The last few days have been really frustrating, because the final mix for the CD isn’t turning out as I wanted. I guess the sound engineer has had some trouble understanding what I actually wanted with my music.

But we’re going to the studio again tomorrow (even though it’s Sunday), and hopefully we’ll be able to finish everything by then. We have to finish it by then, or no one will get their pre-orders in time for August 13.. Unfortunately though, people on the other side of the world (I’m looking at you, Australians!) will most likely not get it in time, due to the shipping times.
Either way, you’ll still get the CD many weeks before the official release date!

Oh, and remember that I have a little contest going on! The winner will get a free signed copy of my CD, and a signed photo!

I ended up getting signed after all, at the very last minute! It’s a new label called White Knight Records, and they’re connected to some of my favorite prog rock bands, like Hoggwash, Frost* and Magenta, so they have lots of experience in this genre.
They will help me promote and distribute the physical CDs to stores in the main prog rock countries: UK, USA, Japan, The Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Argentina, France and Italy.
(I will personally take care of all the digital downloads though, so it’s a great deal for me.)

The “problem” with all this is that they need more time to get everything done, building hype, preparing promos etc etc, so the official release date will be changed until September. The unofficial release is still August 13 though, so I will sell my signed copies from that point. In other words, the most hardcore fans will get the CD a whole month before the rest of the world. :) No piracy please.

Today, I’ve mostly been drawing and signing photos. I won’t be sending them out for another two weeks, but I figure it’s good to get as much work done as soon as possible!

I also realized that I’m getting close to 100 pre-orders already, and I had only bought 100 envelopes! Not sure what I was thinking there.
So, I suddenly became stressed and worried, because what if I wouldn’t get more envelopes in time?!
I quickly ordered 100 more at an auction site similar to Ebay, and hoped they would send them in time. A couple of minutes later, a guy called, said he also lived in Gävle, and asked where he could drop off the envelopes I had bought. An hour later, I had them in my apartment.

Impending crisis swiftly averted!

Today, I’ve been practicing for the Lonely Starlight music video, and at the same time I’ve been trying to decide what to include in my Secret Surprise bonus, for those who chose that option when pre-ordering my album!

So I’ve been listening through lots and lots of old recordings (yes, among other things, the secret surprise is a disc filled with photos, animations, recordings etc), and this Kirby arrangement was a surprise for me, because I didn’t remember how good it was, haha:

FreddeGredde – Kirby

But now I remember that my plan was to make an animation, in which the Super Smash Bros characters were fighting as usual, on the Kirby stage, and then JigglyPuff suddenly fell off, and DIED! Everyone stopped the fighting and realized what had happened, and Kirby got saddest of them all, because he was secretly in love with JigglyPuff.
I got tired of the project after finishing the song though.

I had not really planned it, but now there’s a forum on my website! So I hope you’ll all make yourself comfortable there, write a note about yourself, start topics if you want me to explain or tell you about something, or whatever you have on your mind. :)

Oh, and this was probably at the very beginning of my singing career, a video clip from when I was 2-3 years old: