Holiday For Strings
- "Be prepared"
- Location: Stockholm,
- Websites:
- Bio: Holiday For Strings used to be a quite crappy rock band.
Back in the golden era known as the late nineties, two chefs, Magnus Magnusson and Erik Starre, met while ... (more) - Bio: Holiday For Strings used to be a quite crappy rock band.
Back in the golden era known as the late nineties, two chefs, Magnus Magnusson and Erik Starre, met while working in the Michelin-starred restaurant Edsbacka krog. They started drinking and hanging out together. Their interest in music got them talking about forming some kind of group. They rounded up some friends, got fucked up mostly, but occasionally played their instruments. They called themselves Cash 21.
They started doing some shows around venues in Stockholm with mostly close friends as witnesses. On one occasion they started their show with three guitars feedbacking for unbelievable half an hour, emptying the venue almost completely...
Somewhere around 1999 they accidentally got picked up by some madman in advertising and a particularly annoying track ended up in a t.v. commercial for a clothing company. The guys thought their lives were made and kicked back, waiting for record deals, groupies and stretch limos to pour over them. Nothing happened.
When one of the guitar players walked out, they called an old friend to fill in. Oscar Tillman had played in a lot of bands, including Bromma/Bay Area Thrash heroes Ordure. He was thrilled to finally have found a band that tolerated all 400 of his flange/phase pedals. But it was not until a few months later that the band radically changed for the better- when I joined them.
It started to sound fantastic. The band got rid of all the eight-note chugging and became a more sparse, one could almost say atmospheric, rock and dub-pop band. We renamed the band Holiday for Strings in 2001, and recorded a twelve-inch, four song ep and put it out ourselves.
In 2003, drummer John Eriksson (Peter, Bjorn and John) joined the band on guitar. He'd never played guitar before but since his drumming is far superior to mine, there was no other choice. His signature, 45 minute sustained notes, added an arty feel to our music, cock blocking the band completely. In summer of 2003 and the following summer, HFS performed in Norway and France and recorded new material that ended up on our debut album, geniusly called "CD" released in 2006. We toured the record around Europe in 2007.
The album's least commercial track earned us some money to take time off to make another one, inspired by science, heartache, dance music and reluctancy to grow up. It's scheduled for release in 2009 thanks to Kanine Records in Brooklyn. NYC. And we're planning to blow the last of the band funds on a new live show consisting of chocolate fountains and vast amounts of strawberries.
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