March 22nd, 1970 - Lund, Southern Sweden:
a wonderful baby starts to let the world hear his phenomenal
voice: his name is JON ERIK ANDREAS JOHNSON.
His mummy is called Marie, his daddy Gigge;
they're both jazz musicians. He also has an older brother
called Olof who's now a lawyer. Since they were children,
the Johnson brothers have travelled throughout the world
with their parents, always in a tour: "I've grown up
on the stage, surrounded by instruments, scores and dressing-rooms
sometimes not decent. [...] I was the group's mascot and
to joke or because I liked it, I always ended up with taking
a microphone in my hands, often on daddy's knees..."
Music becomes a natural yearning for Andreas: as a kid he
used to fall asleep listening to his mother singing jazz
songs instead of traditional lullabies, believe it or not!
In his early teens he moves with his family in a Stockholm
suburb: "There was not so much to do, I only had three
choices: sport, drugs or music and I chose the last!".
He starts joining small bands and making his first experiences;
his first band Silver Arrow made its debut in an assembly-hall
at school "It was my first gig ever, It ended up with
that I and the two guitarists went up and played without
drummer. The guitarists were so nervous that they played
with their back against the public". But his parents
disagree with him having seen many friends quitting their
musical career pretty soon. "So you don't want me to
be in the music world? I'll prove you wrong!"
Andreas releases his first album with Planet Waves,
"Brutal Awakenings",
published by EMI only in Scandinavia. The band seems to
take inspiration from Bob Dylan, and also the title is the
same of a Dylan's album (Andreas will later confess that
they didn't actually know anything about that album!). Between
1993 and 1995 love brings him with the band to New York,
where he finds his first personal inspirations for his songs;
back in Stockholm the band splits up "We didn’t
come to agree. It became a total conflict. Also physical
confrontations, fights".
Under the American influence Andreas releases, again with
EMI and only in Scandinavia, his first solo album, "Cottonfish
Tales". And here problems begin, he
fight with EMI because they don't give him enough freedom,
he takes a period off in Berlin and in this magic city the
new album "Liebling" starts to
breathe in only 2-3 months.
The album is dedicated to Debbie Starlight, mysterious
inspiring muse, dead before her time but somehow still present
in his songs' sounds. Italy brings inspiration too: he spends
a couple of weeks in Porto Ercole, Tuscany, and, inspired
by green Tuscanian hills, he writes 8 songs, 3 included
in the album (the last three). As a final gift he gets a
new contract with another recording house, WEA. Tales say
that when Andreas went to WEA he brought with him three
sample songs in DAT format, but the player jammed right
at the proof moment; he took a guitar and decided to make
a live performance, with an acoustic version of "The
Games We Play": the editor was immediately crazy about
it and signed the contract the same day! The POET's talent
strikes back!
After the album conclusion, comes the single choice: for
about two weeks Andreas and his band try to choose a song
to be released as a single, but everyone has his own favourite
and the choice is not easy; in the end the album opening
song is chosen: "Glorious". In
Gothenburg, during the first months of 1999, in an old dismissed
gas container, Karl-Johan Larsson directs the video of "Glorious";
in interviews Andreas always says that it was "quite
frightful: I was 80 metres above the ground and we were
even without permissions!". The song is published just
before summer, but it doesn't reach immediate success: "This
song is too distressing for summertime" the POET says.
But during autumn it becomes the biggest success of the
season: it reaches the third place in Italian singles chart
and also the fourth place in the "difficult" English
chart, which is a quite good result for a debut single!
Andreas receives two nominees for the Swedish Grammy Awards,
as best single and best video for 1999. Critics unanimously
recognise that "Glorious" is "the most beautiful
song of the last decade". Concerts in Germany, England,
Spain and Sweden are always sold out.
..At the end of 1999 the new single, "The
Games We Play", is published in Sweden, reaching
7th place in the chart. Unsatisfied with the video shot
in Praga, Andreas decides to shoot a new version during
the weekend 4-5 march 2000, with the same director of "Glorious",
Karl-Johan Larsson, and again in Gothenburg waiting for
the new single to be published in the rest of Europe on
May 15..
..In Autumn 2000 “People” video
was ready and directed by Karl-Johan Larsson too in Kiev/Ukraina.
At our advise the best video of our POET..
..After a long European tour from 1999 till Autumn 2000
till the presentation of the best hip hop MTV Europe Award,
a long working period gets him ready to conquer the world..
...15/12/01 he is ready to enter in all charts with the
new single Shine. A little taste coming
from the new album Deadly Happy, third
work of the Swedish singer songwriter, that will be released
in Europe between March and April...
.. No one will ever stop the POET