Finally the right time has come to share one of the things we’ve been working on! We have been waiting for this moment because it’s the start of a sequence of events that will take place in the near future. TODAY we release the first video from our tour final of ‘I Still Breathe Tour Part II’ from december 2012. As if this wasn´t enough, we will release four videos, once a month from now on! Every video presenting a smoking hot new song which were played more or less for the first time during this tour.

You have one month to watch and share this video! When the month is over we will remove it and replace it with a new one.

I would also like to take this opportunity to say congratulations to our amazing drummer Andreas! He made his exam concert a couple of weeks ago, it was a huge success and now he has a diploma which confirms that he’s a MASTER on percussion.

Stay tuned, there’s more to come and help us spread the word!

/Gabbi

Tour final

I got really sick the day before our tour final. When I woke up on the gig day I really felt ”oh no, this wont work, I’m done”. My throat really hurt and my head felt like a balloon. But after a hot shower I felt a bit better and went down to the venue. When I came there I got a reception from a hall full of people, all eager for the show to begin…it was really crowded! My sickness disapeared at once and I felt this was going to be an amazing evening. And it was! We played as good as you’re supposed to at a tour final (maybe even better) and the audience was great.

THANKS to all faithful fans that always show up, it’s really heart warming! And welcome, all new fans, we’re looking forward to a future with you!

A BIG congratulations to our great drummer, Ante. He received a massive and prestigious award from Kungliga Musikaliska Akademin a couple of weeks ago. He deserve it big time!

At last: Happy Mad Artwork Year 2013! It’ll be Mad Artwork´s 7th year and we will celebrate it in different ways. The first thing we can reveal is that I Still Breathe Tour Part III will take place this year. We will keep you updated with more surprises, we’ll just keep some of them bubbling a little bit longer first…

Here’s one more review of our tour opening at Sweden Prog Fest, Kulturbloggen.

/Gabbi

Now the rest of the band has left me in the north while they are back home in Uppsala & Stockholm. It’s sad, but we’ll see each other when we have our tour final in Uppsala, and that’s really soon! It’ll be a kick-ass evening.

We’re really looking forward to continue the I Still Breathe Tour next year…can’t reveal anything specific yet, but generally we can assure you there will be more shows announced during time.

Here’s some reviews and interviews we got during the tour:

Sweden Rock Magazine

Svenska Dagbladet

Piteå Tidningen

Folkbladet

Today we had a relaxing day, making some food together, talking about the past shows and the rest of the week. It was really healthy and it feels good to be back on the road together, we’re a great team. And since we all feel the same, we’re getting even more hungry and motivated to get out sharing these feelings with you.

Day IV – Dalkarlså

What a place! A kind of a castle in the middle of the forest? This might have been the most fun concert on this tour…after a couple of songs it felt like the audience was in some kind of a trance, screaming after every little cool thing we played or made on stage, standing up cheering after every song. A cool thing was that the electricity disapeared twice during the show, both of the times perfectly dead on at the right spots becoming an odd effect in the compositions.

Day V – Piteå

It felt so good to play in Piteå, almost like our hometown. Unfortunately we had a great deal of techical difficulties during the day, the mixing console broke so we had to fix another one and the tubes in my amp died during the show…but it was so many cool feelings in the air between us and the audience so it didn’t matter. Everyone I spoke to after the show was elated, even ecstatic, so we’re truly happy with tonight. THANK YOU all who came to see us, we had a real great time together! We ended this day with a compuslory tour party! Does anyone think Simon fell asleep on his guitar this year as well..?

Day VI

When I got back around 3pm after a walk the house was completely dark with someone sleeping in every room. As I was dead tired (hadn’t really slept much after last nights party), I went to bed telling myself “They’ll wake up soon and they’ll wake me on the same time”. When I woke up at 5.30pm it was even darker and everybody was still sleeping really heavy. I managed to wake the guys by putting the light on in the whole house and make lot of noise. At 6.45pm we went to a restaurant to have our first meal of the day…I guess none of us was feeling so well. But what a night! Simon was singing the dirtiest songs we’ve ever heard while Ante was making the most twisted magic tricks with his playing cards.

Day VII – Boden

It was a great crowd in Bodenn, with a kind of international flavour as well…it almost felt strange to speak Swedish. Because of a family matter Fredrik had to leave us shortly before this show so we had a substitute on the sound  - Christopher Zakrisson. Many thanks, Christopher, for making a great job! We had a real hard rocking evening with all of you in the audience! Thanks a lot for joining!

/Gabbi

We’re sitting in the tour bus and have just finnished our first meal for today. We have a 10 hour trip to Luleå ahead of us…the time is now 00.00 Friday.

We had our tour premiére in Stockholm at Sweden Prog Fest a few hours ago and it was a pretty rough start…we didn’t really get a soundcheck because everything was delayed and we didn’t have time to eat anything. It was just to get on stage immediately. But as soon as we started to play, everything was as it should be – MAD. It was a really great atmosphere in the concert hall and it was a blast to play for you! Thanks to everyone who was there supporting us.

Simon is driving the bus and the rest of us are watching a funny movie, except for Joel who is composing something on his computer and me who is writing this…and now when I look back in the bus I see Ante and Malin sleeping…but where is Daniel?

See you tomorrow in Luleå!

Day II – Luleå

After a few hours of sleep, we were ready to rock in Luleå. Thank you all, what a great night! A special thanks to Hasse who helped us during the evening and to Angelica & Elin who was running around the stage taking photos. This photo is not taken by Angelica or Elin…it’s taken by Fredrik during our soundcheck, lucky us he’s a better sound engineer than a photographer.

When we started to unload the bus we found Daniel sitting inside the tailgate together with the rest of the gear…he didn’t say much.

It’s finally time for us to sleep and tomorrow we’ll have a day off. See you on Monday in Dalkarlså.

/Gabbi

Some days ago we ended the last rehersal before going on I Still Breathe Tour Part II. We’re almost there and the waiting is driving us mad and even more hungry of getting on stage playing for you. You can really feel Simons hunger in this picture…

We’re happy to announce the new companions for the tour: Malin Brudell on vocals and Joel Selsfors on keyboards. We’re also pleased to have Fredrik Andersson with us as our sound engineer. It will be a blast to share this tour experience with them!

Great work Amanda Jenderbäck with this years tour poster!

Keep your eyes open, we’ve just added some more shows to the tour schedule and there are more to come. Don’t forget to buy a ticket to Sweden Prog Fest, the happening of the year in Stockholm! You can buy it HERE.

See you on the road soon! /Gabbi

We are proud to announce a tour this fall, it will be a continuation of our ”I Still Breathe Tour”. We will start the tour 23rd of november with a concert at ”Sweden Prog Fest” in Stockholm, Swedens biggest festival for Progressive Rock.

During the tour we will climb our long, dark and cold country whole the way up to the top. Don’t worry southern Sweden, we’ll come to you as well, we just want to say hello to our friends in the north one more time before we leave for warmer latitude. Actually we just love the dark and cold. Hopefully we’ll have as cold weather as in the picture below, -42 °C! Believe me, it’s hard to look cool when your face is totally frozen, but we’re up for the task.

Congratulations to our own Mad Scientist! Simon has skills not only on the 10-stringed Mandolin of Doom, but also in the laboratory and for these skills Simon got this prestigious award. The only thing that’s missing is the cat and Simon will be a true James Bond-villain.http://www.wallstiftelsen.se/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=225%3Amusikalisk-biotekniker-flyttar-labbet-till-datorn&catid=14&Itemid=2&lang=sv

During this spring we made a gig at the Music Academy to celebrate Daniel for his degree. It was a blast, and we made the place shake with our Mad Rock ’n Roll. A big thanks to Nadja Flood who did a great job suporting us during the evening. And CONGRATULATIONS to Daniel for his degree!

As you may see we have now published a complete biography, hope you’ll enjoy the reading.

/Gabbi

Anyway, after coming in the right mood we got together and wrote some really good stuff. At this time there are several smooking hot new songs on our setlist!

We thank Simon Reinikainen from the great band Fristad for filling in on the vocals when Therés wasn’t available. We also wrote some tunes together and made a gig at the cosy festival, Ingbofestivalen. Simon really did a great job and we had a lot of fun.

Last week we performed at the Uppsala International Guitar Festival. Which was a kind of experience in it´s own way. Therés was unable to attend so we had a substitute, so far so good. But when I woke up in the morning of the concert day I got a message from Errka, our organ player, telling he was sick in pneumonia…well, I have to admit I became…a bit distressed. After some phone calls very fortunately Andreas Hellkvist came to rescue!

Many thanks to Lovisa Hellsten who did a great job learning all songs, rehersing and finally performing with us! And many thanks to Andreas Hellkvist who did a great job in not rehersing, not learning any songs but playing with us nevertheless. I don´t think I need to say that Andreas did a glorius job on stage, which Lovisa did as well, and we had a great time together.

Thanks to all of you who came to see us at Ingbofestivalen and Uppsala International Guitar Festival! We hope that you enjoyed it as much as we, it was a joy playing for you.

Finally, we have a lot of exciting news going on and will come back to you with an update rather in the near future. Please stay tuned, talk to you soon…

/Gabbi

This is what a rockstar looks like when he’s sleeping.

Tour final

Well, what else can we say, but…what a amazing tour final! Uppsala´s Hijazz was crowded and the spirits were high. Thank you everybody! You can read a review of the concert here.

Day 13

Today we drove the 500 kilometers back to Uppsala. The wheather conditions were awful, with a thick layer of ice on the roads. Due to the circumstances the traffic partly stood still and we decided to take an alternative  way around Hudiksvall. So, we drove out in the dark forrest on small, empty roads and could’nt first see nearly anything but mere desolated darkness. Then suddenly, on the other side of the road, Santa Claus where standing there waving to us! I can tell you he scared the shit out uf us, a killer santa in the woods in the middle of nowhere in January…

Day 12

We arrived to Örnsködsvik today after driving 450 kilometers from Luleå. Örnsköldsvik is the city for our last gig in the north of Sweden for this time. Since we’ve been out on the northern snowy, windy roads for some days by now, today´s journey was a tired one. Besides, to Ante´s annoyance Daniel won today´s football game tournament…again. We had a wonderful evening and, as every night, received a great response from the audience. What a crowd, thank you everybody who came and made this night awesome!

/Gabbi

In our lodge we had a space ship…though somebody claimed it was a shower.

Day 11

When we woke up this morning Simon and Ante told us about a practicall joke of theirs last night. Some hours past midnight they woke Therés up and told her that we had slept over time and that we were in a hurry heading for the next city. Therés more or less JUMPED out of bed and started packing her things together…discovering after a few minutes, when coming into conciousness, that it was still dark outside! Tonight we played in Therés hometown Luleå. We had an awesome night with a great audience.

Day 10

Now we’re cooling down in a cosy little cottage in Skellefteå. When we arrived Skellefteå earlier today we discovered a huge article about us in the local newspaper. We also discovered that, very unfortunately, there was going to be an important ice hockey game in the evening, simultaneously with our gig. Still, we had a great time, the gig was wicked and the audience wonderful. It was truly warming to experience that there are people in Skellefteå choosing music prior to ice hockey (even though our drummer is a big fan of ice hockey)!

Day 9

Well, we had a slow day today…or some of us anyway. The guys were sleeping whole day while I was running around Umeå making new connections and meeting some music- and showbizz people.

Day 8

After a few hours in the tour bus we finally arrived the Concert Hall in Umeå. We had a great time and did an awesome gig. Lots of people in the audience, it’s so delightful to make concerts like this. After the show we had our compulsory tour party. As you can see on the picture below, we had a fun and crazy night.

This is for real! Simon is sleeping.

Being the one with the odd instrument you constantly get to hear these really funny comments like “bazooka höhö”.
It may have been fun the first, second or even seventh time but not the seven hundred. Last night though we had this wonderful sound engineer that coined the ultimate name. Because of that I would hereby like to make an announcement. From now on my Bouzouki will be referred to as The Ten-stringed Mandolin Of Doom.

/Bouzouki-Simon of doom
—
As usual I’m one day late with the blog update. And of course the time is past midnight, but for me it’s still Monday. Simon, Daniel and Ante are playing a football game, Therés is sleeping and Errka is doing homework.

Here is the radio program with us talking about the tour and playing acoustic versions of two songs. If you listen to the program that was broadcasted 15.00-15.30, our part is starting after about 12 minutes. And here you can read about us and our tour in Uppsala’s local newspaper, UNT.

Day 7

Today we had a slow start. The weather was wonderful, it was like heaven to lie in a warm, soft and big bed and looking out over the frozen lake. But nothing lasts for ever. We had to pack the tour bus and head for Örnsköldsvik! What a great gig! I’m worried, are’nt bands supposed to do bad gigs sometimes..? The stage was cool with an extra platform even for the organ, leslie and keyboards! Thanks to everybody who came and made this night a great time.

Day 6

Today we have one day off. We are just going to have a great time together. We’ll hang out in a castle at Svanö, that’s on the way to Örnsköldsvik were we’re going to play tomorrow.

Thanks for today, tomorrow we are going to rock in Umeå!
/Gabbi