In the small village of Hedekas there were no possibility to find a drum teacher. I got a little help from a piano teacher in school who had some of the basics to share. This was pre Youtube/Internet so mostly I had to find out myself how to take it further. Playing along to contemporary heavy metal-records I learned the essentials. I started a band with two of the few other people in Hedekas that had the interest in playing music in the same way as I wanted. Music, art and culture was not a high priority in these surroundings. There were of course music present and played but in fields that did not get any interest from me at the time. Mostly Swedish Dance bands and traditional accordeon music. I developed some serious and diverse auto didact skills during the years between age of 12-16. The main focus was on rock and heavy metal music.
When time came to move on to high school in 1991, I decided to apply for the music education course at Agnebergsgymnasiet in Uddevalla, Sweden. This was a total gamechanger for me! Going from being an outsider (not that interested in playing soccer, brewing alcoholic beverages and repairing any kind of vehicles with an engine on it) to being among other people with the same big interest for music as me. This was also one of the first moments of perspective regarding different issues connected to my background. Lack of possibilities and being alone with your passion that can be more or less specific for small communities outside big city areas. I took every chance I got to learn everything about music in this new environment, from teachers and fellow students. Being exposed to new and exciting music on an almost daily basis is something I still find extremely important in the art of experiencing and creating music.
Getting help from a fantastic percussion teacher, Göran Kroon, I also got to experience a much broader palette of instruments and music. Learning and exploring the classical percussion instrument family of mallets, timpani, snare drum and multipercussion. It was also here my journey in the fields of jazz and improvised music really started and took off.
In my final year of High School, Göran Kroon did not have the time for teaching me so I was assigned to a new teacher named Tomas Hansson. He was a very skilled drumset player, specialized in big band jazzdrumming. Tomas Hansson grew up in Bullarebygden, a small place really close to Hedekas. This made me relate to him in several ways. After a few of lessons I also realized he was one of the drummers in Bohus Bataljon. The band that gave the amazing concert that got into playing the drums. When I told him that, he was both happy and a bit surprised. He couldn´t remember the occasion (one of many early morning school concerts, I don´t blame him). That reaction got stuck in me. I decided to go on a mission, playing and presenting live music experiences for children of all ages. Always thinking of that what I do could actually change a childs path in life. To this day I have performed more than 500 school concerts and been greatly awarded with diverse grants several times for this work. One of the things I am most proud of when looking back at my artistic practice.
Around this time I also decided to focus on the drumset as my main instrument, more or less abandoning the classical percussion, at least as a professional choice. After a couple of years at different College Institutes with music education, I moved to Gothenburg. This was in 1997 when attending The Academy of Music and Drama for the first time (Improvising Musican – equal to todays Candidate/Bachelors education) and in this town I really felt at home. I also “decided” that I never would move back to Hedekas. I had given many things from my younger years some serious thoughts. An ambition to confront disturbing things from my past grew strong in me. Some of these things being: The law of Jante (extremely present), a “fundamentalist” rigid church with an extremely strict interpretation of the Bible, racism, homophobia and a fear of nearly all things unknown in this community. Only to name a few things that had affected me and disturbed me - and still more or less do to this day. Luckily I kept most of this to myself during the years. Now it is time to make something out of these feelings and thoughts, coming from a more mature point of view. Also to point out something positive that I did not see back then was the mindblowing and diverse nature that surrounded the area.
After graduating 1999, I pursued an international, professional career as a musician/composer/teacher and over the years I have been thinking a lot about what my background has meant to me as an artist and for my work. My perspectives has changed over the years, that is for sure. Going from the feeling that it has nothing to do with who I am as a person and artist to realising how much it means and how much it has formed me. The inspiration it gives me today in this project comes from a lot of different sources and I have chosen to use what I find positive and rewarding from these. Nature, interesting stories and people.
RESULT & CONCLUSION
RESULT
In this project development of my technical skills has been a great learning experience when recordning, editing, mixing and experimenting with the material. Sharing thoughts and ideas with my collaborators, teachers and students regarding this is also a way of working that I find rewarding. The project can be looked upon as a solo project but it would never have turned out sounding the way it does without these inputs and discussions. Taking responsibility for your own development and making your own structures. Being strong in yourself and believe that what you do is important. Fighting the Law of Jante. I have come a long way in doing that during this work.
The music I have created and especially the working processes in this project has been opening up new and important doors in my artistic work. I will continue exploring these compositional techniques and develop the workflow possibilities. This work has opened up for further exploration in coming artistic projects. To mention two of them is a live-version of "Pjäxeröd 2.0" with a seven-piece band with financial support from Swedish Musikverket and an extended live-version of "Darkthrone Forest". Both these projects will be started in the fall 2022.
CONCLUSION
An important insight that has become even clearer to me is the importance of having live music/art experiences at a young age. For many of us this can be the total gamechanger in what direction our lives goes. When going deep into my history and especially the start of my musical work I have found this to be of the greatest importance,
BACKGROUND
My name is Johan Björklund. I am a musician (drums/percussion), composer, bandleader and teacher. Living in Gothenburg Sweden, since 1997.
Music in general and drums in particular are an essential and well integrated part of my life during the last 35 years. In this exposition I will be showing/exploring/discussing the music and other medias I have created during my Master Education at the Academy of Music and Drama in Gothenburg, Sweden 2020-2022. This education also includes one exchange semester at Norges Musikhögskole in Oslo, Norway, Fall 2021.
I was born in 1975. My first two years we lived in my mothers birthplace Högsäter (Dalsland, Sweden). After that we moved to Hedekas (Bohuslän. Sweden) where my father grew up. I moved as a five year old to a farm called Pjäxeröd (located 19 km northeast of Hedekas, close to the border to Dalsland). My parents built a house there, next to my grandparents house who were running the farm at that time. My four younger siblings were born there.
When I was a young child, I spent my time like many other children growing up on the countryside, playing in the woods, biking, skiing, building Lego and other things kids typically do in that age. My goal was to maybe become a Farmer/Postman as my father and also his father had been. My grandmother worked at the local library and I am certain this is how I discovered my love for reading all kinds of books.
One day in the fifth grade (11 years old) my school got a visit from the miltary orchestra Bohus Bataljon (nowadays known as Bohuslän Big Band). They were stationed at at the I17 Regiment in Uddevalla. The orchestra played mostly marsches and related non-commercial music on wind instruments and a three-piece percussion-section (snare drum, cymbals and bass drum). I was totally blown away! Experiencing this music live upfront with the musicians only a couple of meters away was really impressive. I was especially impressed by the drummers! What they were doing had such an immediate impact on me, I decided there and then that I also wanted to play the drums! My parents were not enthusiastic about this and they thought I would get over it, but after a year of saving money by working at the farm I finally bought my first drumkit. A black Tama Swingstar. December 6th 1987, an important date in my life.
PURPOSE AND AIM
Growing up in a small rural village in Sweden, I did want to find out its relations and impact to my artistic work and practice from a social and geographical perspective. This, in turn, leads to the following problem setting: Can I use my diverse positive/negative feelings and experiences from my background and put them into creating artistic works?
INTRODUCTION & READING INSTRUCTIONS
This project takes its startingpoint in the exploration of my background - growing up in the small village Hedekas on the Swedish countryside. Finding inspriration in my experiences from my childhood. My works consists of the interpretation of several stories, actual events, places and people connected to or inspired by this actual place.
Embracing and finding inspiration in my youth and background to explore methods and paths for creating art.
HEDEKAS
Hedekas is a small village located on the West Coast of Sweden, in the North East part of the county Bohuslän, quite close to the border of the county Dalsland. It is also not far from the border to Norway (ca 50 km). The village is surrounded by farmed land and forest so most people living in Hedekas is actually living outside the village center, on the countryside. The area is divided in three parts/parishes: Hede, Krokstad and Sanne with one church in each. The farm Pjäxeröd were I grew up was located in the parish of Sanne, circa 18 km northeast of Hedekas,
Hedekas on Google Maps
Some more information (in Swedish) can be found here
STUDIO ETERNAL DARKNESS
In this studio I compose, record, practice, relax, rehearse, store and organize instrument/equipment etc.
Having Studio Eternal Darkness as my daily workspace in this very creative environment is definitely an important feature for almost all my artistic work and has been since 1997.
The main part of the recordings, edit and experimenting in this actual project has been done in Studio Eternal Darkness.
Bunkern is an instituition since the 1970s on the Swedish Jazz/improvisation scene as a cluster with 30 rehearsal rooms, several studios and as being a very important network creator.
Full album on Bandcamp here
REFERENCES AND LINKS
Mötley Crüe, Shout at the Devil Elektra/Asylum Records 96-0289-1 1983, 33 1/2 rpm LP
Europe, The Final Countdown, CBS Records EPC26808 1986, 33 1/2 rpm LP
Deep Purple, Made in Japan Purple Records 1C172-93915/16 1972, 33 1/2 rpm, 2 LP
Wasa Express, Till Attack, Sonet SLP2623, 1978, 33 1/2 LP
Johan Björklund Website
Interview in Göteborgsposten (Gothenburg-based newspaper) November 2021
Studio Glasfågeln
Studio Zen
Thanks to these people who has contributed in different ways:
Arve Henriksen
Maria Palmqvist
Thomas Gunillasson
Armand Van Wijck
Thomas Markusson
John Lönnmyr
Kajsa Wallmon
Robert Axelsson
Matthias Sigurdson
Andreas Barstad Andresen
Anders Jormin
Thomas Strønen
Morten Qvenild
Gustav Davidsson
Kristofer Göransson
Oskar Karlsson
Therese Kjellstorp
Magnus Bergström
Helge Sunde
Helge Andreas Norbakken
Håkon Storm-Mathiesen
Daniela Lönnström
Joel Eriksson
Per Anders Nilsson