Biography
My name is Christian Johansson. I live in a small town called Hässleholm in Sweden. I love guitars and guitar music! In fact I love guitars so much that I accidentally misspelled the word 'guitars' at first in the last sentence...weird! :-)
Well…
I grew up in a very very small town called Vinslöv in Sweden. I was born -78 and first picked up the guitar in my early teens. I sneaked into my brothers room and looked at his Emperador les Paul model...He had a 'no name' amp that sounded really bad, but I didn't understand that at the time...He also had a distortion pedal, an Ibanez DS10...A green thing that made all that gain one needed at the time! I tried his guitar out...cool!
But at first
I wanted to be a drummer, now thats cool stuff!! So, I decided to become a
drummer!
I checked the newspaper every Saturday for drums...I even got myself a jar
where anyone could put some money...
So I could buy those fancy drums! I talked with some guys if they knew anyone
who had any drums.
One day I heard about
this guy with a really freaky drum kit..."Maxwin". Well, after talking
with my mum and my brother I decided to give up the drum-thing. My brother
told me: "Look bro, PLAY GUITAR INSTEAD!!!” So be it I said to
myself.
I picked up
his les Paul time to time but I didn’t really practice, I just played
and always did
(and I still do in a way…).
My brother Henric showed me some power chords and how to rig myself a heavy
metal sound! He had an acoustic guitar as well and even though I preferred
the electric guitar at first due to the thinner and more narrowed neck, I
combined electric guitar playing with some acoustic playing. Nowadays I couldn’t
live without any of such guitars! I can’t choose!
Okay, back to ‘the story’…
When I bought
my first real electric guitar in -94, a Charvel, I started to practice more.
I practice alone, with my brother and with a friend of mine, Johan
Bruno. We played together around -94 in a band in Hässleholm. During
the first rehearsal ever in my life I was very nervous!
But I survived and after a while I became more relaxed as I started to get
more confident. I had never played with any one before in a band. I wasn’t
used to keep my ears on the bass, the drums, the other guitar, the singer
and do some playing on my own at the same time…It was hard!
I also played a few times in a thrash metal band around -94. I had 'an audition' with them and played with them a couple of times as I said before. I believed I passed the audition but chose not to continue due to demanding school work at the time. It was great fun to play with them, I think I still remember some of their very cool metal chops. The band name? Ok, Contortion. I have a tape somewhere..
Around -99 I played with Johan Bruno for the last time as a band. And this was the year I decided to study at the University of Kristianstad, but I didn't study music as one might think, I started to study for a degree in environmental science. So, the guitar playing were set to a minimum for a while.
Summer of 2001...
When I went to a guitar camp, FGC, in Gothenburg in Sweden
held by Mattias "IA" Eklundh, I met Mr.
Gul and Fredrik Pihl.
We became really good friends. Me and Fredrik Pihl almost started to play
together right away after the inspiring camp sadly came to an end. The Freak
Guitar Camp, FGC, lasted for a week but gave me friends for life!
Fredrik Pihl, who are a true source of inspiration of mine, is really talented guy with mountains of cool stuff up his sleave. Please check him out! Me and Fredrik write together under the name In Focuz, please check us out! And you'll have to check out Mr. Gul as well! He is a real monster on guitar too!
At the University of Kristianstad I saw poster one day in fall 2003. The guy who made the poster, Magnus Nordstroem, were putting a band together in school. I didn't think long before I decided to join. The band, Soul Factory, consisted of lots of bandmembers: guitars, bass/vocalist, piano/singer, trumphet, trombone, drummer and a singer. We did some gigs at school and one at Kristianstads Konsert Hus, Kristianstads Consert Hall.
Me and Paulin
Rubensson (piano/vocals) started to try out some songs I wrote and it turned
out very well. Paulin wrote music herself and we decieded to add Magnus later.
When there was a Jazz-thing-happening in town were one could win a nice gig,
Paulin suggested that we would join! We did. We played 'Walk Alone' and a
Norah Jones song. I believe it went pretty good! We got to the finals! After
getting to the finals (among 2 other bands) Magnus had to leave Sweden for
a nice job in Finland. So before entering the finals we had to come up with
something new. Me and Paulin decided that she would play piano and sing whilest
I played the guitar. We supposed to play three songs. We chose a song by Norah
Jones, a song called 'Autum Leaves' and a song we wrote together, 'Walk Alone'.
After trying out the songs we decided to leave the piano, we just couldn´t
make it work this time. We didn't have enough time to get it together. So,
we ended up with just an acoustic guitar and vocals.
2 July 2004 we played in the finals at the Christianstad Festival. After the
nervous gig we won among two other competitors! In the picture in the following
link below you can see me and Paulin right after the gig at the festival.
Read about the gig here
(in swedish).
Soul Factory
came to an end...
When Magnus Nordstroem moved to Finland the band lost a true and great musician...
Soul Factory never really became the same, but we keept on playing for a while
and then the band came to an end. But me and Paulin keept on playing. We played
acoustic music, mainly cover songs but worked on own stuff as well. We did
some gigs together. One evening we played some songs in Kristianstad held
by Janne 'Loffe' Carlsson, a famous swedish jazz drummer who had played with
guys like Jimi Hendrix. Janne and his band liked us and that gave us positive
words and more energy...
Winesleaf
Now me and Paulin have a trio, Winesleaf,
together with Nisse who play acoustic bass. Please check us out! Paulin and
me have been writing music and lyrics together and by ourselves. Nisse and
Paulin has been writing together as well. So, I believe that we have about
5-6 songs waiting to be finished.
What did I listen to when I grew up?
Well, my first music memory I believe was 'Hot on your heels' with a band called Steeler feat. Yngwie Malmsteen. It had a weird intro of something about to explode or something! The verison of the song my brother recorded from a swedish radio program (RockBox!) started about 3 minutes into the song. It started like this: 'WeeioooooooeeeeeiiiiiiiiiEEEEEIIIEEEEEEEEEEEE BOOM!!!' Cool as, well I don't know really. I was very young when I heard it, I liked the energy...But I don't understand anything else. I have always liked that cool riff...
I really don't know how to display the music I been listening to over the years. I but I'll try, in a non chronological order:
Steeler, Elvis,
Twisted Sisters, Kiss, UFO, Mötley Crûe, Metallica, Paul Simon,
Simon & Garfunkel, Yngwie Malmsteen, Classical music: Vivaldi, Mozart,
Albinoni, Grieg, White Lion, TNT, Annihilator, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, John
Scofield, Sopie Zelmani, Joey Tempest, Pat Metheney, Frank Zappa, Magnus Olsson,
Todd Duane,
Lalle Larsson, Brett Garsed, Bumblefoot, Mattias IA Eklundh, Freak Kitchen,
Allan Holdsworth, Sej Buss, John Scofield, Testament, Megadeth, Don Dokken,
Queen, The Beatles, Eric Johnson, Jeff
Beck, King's X, Bon Fire, Magnum...
I have forgotten lots of bands, I may fill in later :-)
More stuff later.... :-)
/C