STREAMLINE -Interview (2015)

 

 

 

GEORGE: Welcome to BeRock Radio guys, the most melodic place! I am George, please make
yourself comfortable! We’re glad to have you here. We knew you as DIAMOND DAWN.
You started with an excellent debut album, a fantastic video clip for “Take Me Higher” and a contract
with the best label, Frontiers Records – everything was looking bright for DIAMOND DAWN.
Tell us a few words about what happened and how STREAMLINE emerged.

STREAMLINE: Thank you for doing this interview with us George, great to be talking to you!
We did start out as Diamond Dawn and yes it sure did go really well for a newcomer in the business.
That said we want all to know we intend to take Streamline even further. We've had to make some priorities
and sacrifice some time to really become Streamline.
That's why some fans may have thought that we've been quite inactive, the case is the opposite though.
Lots of stuff has been going on and in October 2014 we entered Greyskull Studios just outside Gothenburg to
record the new Streamline material!
When we finally get to launch this during 2015, the time will be right and we will be ready!
We don't really have a lot to say about the split with our previous singer, not because there's nothing to it
but because there's really no reason. We're more interested in being a supreme rock band making great songs,
we like to think the fans see it that way too. What can be said though is the following.
Things happened quite fast for us under our previous name and when that happens it's important to keep
your head cool. We just started the band up and it went well fast, we didn't really have time to think if we enjoyed
the constellation, simply put.
After a while it just became apparent that the five of us that became Streamline were unable to work with the last
member. We had to take measures, it would have been pointless to just continue at that point since a breakup would
have happened sooner or later.
The foundation of this band is the love and joy of good rock n roll music, we need to have a good time playing together.
To sum it up, Streamline has a really good time playing together!

GEORGE: Tell us about the current line-up and a few words about your new frontman.

STREAMLINE: We're simply the same band as we were under our previous name. All of us remain in the band but we
have a somewhat new member with us in Gabriel Lindmark!
He is an incredible singer, we recruited him after falling for his powerful bluesy tone.
We actually didn't know each other at all before Mike stumbled upon an ad that Gabriel had put out on a website.
He was looking for a great band, we were looking for a singer and it all just came together perfectly.
Of course we spent some time getting to know each other, and even did a gig before deciding to continue together
as a band.
It's always tricky with those things, sometimes people are able to play and sing the music well but they're a mess
and can't handle people for shit.
We know that we can't work with a person like that. Happily that wasn't the case with Gabriel.
For anyone who doesn't know the rest of us we are Olle - guitars, Jhonny - guitars, Mike - Bass, Effy - drums and
Niklas on keyboards and organs!
We're more confident than ever as Streamline and we intend to push Gabriel and ourselves to extremes in the
studio to ensure that the new material will rock! We are more experienced at writing music and playing it live now
than with DD, so we definitely think that we sound much better.
The view on music and the whole sound has changed a bit, we have evolved but the key elements like strong hooks
and hard rock remain! We have added a bit of hard edge to the ol' sound by adding some extra groove and attitude.
We hope and think all fans of rock will dig it as much as we do!

GEORGE: You have given us some studio diaries that sound very promising.
Can you tell us if have you decided how many tracks the album will have and what its name will be?

STREAMLINE: Thank you, great to hear that you like what you hear so far! More studio diaries are coming!
We actually haven't decided on those things yet. We wouldn't go as far as saying what we've been working
on is secret, but let's just say that it will be the foundation of a Streamline album.
Exactly how the new material will be released depends a bit on what we decide on with a concerned label.
We're looking into the possibilities as we speak!

GEORGE: Are the contract matters with the label all settled down and complete, have you signed?

STREAMLINE: We have not signed a record deal for Streamline yet.
With our previous band we weren't really finished as a product when we signed the record deal, this time we
want that to be the case. We know more about who we are as a band now, the music is simply better and that
gives us a better way of knowing what we want with an aspiring label.
Of course there is also the possibility of releasing material on your own which is a good way for many artists these days.
Since record sales is not a great income source anymore, what you really need is promotion, more and more on the
web that is too. The world of music is changing and the labels are not entirely up to speed with the changes.
There is no point in taking a shit deal from a big label just for the cause of it. It's the same case of misperception as
when people are thinking of banks, they're all businessmen and they want to make your money.
If you're just hopefully another ok income source for the label, what's the point? No one will ever work with Streamline
who does not have a genuine interest in bringing the band and its music forward.
For someone who has a good product, knows their way around the business and is willing to work really hard;
making your own release can be a great option.
In Streamlines case we will choose the best alternative ultimately, but we still haven't chosen which one that is
since there are still options to investigate.

GEORGE: Give us a pleasant surprise and tell us that you’ll be releasing a video clip before the
release of the album, to promote your work, as many bands are doing nowadays.
I’m sure many rockers would want to see something like that.

STREAMLINE: We definitely have our minds set on releasing a music video or two for the upcoming release!
It can be really useful, people get a chance to know more in detail who you are as an artist.
Actually we already decided on which song to make the first video for, and we can tell you it's a good rocking
tune with a mean riff!

GEORGE: Should we wait for the release of any single?

STREAMLINE: Yes, a single will most likely be released before our upcoming release!
We don't have any release date or anything but keep yourselves updated on our
social media profiles and you will know as soon as it becomes official!

GEORGE: Are there any plans for live gigs in 2015?

STREAMLINE: There are indeed! Of course the extent to which we will tour depends on when we get to make the
release. We're aiming mainly on the summer and autumn. We're really eager to go out and play for the fans and
rockers of Europe, so a European tour is definitely on the planning table!

GEORGE: Sweden has a very good music scene and continuously gives us fantastic bands and albums filled with
incredible music, especially from young guys such as yourself, as of the recent years. Such a thing is important for
the survival of music, especially in the Melodic Hard Rock scene where it’s very difficult to stand out and shine
among the rest, due to the high quality that is needed. What has Sweden done to be so much more in front than
the rest of the world?

STREAMLINE: As you're saying there's been a couple of good bands coming out of Sweden during the last 10 years
or so. If you limit yourself to the conventional concept of melodic rock that is. We actually don't feel like there's been
so many bands that's been that good. If we look at the whole world though, there's been some great bands showing up.
Rather than the typical modern melodic rock, we're fans of contemporary bands like The Darkness, Rival Sons and
Steel Panther.
Straight up rock that is, these bands care more about the music than assigning themselves to a genre.
Steel Panther is indeed a parody band, but still they write fantastic songs and there's a no-bullshit-attitude there that
the whole rock scene should look to in awe!
We understand that within the melodic rock fan society, there's a perception than Sweden is a number one country.
It is very flattering and we honestly don't know how it became that way.
The solid musical tradition of Sweden may come from ABBA, the Cheiron studio or simply the fact that it's been a
peaceful and socioeconomically stable country with a school system that encouraged children's interest in music.
We don't know, and it's all a big decline nowadays anyway with the cultural education in Sweden.
We'll see where it goes from here. How to stand out and things like that was never the first thing we thought about
when starting to play together.
That kind of strategically important stuff comes up later.
We started doing what we do only because we have a passion for it.
If you have something good going on we guess it's going to show as soon as you make a release, that's a good way
to start. See if the boat floats and all. We do focus on certain aspects of quality actively now because we already know
enough about who we are as a band.
What enables you to do so is being able to write good songs, perform them well and just have a good sense of details.
It's all the details that make up the big picture, you can't expect one thing to save the other, all has to stand on its own.
To conclude, we are Streamline because we love good rock music and performing it! We feel good about being from
Sweden since a lot of people seem to think that's a good thing in our business.
We don't feel any pressure to meet a certain standard, we'd rather make our own!

GEORGE: Sweden, as I’ve said before, is famous about its music industry, especially the genre you
support (Melodic Hard Rock). Do you feel blessed or doomed to meet the high standards?

STREAMLINE: As we said in the previous reply, we don't really feel any pressure at all.
We're glad that people think good of Sweden concerning melodic rock music, that can never be wrong for us.
Since there's no artist or band from Sweden that we'd like to be rather than Streamline, we only have our own
expectations and goals to reach. We hope that fans of rock music will regard Streamline as great band, bringing
something new and crisp to scene. We're really looking forward to releasing our material and showing people
that we can do that!

GEORGE: Name a few bands from Sweden that you admire and the reason why.

STREAMLINE: There are a lot of great Swedish bands that have emerged during the years, but we'll try and keep
this short! ABBA's importance to the development of pop music as we know it today can't be described in a short
sentence. They may not be an obvious influence on our sound but still we admire their way of crafting catchy songs!
We like bands such as Europe and Electric Boys, great bands with a mighty history that keep on rocking today in a
real professional way! Some of us are great fans of The Hellacopters and regard them as one of the best bands ever.
They showed that you can be the most awesome band around by just simply playing rock 'n' roll. No further distinctions
are necessary if you write great songs.
We all quite sarcastically enjoy the Swedish cult band Electric Banana Band who made children's songs about
animals and stuff. It's much just for fun and we listen to it for the laughs, but fact is that many of their songs are
enormously groovy! They also had some of the very best Swedes in their band like Per Lindvall and Janne Schaffer.

GEORGE: For the past 3-4 years, we’ve been seeing a bloom in Melodic Rock\Melodic Hard Rock.
Do you believe that rockers want more quality in the music and listen to more of this centre?
What is your opinion on this?

STREAMLINE: It's probably a matter of two things predominantly. The first thing is that somewhere along a line
someone plants a seed. The seed grows, becomes a plant and multiplies itself. It has probably been the same thing
with the evolution of the melodic rock scene in the past 10 years.
It didn't just pop up out of nowhere, it takes some time for people to be able to see the result of a progress.
Today there are some nice bands around and also some older ones making a comeback.
Back somewhere, someone got inspired by something.
That something was also inspired by something, it all starts with a seed and when the interest of melodic rock
started to grow again there apparently was no stop in it! The second thing that really goes hand in hand with the
aforementioned is the factor of age.
People that grew up and lived through the heyday of what is today considered classic rock, have become parents.
Even so, many of them are now parents of people that are in their twenties and thirties.
These kids are the people who have taken the legacy and brought it forward.
It's just the way it looks, people often dig music that their parents grew up with.
That's why many people think there's a revival in rock.
However trends will change again and again with the generations that come.
Rock music will never disappear or die, that is a fact, we can't be sure though for how long now great bands will
keep turning up. We're just glad that we get to be part of these days with Streamline!

GEORGE: The music industry in the recent years has changed.
We see that a lot of people prefers digital purchases, which is more convenient, faster and accessible.
What are your thoughts on the future of CDs?

STREAMLINE: Digital purchases are a very convenient, cheap and effective way of making music available.
CDs are more fun if you really like a band, if the cover art is cool it's much more nice to have the physical CD!
These days you can still have your cover art and all though, and just promote it through social media.
Releasing a music video and stuff like that definitely becomes more important.
More people get to know artists through Youtube than their local record store these days. Having no CDs available
for sale would not be an option for us so it's not like we're going to make an all digital release anyway.
We do hope that people will want to get our CD,
signed of course, when we meet them at our gigs. But it more and more becomes a decorative sort of thing
(the Streamline album will look very good). There is indeed something wrong with the way artists are unable to
make a living these days but we don't really see a solution.
It's very hard to say how the future looks, what will happen with Spotify and its likes in the long run.
Hopefully the contracts will improve and the copyright law enforcement will be more effective.
Where we are now, a world where everything is free through technology, is something we should
never have tasted, like forbidden fruit. People would absolutely have a hard time letting go and accepting the
fact that it's been wrong from the start. We won't be hypocrites, we all downloaded movies and watched of course,
therefore it's hard to act all righteous.
But the point is that we all do it because it's so easy and accessible.
It may well be the game that needs to change, no one can expect people not to act out of their own best interest,
especially when there's mostly no repercussions. It doesn't seem like people download music as much as movies,
more and more people get their music through services like Spotify.
As a phenomenon it's a good start and it may be a solution to some extent. In the end, the way it's looking right now,
we may just have to accept that the ways to make money from your music have become fewer.
Simple as that.
We could say that someone should be able to make downloading of all sorts go away, but then again we live in an
ever expanding digital universe. We frankly don't know if there's a chance to do that, therefore we'll adapt to the
current situation for now. To end it this answer, we'll say the following: If you choose to download the forthcoming
Streamline release for free, we will not judge you. What we will do though is ask you to come to our shows if you liked
what you heard. It's only fair and we'd have a great night together! See ya!

GEORGE: Thank you for your time, I wish you all the best for the future!
The last words are yours for this interview.
Feel free to say whatever you want to all BeRock Radio readers!

STREAMLINE: Thank you too, it's been a real pleasure! We hope you all check out our facebook page at
facebook.com/officialstreamline! There you'll find lots of cool updates from the recordings of our upcoming release!
Hope you're all ready for some Rock music full of attitude, hooks and groove because that's what we're bringing to
the party in 2015! L
ast but not least we'd like to thank you all very much for keeping up with us and supporting us until now!
It truly means a big lot and we want you to know it, now let's rock together!
Prepare to be streamlined!



George "Snaki" Lane
For BeRock Radio MiniZine (2015)
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