live for” there’s such a constant rush of adrenalin that I never noticed when the balance wasn’t there any more. What really hurts in retrospect is that when you’re not really feeling well, you’re not treating others the way you really would want either – it all keeps spiraling. When the tightly knit touring clan split up and headed for other pastures, Andreas left for Amsterdam where he reconnected with old friends. From there he found his way to southern France and eventually New York. Restlessness again. For a year and a half he was living in an emotional bubble. If I was calling for help – I went the wrong way.

- I had been living with that kind of people before, both in Berlin and in New York – but then I had been some kind of a voyeur and kept my distances. Now I was suddenly the one being observed. During this entire period Andreas was also writing and recording. For well over a year almost all that came out was muted and very dark. As time went on he rediscovered the basic joys music and the spark came back – he felt there were real new songs that wanted to come out and be heard.

- I realized what a privilege it is to be able to do this. That it is in music – not what surrounds it – that I really belong. These were the revelations that contributed to the open atmosphere and the unaffected attitude of the new material. There is no “smart plan” behind this record – this is just how I eventually came to feel.

Many facets have of course been contributing to making the album what it is and to put Andreas Johnson where he is right now. Maybe was it symbolic that Andreas was at an airport in Thailand when Phuket was suddenly taken off the departure boards. A less subtle catalyst was that “Glorious” was once more brought back in focus as it began to air in a TV commercial in France – where it had of course already once been a Top 10 single – now it all happened again – with the same song. A true groundhog day experience.

Somehow all of this gave me the energy to really get going again, Andreas admits. After all it all began in defeat and a determination that I’ll show them. But what really was the biggest kick for me was that I reconnected with Peter Kvint. That’s when I knew this would really be an album. – We hadn’t really been in contact over the previous years, but it was really reassuring when we were able to pick up again. At the same this was really uninhibited but also where I felt I was now truly another person – or perhaps once again the “same old person”…Kvint is the best practical therapist I’ve ever had.

Among the new material they started out working on was the lead single “Show Me XXXX” (– which at the time of writing is rapidly becoming Andreas biggest radio song so far, at this stage of the process even bigger than “Glorious”), the rootsy joyful “Sunshine Of Mine” and the heartfelt “Nobody Told Me”. – Those were probably the songs most important in setting out the direction in which we would move. Andreas and Peter started writing together, more than they had during any of the previous sessions. The resulting songs were simpler, more fragile but mainly they had a more positive outlook on life. That the pair always has a natural way of drifting towards the epic is obvious in tracks like the album opener “Fools Like Us” as well as in “A Drop In The Ocean” - “Not Afraid” a pair of songs that are dramatically intertwined through their string arrangements. Another stand out song is “Life Is”. This was written by Peter for his wife Katarina during a period of serious illness. Even when I hadn’t been there for the writing of this I felt something unbelievably strong and immediate when I first heard it. I know Katarina well and it felt like this was just what I had also wanted to say.

At a time when many albums consist of attempts to nail “that hitsingle” and a bunch of filler tracks – it is truly encouraging to come across Andreas Johnson – who jointly with Peter Kvint and a trio of exceptional players Andreas Dahlbäck, Jerker Odelholm and Johan Lindström - seemingly without effort (though that is of course not true) hands over an album which feels genuinely “whole”. Johan Lindström was the producer of Andreas first album, Peter the following three. This is the first time they have worked together. It feels inspiring to be able to bring two of swedens most gifted producers and arrangers, Andreas says delivering a quirky smile.

“Mr Johnson, Your Room Is On Fire” is moments of extreme euphoria and fragile intimacy as well as intoxicating soul rock like “Caravan” and ballads in the spirit of legends like Lennon.

As a singer Andreas Johnson has always been a guy to have “it”. With “Mr Johnson, Your Room Is On Fire” he reaches his full potential as an artist with an expression few would have believed possible.

Have a listen.

Credit: andreas-johnson.com