sonny crocket

A strong Swedish debut album will see the daylight in May 2007. Sonny Crocket is the name of the band. Sonny Says is the name of the album. The suggestive single 12” is out now.
Sonny Crocket’s sound holds a lot and is often hard to describe, but everything falls into place with great certainty when you are listening. The band is not part of any trend, but will still be there when the latest trend has passed.
Things have to happen so fast these days; TV-produced artists don’t have time to choose their songs for their debut albums because it has to be on the shelves in time for the Christmas shopping. A lot of bands are put together, rehearse a few times, have a gig and then goes straight to the recording studio. The Stockholm based six man band Sonny Crocket is the opposite of all of this. During the last 9 years they’ve built up a reputation of being one of the country’s best live bands. They’ve been encouraged by praise and put down by set-backs (their record company went broke in 2003 and put a pin in the wheel for the coming album debut). All experiences have made than more tight in a way that is very rare among Swedish bands.
Through the years they have picked the best of the best of their repertoire. All the members have put in their own influences. The interesting guitar riffs echoing of early American alternative rock like Sonic Youth and Pixies. Behind the bands inventive keyboards is Daniel Bertholdsson, who as a DJ always gathering new impressions (listen to the synth beat in the introduction of This State). Sometimes you can hear shadows of surf pop, sometimes disco.
There is also a hint of psycodelia, garage rock, power pop and new wave influences. Every listener finds different things in the sound, often with delight. Every track has it’s own stamp but the material is always joined together by Per Ströberg’s refreshingly cocky voice and the obvious team work of the band.
-Influences are nothing you choose its things that creep up on you, whether you are aware of it or not, Per says. Some people might think that sounds a bit all over the place but we see it as our strength. An album shouldn’t be homogenous; it should take you on a journey. The members have got very different personalities but there is room for them all.
The atmosphere at rehearsals is very good –the tolerance is great, says the bands latest addition, bassist Magnus Granström. Magnus who is from the northern part of Sweden is one of the two members who don’t originally come from Gotland. The other one is the guitarist Patrik Jonsfjord, who is from Södertälje. The other four members have been is the band from the start.
Sonny Crockets concerts has always been high speed 30 minutes explosions that leaves the audience wanting more. This presence can be hard to catch in a recording studio. Many excellent live bands have made albums that sound really flat, but Sony Crocket has succeeded. Instead of cramming in as much material as possible, they have killed many darlings and combined the strength from two quite essentially different recording periods.
One basic and rich with details and one well prepared and immediate. The result is an album that would have fitted on a LP. The twelve tracks are relatively short and “to the point”, it is impossible to find any lifeless moments. The album is “on”; when it’s got you it won’t let you go. There is a restless energy in the music as well as n Per’s lyrics. The charismatic singer, who has lived for some time in Tennessee, knows how you tell a story with a twist. He has probably got impressions from the Country music that he didn’t like when he lived there, but realised he missed when he left. “Influences”, yet again.
Without even the lyric writer’s knowledge the band has always ad a continuing theme in their lyrics. They’re about running away, travel, the desire to leave, or to be on the way somewhere. There is an endeavour to strive for something else – maybe something better – maybe something that you can’t put your finger on, but which has always been the fuel for most vital rock music. Maybe there is no surprise that David Bowie, the pop history’s most restless and hard to place artist, is Per’s favourite.
Sonny Crocket also mixes the genres but in the end they are still them selves. Another influence that might not be heard, but can be sensed, is American high school- and collage films, from Porky’s to the Breakfast Club. This feature was mirrored is the band’s last single, the characteristically titled Get Away and its video clip.
Sonny Crocket is now carrying a lot of collected energy. They have waited a long time, with safe assurance that their time will come. They know how to manage most conditions and live situations. They haven’t forgotten the no-budget tour through Europe which took place in the beginning of this centaury, booked by an energetic American. The eventful trip was filled with small and seedy gigs to say the least. The audience on Reeperbahn with it’s mix of drug dealers, pimps, hookers, and a bartender who had a gun behind the bar so that no one would steel the equipment. Improvised sleepovers on the floor of good hearted fans and rock journalists who had realised Sonny Crocket’s potentials. To put it short, an adventure that very few Swedish bands have been through and even less would have made it through. –Very educational, says Daniel with a laconic smile. You get to know each other on a trip like that. You realise that you won’t make it, or you take it to e next level. In Sonny Crocket’s case it was the last of the two.
-After that tour it feels like we can do anything. These days no one complains about set-backs or stuff ups that would have bothered us before, says Per. With the harmonious debut album and the alternaive-discorock-sngle 12” freshly released, the band is ready to do as many gigs as possible. Club gigs or festival gigs, it doesn’t matter. It’s enough to hear Sonny Says to realise that Sonny Crocket is prepared for anything coming their way.
Watch the video from sonny crocket´s second single "12 inches". From the coming album "sonny says".
sonny crocket - 12 inches

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Watch the video from sonny crocket´s debut single Get away (98 degrees in the shade).
sonny crocket - get away (98 degrees in the shade)

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