News

As you may have noticed, I never uploaded my new music video yesterday. Well, I actually did privately, to let a few people watch it to see what they thought. I was personally really disappointed by how ugly the visuals turned out to be in the end (I don’t know what happened, it must have been the stress that made me overlook so many bugs and flaws), and although the people I showed it to liked it, some agreed that I should probably redo the video.
But I don’t have time for that! Luckily, I’ve found a guy who’s willing to try to do it for me. So I’m going to send the files to him, and hopefully he’ll do a great job!

Oh, and I want to thank the people who purchased something from my shop! 12 items were sold, which is probably more than I had thought! :) I’ll see if I can give the South American people a free shipping option when the American shop opens up as well.

I’m sorry to say that I’m not sure if I’ll be able to finish my new video today or not. There are lots of clips to put together as realistically as possible, and it will take ages to do it perfectly. And the rendering times are sooo looong.

I’ll be working with it all day though, so we’ll see! I’ll probably settle with the results I get today, even if it’s not perfect.. I don’t have time with this, I have an album to finish!

Oh, and this is the last day of free shipping from my shop! So if you’re in Europe or North America, seize the opportunity to get a nice FreddeGredde mug or shirt. :) Just add “FREDDEGREDDESHOP” in the voucher code field at the checkout, and you’ll get the discount.

This is completely irrelevant to music, but I figured that you might want to know a few things about what I’m doing when not playing instruments, so:

Yesterday was a really long day! One of my brothers passed his exams at Uppsala university, so I had to go to several family gatherings to celebrate. First we had food at my grandmother, and after that we went straight to my dad’s place to eat even more. His garden looked really summery, so we took a few pictures! The one to the left is of me and my two brothers.

After that, me, my brother and his friends went to my place to play some video game as a pre party thing, and they were supposed to go to some club after that (and I would go to bed, because I’m playing floor ball on Saturday mornings), but they convinced me to let them stay and record a song. So they stayed all night, singing, using me as a sound engineer. It was okay though, it’s always fun to record when people sing awfully!

UPDATE: Oops, sorry! Apparently it’s okay to order from the US and Canada from this current shop, and it is free shipping this weekend for you guys too! It’s only the South American people who got shunned! Sorry about this.

Slightly inaccurate information:
Argh. The people at the Spreadshirt company didn’t tell me until NOW that I have to open an American shop in order to sell stuff to North American and South American countries. That’s annoying. We’re setting it up now, so that people can choose EU or US when arriving at the shop, but it won’t be completed until next week.

Sorry about this. My advice would be that my American fans (including those from Brazil!) wait until the end of next week, when the American shop is up.

Europeans still have the free shipping option until Sunday though! Just insert the code “FREDDEGREDDESHOP” in the “coupon”-field at the checkout.

Anyway, have a nice weekend! :)

I was working on two videos today! One is a “real” new music video, and I filmed everything today, but it’s going to take a lot of work to edit it all, because it’s.. well, visually challenging!
I don’t want to spoil too much, but I hope it will be up this weekend!

I also made a short “informational” video about the album and the website! It’s really corny, and I hope that people will understand that it’s meant to be that way! Well, maybe not this corny, but anyway:

Another important thing to tell you: Starting on Friday, my shop will have free shipping until Sunday, to celebrate my new website!
Just insert the code “FREDDEGREDDESHOP” in the “coupon”-field at the checkout.

I hope those who might be interested in a FreddeGredde shirt or mug will seize this opportunity. :)

Ollie Oakman from Australia interviewed me today, about my up-coming album, and this is what the conversation looked like:

Considering the album is mostly recorded, how do you feel about the almost-final product?
– I honestly think it will be quite great! There are seven “prog rock tracks” which fill up most of the album, and I’m proud of those. Then we have a couple of slower ballad like songs, that I also think are good. Then finally there are two tracks I didn’t really want on the album, because I personally don’t like them that much. But I did a few surveys before deciding what 13 songs to have on the album, and some people really like these two songs, so I had to include them after all. One of them is Vampire Bride, and the second was my attempt at participating in the Eurovision Song Contest last year.

Can we expect to hear any classic YouTube hits on the album?
– Well, I don’t know about “hits”, but my three original songs from youtube will be on the album, but remade. That is, Beside Me, Vampire Bride, and a longer version of The Wayfarer.

Are you mixing and producing the album yourself?
– I have been recording everything at home so far, and I’m still waiting for the drummer to send me all his drum tracks, but after that, I’m gonna send it all to a studio here in Gävle and get help with mixing by a professional. We might add a few things there, depending on whether we think it’s necessary or not. I’m a perfectionist, so I will want everything to be perfect!

You play all the instruments yourself (excluding the drums). Do you feel this has given you an advantage in the music composition or not?
– It’s obviously an advantage to understand and be able to play around with all the instruments when composing. And recording everything myself, I can make sure to that it is exactly as I want it! I guess the disadvantage would be that the instruments will stand out slightly less. For example, a different bass player might have added his personality into the mix, and it could have made things a bit more interesting.

Considering the entire process of making the album, in your point of view, what was the most difficult part?
– Definitely the lyrics. I’ve always been all about the actual music, and I’ve never even cared about lyrics when listening to my favorite bands. So it’s been really hard to come up with those, and getting help with them has also been harder than expected. There are still a few songs with incomplete lyrics, but I’m getting closer and closer.

Does the album name have any context or meaning behind it?
– Yes, it definitely has! I don’t know if I want to give everything away, but I realized that most songs on the album include the time signature 13/8, so I felt that “Thirteen Eight” described pretty well how I view music, that I like the technical part of it, with odd time signatures and experimental progressions.
After that, I just added lots of details based on 13 and 8. And some things just happened to work out, even though they were far-fetched. The F and G in FreddeGredde for example! F is the sixth letter of the alphabet, G is the seventh. 6 plus 7 is obviously 13! There are lots of references in the artwork too, and obviously the release date, 13th of August.

We’ve seen many improvised instruments in videos such as “Wind Waker Unplugged”. Do any odd items appear throughout the album?
– Yes, they do. There’s one track with similar orchestration as Wind Waker Unplugged, so all those instruments will appear again, like the water glasses and oven pan! It will mostly be “rock arrangements” though, focusing on drums, bass, guitars and keyboards. And the occasional accordion.

Where will the album be available for purchase?
– That’s not entirely decided yet, since I still have to decide for a label. It will definitely be on iTunes. Hopefully in most music stores all over the world, but who knows.

Well thanks Fredde for answering my questions! I’m sure your fans will be happy to have a sneak peak into the album and your direct work with it!
– You’re welcome! If anyone ever has any questions, I’ll gladly answer them anytime. :)

A few years ago, I made a “traditional Swedish schlager song”, just to try something different, for fun. A parody, if you will! But it turned out that some of my friends thought it was the best song I’ve ever made! (Although they were probably joking.)

Either way, they want me to show it to all of you, so here it is:

Livet På Havet

Yesterday was the first day with my new website, and I have to say that you’ve all been very supportive! Some people “dared” to stay in the chat room for a while and talk to me, which was nice!

Also, the shop isn’t completely finished yet, so if there are any designs you would like to see, or a color that can’t be found in there, then just tell me, and I’ll see what I can do.

Now I’m gonna spend all day planning and working on my new youtube video! So, wish me luck! :)

This is basically what I look like late at night, talking to people online.

There, my new website is finally up!

Leading up to the release of my debut album Thirteen Eight in August, I’m going to try to post here daily. There will be videos of me recording stuff, updates about the progress of the album, possibly random pictures, and anything you’d want me to write about! So, just tell me what you want to know, and I’ll see what I can do. :)

Oh, and to “celebrate” the new website, the shipping costs for the shop will be FREE during the up-coming weekend, and I will also post a new video soon!

Over and out!

I was going to start working on my new YouTube video today, because I need attention when I announce the first info about my album (and telling people about this website) and what better way is there to do that, than making a new FreddeGredde video?!

The “problem” was that a web shop company contacted me, and want to help me set up a FreddeGredde shop, where people can buy t-shirts and other stuff. So I started trying to come up with designs, even though I really don’t know how to do these things.

This is what I came up with as a first draft!

What do you think, and what types of items would you like to buy?