Hellsingland Underground

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Hellsingland Underground "Child Of Another Time" Live from the Bergesbo Festival, Trönö Forest, Hälsingland.
Hellsingland Underground "Lost In The Woods" Live from the Bergesbo Festival, Trönö Forest, Hälsingland.
Hellsingland Underground Biography.
The band started long ago up in Charlie Granberg's head.
After having had some really bad experiences from playing in bands in general, and the record industry in particular, he decided to never put his foot in a studio or tourbus ever again. "I've been fully concentrated on my art & film projects since the last band I was in imploded on the night of the millenium shift. But I've always missed writing songs and playing live, and I thought that if I ever would be in a band again, it would have to be a band like this, with friends that I really like, and enjoy hanging with not only at rehearsals, playing this kind of 70's jam band, free flowing, Allman Brothers kinda thing".
As he sort of had it with Stockholm a few years back, Charlie and his long therm girlfriend Lisa bought a small summerhouse on the shores of the Ljusnan River, in their common hometown Ljusdal, Hellsingland. A small town with about 8000 citizens in the north of Sweden, which they both had fled many years earlier. "Right after we had bought the house, we found out that she was pregnant." So as summer came along and they moved in with their new born daughter, Charlie started hearing all these songs in his head again. "I told them to go away, but they just wouldn't" he laughs.
So he wrote about 20 songs that summer. Most of them influenced by his childhood friends, dead or living, about people in the city and the countryside, about life, love and death. "I think I just got so inspired by those 2 events, becoming a father for the first time, and moving up to the place I was born and raised, it was surreal and weird, but at the same time it felt like I started to breath again after holding my breath for too long."
As they moved back for the winter in October 2006, Charlie called up his friend Mats Olsson, singer and guitarist of Maryslim, and asked him if he knew any great bluesy guitarist that could play on some of his songs. He didn't even consider Mats at first, since he thought he would be "too metal" for this kind of music. But as Mats asked him to play some of the songs over the phone, he picked up his guitar on his end, and started improvising the most beautiful melodies and solos on top of Charlie's songs. "I'm the man for it" Mats said, very confident. "Blues stuff is the only thing I play when I'm at home. Seriously, I'm the man."
"It's strange, but it was exactly the kind of sound I had dreamt about when I wrote them. A sort of carefree, moody and melodic back-to-basics feeling. It was one of those rare magic moments when you feel that you're just clicking with someone musically. We've been friends for years but never really made music together more than maybe jamming out at home after too much booze" Charlie explains.
A few years back, backstage after a Maryslim gig, Charlie had already talked with Patrik Jansson, their drummer, about the kind of band he "might wanna form one day". Patrik told him that "If you ever form that band, I have to be the drummer in it". So he was already in, before Mats even. Now all they needed was a bass player.
Charlie met Martin Karlsson at a party and just went up to him and asked him if he was a bass player. A little surprised, he answered that he was. "He just looked like a guy that would be into this kind of music, and if he was a bass player it would be too good to be true. Sometimes I just get a good feeling about someone, and most of the times it proves I'm right. I met my girlfriend the same way."
At one of the first rehearsals, Patrik brought along his friend Mathias Stenson with his keyboard for a jam, and he also got the job on the spot. "He is a fantastic musician, just like the rest of the guys, and I'm glad they liked my songs and wanted to be a part of this band." Charlie says. They reharsed and jammed out for a couple of months before they entered the studio of Martin Karlegård, known for his work with The Sounds, Bob Clearmountain e.t.c.
"I've known Martin for 17 years" Charlie says, "and I knew he would be the perfect man for this kind of music." They recorded six songs, of which one of them "Ljusnan Riverside Jam" Mats had written just a week before, and rehearsed it once before entering the studio.
"So the song is actually what the title points out, a jam. Though I wrote all the parts before, inspired by the view I woke up to every morning, when I visited Charlie's house in Ljusdal". Mats explains.
In the summer of 2007 they were starting to feel a hunger for playing live, but thought that they needed an extra guitarists first. So Mats called up his childhood friend Peter Henriksson and asked him if he would like to join this band, which he gladly accepted. "Those two guys have played together a lot since they were really young, so they almost got some kind of psychic thing going on between them - one knowing what the other will play next kinda thing. It's pretty amazing to see actually" Charlie says.
In the autumn of 2007, the band went into the studio once more to record six more songs for their upcoming debut album, hopefully to be released around March 2008.