NOVELTY are Fredrik Lundvall, Peter Segerdahl and Bengt Tarre.
All three members have been involved in other electro/rock/pop/ebm/ambient projects since the early eighties (for instance Cosmic Dog, New View, Tin Drum and Presto Fervant) but it was not until in the beginning of 1996 we all got together and started NOVELTY.
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| Fredrik Lundvall |
keyboard,
composing, sound construction, lyrics |
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| My first synthesizers | Roland Jupiter 4... | ||
| My favourite synthesizer(s) | Sequential Circuits Six Trak (proud owner) | ||
| I wish I had... | More money! | ||
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| Peter Segerdahl |
lead
vocal, back vocal, keyboard, composing, sound construction, lyrics |
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| My first synthesizers | Casio VL-Tone (still in my possession), Korg MS-10, Roland JX-3P... | ||
| My favourite synthesizer(s) | Elka SYNTHEX (very proud owner) Korg Mono/Poly (proud owner) |
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| I wish I had... | A less heavy SYNTHEX! ATC-1 with all filters and the filter box ARP Odyssey, "go Billy go!" |
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| Bengt Tarre |
percussion,
back vocal, keyboard, marimba, accordion, composing, sound construction, lyrics |
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| My first synthesizers | Kawai SX210, FB01 (Yamaha CX-5), DX7... |
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| My favourite synthesizer(s) | NordLead 2 (proud owner), Novation Bass station (proud owner), Roland Juno 106 (proud owner) |
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| I wish I had... | Roland Jupiter 6 (do you know anyone for
sale?), MIDI Moog (studio electronics), SIMMONS SDS5 (better sounding than my SDS9) |
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Biography
How it all started (story teller, Peter Segerdahl).
1975
Pre NOVELTY
Bengt and I met when we were very young, because we had both joined a choir in Gothenburg called "Göteborgs Domkyrkas Gosskör". After 2 years Bengt got bored and quit, but I stayed for another 3 years (it was hard and demanding but very educational).
1984
After Bengt quit the choir it took several years until we met again. It was not until I saw an Ultravox concert (great!!!) and met a common friend that I knew lived next door to Bengt. He told me that Bengt was still into music and that he had got some gear; mainly a synthesizer (a Kawai SX-210), a drum machine (boss dr rythm), a marimba, a drum set and a porta studio (yamaha mt-44).
Bengt had a band at that
time called Votum. As I also had a synthesizer (Roland
JX-3P) I decided to give him a call. We got along very
well and recorded our first song together, a DAF
influenced song called "Gatan slår mig". Then
we got more serious and continued with some softer tunes
like "Foot steps in the sand" and
"Windows" (years before the software).
After a while we had many songs recorded so we decided to
release a cassette, "Memories from the country"
(1985) and named our band to "New View". The
cassette sold very well, we have many good concerts, got
some air time at the local radio stations and basically
had a lot of fun.
I bought my first sampler, the Mirage, Bengt got a SIMMONS kit and a DX7, our music started to sound a bit different and we released another cassette which sold out directly.
That was the end of New View.
Bengt started to write more complex music very influenced by David Sylvian (Japan) and I started to work more with producing and live-mixing local bands. For instance I was on a 6 week tour to China with a Swedish rock/blues band called "Björn Borgs Båt". At that time Rock'n Roll was forbidden by law in China so it was a very interesting and challenging time.
But then again Bengt and I wanted to do something together and we formed a new band called Tin Drum. This time we had a bass player Claes Heyman and played mostly covers. Bengt started to play guitar and Simmons instead of keyboard. We added a drummer and started to play not only synthpop covers but also rock, funk etc.
It was fun for a while but playing other people music is not what we wanted to do...
Bengt once again started to work on his more complex music and I started to play with a person called Robert Erikson. We formed a band called Cyber Funk and did some really good synthpop-funk tunes. After a two years Robert was working way to much with his new job (animated computer graphics) and I started to develop a sample editing program for Atari computers called Zero-X. This is actually still being developed and is used in several professional studios around the world for editing samples and mastering music.
Finally there was NOVELTY:
1995
After working very hard with the software for a few years I decided that I should start up with music again. I saw an advertisement in a Swedish music magazine (MM) that a person in Lyseikil (Sweden) was looking for a good synthpop singer to form a new band. This was Fredrik. I called him, sent him some tapes, he liked my voice and we started to work together.
Fredrik had previously been involved (1988-1993) in a band called Presto Fervant that had gain some success and played for instance at "Hultsfred festivalen". They played very hard electronic music. After that Fredrik had a project called Cosmic Dog (1994-1995) and attended on the compilation Circuit One with "Space Man".
1996
Nothing really happened until Fredrik decided to buy a new better sampler. Soon he sent me a very rough version of a song. I liked what I heard and together we turned it into "Paradise".
Fredrik sent away our only song "Paradise" to a music/band competition arranged by a Swedish TV station called Z-TV. A few weeks later I was out dining with Bengt and told him about this and that if we got accepted I wanted him to play with us live. He accepted but we both laughed at it, as neither of us thought that NOVELTY would ever get accepted. But we did! We even won the first competition in Göteborg.
Now this was fun!! Fredrik's brother, Thorbjörn, also joined NOVELTY. We started to work on a new song, "Redn Blue". Then there was time for the 2:nd competition where we met the best from southern Sweden. We won again! Now we had made it to the regional finals in Stockholm (the capital city of Sweden). In the middle of summer 1996 we went to Stockholm to perform RednBlue and Paradise. There were TV cameras all over the place and lots of people. We did not win but ended up as second place (as all the others finalists that did not win).
After that NOVELTY became reality and Bengt joined the band as a true member.
1997
After writing more songs we wanted to make our songs available to the public so we attended on a Swedish electro compilation by Mellotron Records called Mark One with "Paradise" and "Soul of Mankind". Mellotron Records liked our music so much that they places our songs first and second on the CD.
Menawhile David Lin, from Strangers Thoughts, invited us to attend on their US synthpop compilation "Synthpop: The next generation". They chosed "Coming over" for the compilation.
full length CD Contract
After a couple of months David called me and said that he had joined a new record company called Synthphony Records and that they were interested in signing us for a full length CD. In the middle fo July 1997 the contract was signed.
At the end of September (two weeks before dead line) all recordings for the full length CD, Natural, were done.
Release Party at Romo Night, October 31, 1997
Next step is our release party at Romo Night in Göteborg. This will be the first "full length" true live concert with NOVELTY. We will have and frequently play on several old analogue equipment such as Korg Mono/Poly, Sequentual Circuits Six Trak, Moog Prodigy, Roland Juno 106, a black SIMMONS set and a Deopher Suitcase (new analogue module systyem). So don't miss it!