The Wannadies

infobox musical artist
Name = The Wannadies
Background = group_or_band
Years_active = 1988 - present
Origin = Sweden
Genre = Alternative rock
Label = Cooking Vinyl, RCA, Sony Bmg
URL = http://thewannadies.com/
Current_members = Pär Wiksten
Christina Bergmark
Stefan Schönfeldt
Fredrik Schönfeldt
Erik Dahlgren

The Wannadies are an alternative rock band formed in 1988 in Skellefteå, northern Sweden. [http://www.thewannadies.com Story section at thewannadies.com] ] The band's initial line-up featured Pär Wiksten (vocals, guitars), Christina Bergmark (born 1 March 1963) (keyboards, vocals), Stefan Schönfeldt (born 5 June 1965) (guitars) and his younger brother Fredrik Schönfeldt (bass) with Gunnar Karlsson (drums) and Björn Malmquist (violin).

Early influences included Australian band The Go-Betweens as well as The Sisters of Mercy and John Lennon with The Pixies and The Clash having a big effect on their later material.

History

Early days (1988-1993)

The Wannadies played their first gig, a festival in support of the Nicaraguan Sandinistas, in October 1988 and only weeks later entered local studio KN to record the three tracks that would become their debut release - the "Smile EP".

"Smile" was released in February 1989 and managed to pick up several 'single of the week' accolades from national newspapers as well as airplay on indie radio shows such as 'Bommen' despite little or no marketing.

Following the band's appearance at the Hultsfred Festival in August 1989, The Wannadies signed a deal with MNW Records, releasing their debut single, "My Hometown", in May the following year.

The band's eponymous debut album was released in August 1990 and was supported by tours of Sweden, Finland and Norway. A highlight for the group was 1991s Nordic music festival in Paris where they shared the bill with Finland's 22 Pistepirkko and Iceland's The Sugarcubes.

Second album, "Aquanautic" was released in October 1992 on Snap Records, MNW's indie label. Not without controversy the album saw videos for the singles "Things That I Would Love To Have Undone" and "Cherry Man" banned by MTV the former for featuring a foam animal cadaver, the latter for the allusions to paedophilia in both the songs lyrics and video which featured a middle-aged man surrounded by young girls and boys.

In the summer of 1993 Björn Malmquist moved to Stockholm and left the band (he did make a contribution to The Wannadies next album however, playing violin on the track "Dreamy Wednesdays").

"Be A Girl", "You And Me Song" and UK success (1993-1996)

Initial recording sessions for third album, "Be a Girl", proved unsuccessful - first choice producer Dagge Lunquist took paternity leave late in 1993 and a second attempt with producer Micke Herrström had to be abandoned after just a week and a half when, first engineer Adam Kviman, then Herrström were taken sick with hearing injuries.

"Love In June", the only song to be completed with Micke Herrström, was released as a single while the band tried again to record "Be A Girl", this time with producer Nille Perned.

The album was finally finished by autumn 1994 and was released along with second single, "You and Me Song", to critical acclaim in their native country.

Shortly afterwards the band came to the attention of Indolent Records in the UK who signed The Wannadies in the summer of 1995.

The group's first UK gig followed soon after, a sold out show at London's Dublin Castle in the autumn of the same year.

Throughout winter the band toured extensively with labelmates Sleeper and The 60ft Dolls as well as with The Lightning Seeds and former Pixies frontman Frank Black. At the same time they were regularly commuting to studios in Gothenburg, Skellefteå and Stockholm to record tracks for their next album, again with producer Nille Perned.

Further singles "Might Be Stars" and "How Does It Feel?" were taken from "Be A Girl" but it was not until the re-release of "You And Me Song" that the band really made an impact on the UK top 40, scoring a no.18 hit. The track later appeared on the soundtrack to Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet, a modern interpretation of the Shakespeare classic, further increasing their popularity.

Troubled times (1997-1999)

Problems with Swedish record company MNW lead to delays with the release of the group's fourth album, "Bagsy Me" (a translation of the Swedish children's expression 'Pax jag!'), which was eventually released in January 1997 on Sony/BMG Records. The album included the hit singles "Someone Somewhere", "Friends", "Hit" (which made #20 in the UK Singles Chart) and "Shorty". "You And Me Song" was also included to capitalise on The Wannadies post-Romeo + Juliet success.

A compilation of the best tracks from "Be A Girl" and "Bagsy Me" was later released in America under the title "The Wannadies".

The next few years were a turbulent time for the group. In Spring 1997 drummer and founder member Gunnar Karlsson left, to be replaced by Erik Dahlgren (born 25 August 1965), a long-term friend of the band.

After sorting out problems with their Swedish record label The Wannadies now felt they were suffering from a lack of support from BMG in the UK and went on strike.

A compilation of the best of their first three albums featuring tracks chosen by the band and entitled, appropriately, "Skellefteå", was released in Scandinavia in the spring of 1998 with the band touring the region in support while their problems with BMG were being resolved.

Relations with the label had sufficiently improved for the band to begin recording their next album in the autumn of 1998 with a ten-day session at the Chateau De La Rouge Motte studio in Normandy, France with legendary producer Mike Hedges.

Only one track, "String Song", was completed however and it was not until the winter of 1998/99 that the band recorded the bulk of the tracks for fifth album "Yeah". With former Cars frontman Ric Ocasek at the helm The Wannadies began recording at Electric Lady recording studios in New York and continued work at studios in Stockholm and London.

"Yeah" was released in the autumn of 1999 in Scandinavia and early Spring 2000 in Great Britain. BMG decided not to release the record in America however, refused permission for the band to release it on another label and eventually dropped the band altogether.

Free at last (2000-)

Despite not having a record company The Wannadies toured extensively throughout the summer of 2000, played the Glastonbury and Carling festivals in the UK, Roskilde in Denmark, Hultsfred and Arvika in Sweden and completed a mini-tour of Japan.

The latter half of 2000 and much of 2001 saw the band construct their own studio in which they would record much of their sixth album.

With Nille Perned again producing, the band released "Before & After" in 2002 in Scandinavia through the National record label and on September 8, 2003 in the UK on Cooking Vinyl records (who also handled distribution for the rest of the world). The album featured the singles "Skin", "Disko" and "Little By Little".

In 2006 "You and Me Song" was used as the theme song to the BBC Three TV series "I'm With Stupid".

The band are currently writing and recording songs for their seventh album and are preparing to release a twenty track best-of. [http://www.thewannadies.com Homepage at thewannadies.com] ]

Discography

tudio albums

*"The Wannadies" (1990)

*"Aquanautic" (1992)

*"Be a Girl" (1994)

*"Bagsy Me" (1997)
Chart Position: #37 (UK). [http://www.everyhit.co.uk Everyhit.com] ]

*"The Wannadies" (1997)

*"Yeah" (1999)

*"Before & After" (2002)

Compilations and remix albums

*"Skellefteå" (1998)

ingles and EPs

From "The Wannadies":
*"Smile" (1989)
*"My Home Town" (1990)
*"Heaven" (1990)

From "Aquanautic":

*"Things That I Would Love To Have Undone" (1992)
*"So Happy Now" (1992)
*"Cherry Man" (1993)

From "Be a Girl":

*"Love In June" (1994)
*"You and Me Song" (1994)
Chart Position: #18 (UK).
*"Might Be Stars" (1995)
*"How Does It Feel?" (1995)

From "Bagsy Me":

*"Someone Somewhere" (1996)
Chart Position: #38 (UK)
*"Friends" (1996)
*"Shorty"(1997)
*"Hit" (1997)
Chart Position: #20 (UK)

From "Yeah":

*"Yeah" (1999)
*"Don't Like You (What The Hell Are We Supposed To Do)" (2000)
*"Big Fan" (2000)

From "Before & After":

*"Skin" (2002)
*"Little By Little" (2002)
*"Disko" (2003)

The song was also used in 2 episodes of the popular british soap coronation street firstly by Richard Hillman when he kidnapped the Platt family and drove them into the canal and secondly by David Platt as he also drove his car into the canal in the same spot where Richard had tried to do it 4 years earlier.

ee also

*List of musicians with multiple self-titled albums

References

External links

* [http://www.thewannadies.com/ Official site]
* [http://www.skelleftea.co.uk/ Skellefteå (fan site)]