Belltown - Gothenburg, Sweden
by Pat Ferris

I was first contacted by Belltown last year, and I honestly don't even remember the context of that first email that was sent to us. Wanting to expand our understanding of the Euro-market, I took the time to take a listen to their music and was impressed enough to feature them in a review in January of this year. Since then, we continued to get correspondence and updates with their latest accomplishments so I thought it was time to give Belltown a closer look.

Their hard-edged sound can easily be mistaken for an American band, since there is not any noticible accent. Each of the songs from their CD Desillusion Day I listened to at their MP3.com site were lyrically interesting...kind of reminding me of David Byrne from The Talking Heads, but with the driving bass, drums and crunching guitar of bands like Pearl Jam, or Tool. The songs Rollcage, Concerning You and Under a Rock I think hard rock labels will find have the appeal to anchor a solid US or UK re-release.

Struggeling with a tough live music scene in their hometown of Gothenburg, in Western Sweden, Belltown is reaching out to fans of the world through the internet, and marketing themselves abroad. I was able to pin them down for a short interview, and this is what they had to say:

<Belltown> Hi Pat. This is Christian. Sorry I'm late, but now I'm awake.

<HotBands> - No problem. Let's recap the biography of Belltown. tell me how Belltown started, who is currently in the band, etc...

<Belltown> - Belltown formed in late 1997 and the line up was then as now:
Daniel Palm -vocals, guitars; Damir Bandic - Drums; Christian Lundqvist (me) on the bass.

<HotBands> - I really like your sound, and am surprised that you don't have an accent (to me). If I didn't know you were from Sweden, I would think you were an American band. Who would you say are your major influences, and how would you self-describe your music?

<Belltown> - Well, Thank you so very much. I guess that could be a good thing. Never thought so much about the accent, but I guess you're right there. Many of the bands we're listening to is American such as Tool, Quicksand, Foo Fighters, helmet, Dave Mathews band etc... This is just a very small line of groups as everyone in the band has very different musical influences.

<HotBands> - How has the Internet changed your life and direction musically?

<Belltown> - It has been a great way for us to get out of Sweden with our music. Without it we would never been where we are today. It really has opened a lot of doors for bands like us. Just to be able to put your music up on all those different sites as hotbands.com has made us a lot more fans than we could get here in Sweden.

<HotBands> - You were mentioning in one of your emails to us, that the music scene in Sweden is dead and that you're turning to the UK to market yourselves. Why do you think that is, and why is the UK the best place for you to go?

<Belltown> - Sweden is really dead for our sound. It seems like we stand in the middle where we're not as heavy as some people want and not too mellow as other wants. There are a couple real good Swedish bands, but the problems are the clubs they don't give bands as us any chance, they go with the bands that already got themselves a name. Both The UK and The US has been way lot more opened to our music and doesn't seem to bother why or how we do our music they just seems to like it. The UK has a real good rock tradition with many clubs, which make it a lot easier to do tours there.

<HotBands> - So the UK is where European rock bands cut their teeth? How's the German rock market?

<Belltown> - Yeah, the UK is a good place, especially for younger bands. we haven't got that much contact with the German scene. Rollcage has been a top 10 there on vitaminic.de, but other from that we haven't heard anything. We also have very nice people who are working for us in both US and The UK so I guess it all have felt very natural for us.

<HotBands> - I think you guys are pretty hard, but very tasty too. Sometimes, metal is boring. The amount of notes played doesn't impress me as much as how they're hooked together. What would you say the live music scene is like in Sweden? In the US major cities, you can find clubs that cater to bands and audiences of every genre. Is Gothenburg or Stockholm that way?

<Belltown> (12:25 AM) Thank you for your nice words, and I fully agree with you on the metal thing. As I said, the scene isn't good here, but in Gothenburg and Stockholm you're able to catch most music on the clubs. Gothenburg is the second largest city and we have like 4 proper clubs here, not too much. As you probably heard there are a lot of death metal bands from Gothenburg, so we get a lot of that plus now there some kind of revival of the 80's power metal scene. In Stockholm you're able to catch all bands from all around the world, but they have stopped coming to Gothenburg. Stockholm is also the place were all the hip people are with all the record labels and most clubs and arenas are, but it is not my type of place to live .

<HotBands> - That's too bad. I can understand how the politics happens in the club scene, but if the good bands keep focusing on playing their music, sooner or later, they'll get noticed. Jimi Hendrix (from Seattle) had to go to England to get famous. You also mentioned in an email about working with Pete Townshend's brother. Tell us about how that happened, how long and what your goals are.

<Belltown> - I fully agree on that, we won't be changing our style of music to fit in to a certain scene. Our management in the US Pop Music, have a UK office and very good connections there. our manager, Bobby Poe, had been working with John Entwistle from The Who, so he sent Paul Townshend (Pete's brother) a copy of Desillusion Day and the new disc and he really loved it and on the way it is.

<HotBands> - So how soon do you expect to do something in the UK? Any US plans or is that dependant upon how your UK shows go?

<Belltown> - Right now the goals is to get a hold of a new record deal as we left our old label Slugger Productions. We're right now in negotiations with a major label in the US and it looks real good, but you never know. Paul is also having some meeting is London right now, so we'll see what will happen there. Of course we are really eager the get over to the US as soon as possible for some gigs. We should have been in the UK months ago for a club tour, but there always seems to be something going wrong, but hopefully we get over there in the beginning of the autumn. Then I guess the US first will happen along with signing to a new record label.

<HotBands> - That would be great! I think your music would go over well in the US. What do you think has been the most recent driving force in your successes?

<Belltown> - Apart from the fact the we now have been working day and night for the past year and a half, I think it have to be that we have some hard intense music, but with melodies that get stuck in your head...not just cool riffs. Right now I'm real pleased that we don't play rock/rap, cause then we would just be a band among millions. Which makes it even harder to survive.

<HotBands> - What are your plans for writing and releasing your next CD? Is that in the works, or is the primary focus on touring and promoting your last CD?

<Belltown> - We're definitely thinking on the next CD. We have just been in the studio doing pre-productions for the full-length album. 9 new songs have been recorded and it turned out really well. We talked about it and sure it would be great going out promoting the last CD, but it feels like it is time for us to move on to the next level.

<HotBands> - What message do you have for the artists of the world reading this? What type of recommendations could you give to artists that are getting started that might help them along the way.

<Belltown> - Use the Internet as much as possible, cause it's the best tool a musician has been given for along time. try to get your mp3 files up on all respected websites. Also, when sending out your demo tapes/CD's visit different labels websites and try to get a hold of their A&R' e-mail address then mail him and ask if he is interested in your music and then try to have frequent contact with him until he tells you to get out of his life.

<HotBands> (1:02 AM) That's kind of how we hooked up...now get out of my life! :-) Just kidding of course! I want to thank you for the time to take this interview, and wish you the best of success with your UK tour and project. We look forward to hearing more from your band and hopefully seeing you on tour in the US next year!

<Belltown> - Yes it is (how we hooked up), and it has given Belltown some great response, so I guess I'm not talking rubbish here! Now I'm getting out of your life...but just for a little while! Thank you so very much for talking to me and supporting Belltown, and we hope to see you soon in The US.

To find out more about Belltown, CLICK HERE

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